Home Office upgrades inquiry into Kent immigration centre after legal challenge
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Asylum seekers formally held at Manston will get funded legal representation after challenging Home Office decision. Asylum seekers will receive funded legal representation at an inquiry into a catalogue of failures at a centre in Kent where small boat arrivals are processed, after a legal challenge by detainees.
Manston, a short-term holding facility outside Ramsgate, was established in January 2022 to deal with the increasing numbers of asylum seekers crossing the Channel to the UK in dinghies. By the second half of that year it had descended into chaos. Despite reports that ministers at the time were repeatedly warned about the unfolding crisis, problems continued for several months between the late summer of 2022 until its temporary closure in November of that year.
Sixteen Manston detainees challenged a decision by Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, to downgrade an inquiry into what happened there from a statutory public inquiry, which can compel witnesses to give evidence under oath, to a non-statutory inquiry with no funded legal representation for the asylum seekers involved.
But just days before a high court hearing was due to take place, the Home Office agreed to “upgrade” the inquiry again. In a high court order agreed this week, the Home Office accepted there would be an independent inquiry which will be held in public and include funded legal representation for claimants as the chair of the inquiry, whose appointment has yet to be confirmed, “sees fit”, along with “effective access to documents”. It will still be a non-statutory inquiry.
