The United Kingdom government is preparing a significant shift in how it houses asylum seekers, moving more of them onto military sites rather than into hotels. According to the report, the change forms part of a wider package of tougher migration plans that the Home Office is due to set out next week, as ministers try to show progress on an issue that has dominated the political agenda.
At the heart of the approach is a policy that is not entirely new. Ministers are reviving and extending an idea previously pursued by the Conservatives, under which asylum seekers who have yet to be processed through the system are accommodated in military barracks instead of hotels; the government has already used a couple of such sites as it tests the model.
The scale of the planned expansion is now becoming clear. The government is looking to convert three further Ministry of Defence sites, in Bicester, Barnham and Linton-on-Ouse, into accommodation for asylum seekers. Together, those sites would house nearly another 4,000 people, marking a substantial increase in the use of military estate for this purpose.
One of the chosen locations comes with a difficult history. Linton-on-Ouse, in Yorkshire, had already been earmarked by the previous Conservative government as a site for asylum accommodation, but that plan was ultimately abandoned after it ran into strong opposition from local people and a legal challenge, making its revival a politically sensitive move.
The strategy is closely linked to one of the Prime Minister's central promises. He had pledged to bring an end to the use of asylum hotels, and the government points out that the number of such hotels has roughly halved, falling from a peak of around 400 under the Conservatives to about 170 now, even if that still leaves a considerable distance to go before they are phased out entirely.
The plan is not without its critics or complications. The use of military sites has already proved controversial with some local communities, and opponents point out that, perhaps surprisingly, converting barracks can end up being more expensive than housing people in hotels, fuelling a wider argument over the best and most affordable way to manage the country's asylum system.