Hundreds of asylum seekers to the UK have been housed in Napier Barracks, a disused Ministry of Defence site, since September 2020. The use of Napier – as well as Penally Barracks in Wales – to house asylum seekers has drawn intense criticism. Though the barracks are not classed as an immigration detention site, there have been reports that residents are not being permitted to leave. The site is said to have been plagued by poor conditions, coronavirus outbreaks, and a fire in the last few months. In recent weeks, courts have ordered that multiple residents be moved out of Napier, and the use of the barracks is currently being scrutinised both by inspectors from the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration (ICIBI) and by judicial review.
CONDITIONS AT NAPIER BARRACKS
Since September, Napier Barracks has been used as “initial accommodation” for male asylum seekers awaiting decisions on their claims. At its peak the barracks accommodated 400 people who were housed 28 to a room, with each group sharing only two showers and two toilets between them.
In January 2021, several residents tested positive for COVID-19. After a few days of self-isolation, the men were allowed to mix with the rest of the population, and the virus quickly spread: by February, 197 residents had tested positive. Medical support was scarce, with only one nurse available on site and prohibitions on residents leaving the site to seek medical attention. According to a Red Cross report, one resident made 11 requests for medical attention before any was given, while another spent 20 days in pain awaiting medical attention. Despite COVID-positive men being allowed to move freely with the rest of the population – and Napier Barracks not being classified as immigration detention – it seems that residents were not allowed to leave the premises, with police even returning one resident who attempted to “escape”.
As tensions rose between asylum seekers and staff, a fire broke out on 29 January, windows were broken, and the canteen was vandalised. After the fire, residents were left without electricity or hot water and were confined to their rooms, watched by security guards. This incident drew public attention to Napier, with the Home Office condemning the residents for damage to the property, while organisations including ChooseLove and the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants condemned the Home Office for housing asylum seekers in inappropriate and unsuitable conditions.
In response, a Home Office spokesman stated that, because the barracks had housed soldiers in the past, it was “wrong to say they are not good enough for asylum seekers”. However, Napier had not been used by the military in a decade and a half, and it was in “poor condition” even before the fire, as ministers admitted in 2013. If Napier Barracks was acknowledged as being unacceptable as accommodation, it must be questioned why it was chosen to house asylum seekers at all.
THE DECISION TO USE NAPIER BARRACKS
The decision to use Napier and Penally Barracks to house asylum seekers came after another incident that garnered media attention. In August 2020, former UKIP leader Nigel Farage posted a video of himself in front of a hotel in Witham – in the current Home Secretary Priti Patel’s constituency – that he claimed was housing “illegal migrants”. In reality, the hotel was housing asylum seekers, in accordance with the government’s duty to provide accommodation to asylum seekers under s.166 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999. Despite this, the Home Office responded by describing the use of the hotel as an “operational failure,” and moved to prepare ex-military barracks as housing for asylum seekers.
The Home Office’s own documents reveal that this move was intended to ensure that the support provided to asylum seekers was “less generous” than the alternatives. In its equality impact assessment on the use of the barracks, the Home Office stated that “any provision of support over and beyond what is necessary to enable the individuals to meet their housing and subsistence needs could undermine public confidence in the asylum system,” and that withholding more effective support was “justified by the need to control immigration”.
Yet the barracks were not only less generous than other available accommodation but were acknowledged to be inappropriate and even dangerous to the health of potential residents. A 2014 report by CgMs Consulting found that converting Napier into housing blocks was “unsuitable” as the site was “never intended for long-term use”. What’s more, on 7 September – two weeks before the final decision to use the barracks was made – Public Health England warned that housing asylum seekers in dormitories in the barracks would prevent effective social distancing and suggested at a maximum a policy of six men to a room, with rooms treated as “one bubble and kept together and away from others”. Despite this, the Home Office opened the barracks with men housed 28 to a one-room block and allowed the COVID-positive to mix freely with other residents.
Beyond the conditions at Napier and Penally Barracks, the British Red Cross has argued that using military sites to house asylum seekers is inherently inappropriate. Their recent report called for all Ministry of Defence sites to cease housing asylum seekers, due to the emotions and memories such places might trigger in those who fled “abuse, violence and/or torture” in prisons or similar military sites. In practice, the sites clearly did leave residents feeling unsettled: 44% of those surveyed reported feeling unsafe in the barracks.
GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY
Under s.95 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999, the government has a duty to provide support to asylum seekers; under s.116, they have a duty to provide accommodation where an asylum seeker would otherwise be destitute. Under the Detention Centre Rules 2001, asylum seekers have the right to access healthcare even when they are kept in immigration detention. Yet at Napier Barracks – which the Home Office characterises as “initial accommodation” and not immigration detention – it seems that asylum seekers have been deprived of the support they need and had their health endangered.
In response to the scandalous treatment of residents at Napier and Penally the ICIBI and Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons (HMIP) carried out an inspection of both sites from 15 February, in advance of which all but 63 residents were removed from Napier, and additional maintenance and cleaning were carried out on facilities that had been neglected for months. It remains to be seen what the findings of the inspection will be, as well as whether conditions in Napier will deteriorate now that site visits are complete.
In the meantime, multiple asylum seekers were successfully moved from Napier following orders of the High Court, where the barracks were described as “prison-like” as well as “overcrowded, unsanitary, and unsuitable”. In addition, six asylum seekers were granted permission for judicial review into the legality of the Home Office’s decision to use Napier Barracks. They will argue that the conditions at Napier were at real risk of breaching the European Convention of Human Rights, particularly their rights to life, to freedom from inhuman and degrading treatment, to liberty and security of person, and to a private and family life under articles 2, 3, 5, and 8. They will also argue that the conditions at Napier both amount to unlawful detention and fail to meet their essential living needs – as the government is required to under s.95 of the Immigration and Asylum Act. The court will hear these arguments on 12 and 13 April 2021, in a hearing that is poised to have serious repercussions on the standard to which the UK holds itself in its treatment of asylum seekers.
BEYOND THE BARRACKS
For now, the immediate future of Napier and Penally Barracks remains unclear. The Home Office has planning permission to use both sites until the end of March 2021, but – despite the designation of the barracks as “contingency accommodation” – a spokesperson has confirmed that it may seek to extend this permission to use the sites.
At a time when the Home Office is taking an increasingly militaristic approach to asylum seekers – for example, appointing a Clandestine Channel Threat Commander to prevent people reaching the UK by boat and preparing the former Yarl’s Wood immigration removal centre to house ever-greater numbers of migrants – the use of Napier Barracks seems to be part of a worrying escalation of hostility against an already vulnerable group of people.
When even a former Conservative immigration minister describes the barracks as leaving asylum seekers “segregated into a ghetto,” we in the UK should feel warned that we are heading down a dangerous path. We should ask ourselves what kind of country we want to be, and how we really want to treat those who are fleeing danger and persecution. Above all, we should heed the words of one resident of Napier Barracks, who put it clearly: “I know you made us suffer for political purposes. I know you did this to send a clear message to the asylum seekers around Europe that you don’t want them here. But you ruined your country’s reputation in regard to protecting human rights, especially the ones who are vulnerable”.
Alice works as a Caseworker for the MP for Erith & Thamesmead. She holds a Graduate Diploma in Law from City, University of London and a BA in Classics from the University of Oxford. She is passionate about human rights, with a particular interest in refugee and migration issues.