Hughes: centres will not damage local areas

The Home Office has published a shortlist of proposed locations for accommodation centres to house asylum seekers.

Following controversy ministers have ditched plans to trial the new centres in South Glamorgan, Edinburgh and Lincolnshire.

Despite local protests the government still intends to press ahead with plans to locate two 750-place accommodation centres at Bicester and Newton.

It will also carry out further investigations into the suitability of a smaller-scale accommodation centre for asylum seekers at HMS Daedalus in Gosport, Hampshire.

Announcing the shortlist, Home Office minister Beverly Hughes said: "Accommodation centres for asylum seekers, combined with robust monitoring and removal procedures, will help us deliver an effective asylum and immigration system.

"We have continued looking for suitable sites since we made our initial announcement last year, and I am pleased that we are making further progress by announcing our interest in this site today.

"If we decide to take another step forward and apply for planning permission, the Gosport site will allow us to develop the smaller-scale model which we announced in November last year."

The minister said the government was aware that there was "some concern among those living near to the sites".

"I do believe that an accommodation centre is not a detriment to a local community. We will be working closely with the local community as we develop our proposals and go through the planning process," she added.

Under the trials up to 3000 asylum seekers will stay in accommodation centres for a short period of time while their application is processed.

The government insists that the centres will "help speed up the process and tackle abuse, remove more quickly those with unfounded claims, while alleviating the pressures on local authorities and communities in areas where asylum seekers are currently dispersed".

"The government is keen to progress quickly with the necessary reforms and is committed to its proposals," said a spokesman.

"The Home Office will continue vigorously to make its case to the planning inquiries established to consider the proposals."

The opposition said there was a need for the new centres - and urged ministers to use them to vet asylum seekers to stop terrorists entering the UK through the system.

"We will want to look into these particular cases, but in the interim before there is a quota system, there is no doubt a need for the induction centres the home secretary is constructing," said shadow home secretary Oliver Letwin.

"While we are dealing with a chaotic system and while terrorists have the ability to abuse that system and disappear through it, then we need secure accommodation to hold people until they have been cleared by the security services, and I shall be asking questions about whether the home secretary intends to use these centres for that purpose.''