Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Bill
10:30 am
Mr Humfrey Malins (Woking, Conservative)
On a point of order, Mr. Illsley. The Minister will recall several prolonged exchanges last Thursday about possible sites for accommodation centres. I asked whether a decision had been taken, and if so, whether it would be announced in the next two or three weeks. I told her that it was important that no decision be taken or announced until both Houses had passed the Bill. She said that the Government had not yet decided the sites. She said:
''We are considering which sites to submit planning applications for . . . An announcement on which sites we intend to submit planning notifications will be made soon, but no decision has been taken about individual sites''.—[Official Report, Standing Committee E, 9 May 2002; c. 165.]
I was keen that members of the Committee should be the first to know about the sites. I told her that she would understand that many of us would regard it as an affront to the parliamentary system if an announcement were made during the next week or two while the Bill was in Committee or in the other place. She said that there was nothing more she could tell us and used the word ''soon''.
We were therefore surprised to read in The Independent on Sunday that:
''Ministers are to build one of three ''villages'' for asylum-seekers on a site where thousands of foot-and-mouth carcasses were buried.''
It said that a location at Throckmorton airfield in Worcestershire
''was chosen from a shortlist of eight.''
There was also an article in the Sunday Express. It seems to my hon. Friends and me that the Minister should have told us if she knew last Thursday that planning applications would be made for particular sites. The question arises whether she failed to tell us about something that she was aware of then. Is an announcement due to be made today in parliamentary questions? If so, it would have been courteous to tell us days ago when the information was available.
Would it not be proper for the Minister to let the Committee know the up-to-date position and, if necessary—it is a matter for her to decide—to apologise if she failed to tell us last Thursday something that she knew then? If she did not, that is the end of the matter. If she did, it would help us to know why the Committee was not the first to be informed. Eight sites are mentioned on the internet, including Pershore, Worcestershire; land vacated at Bicester, Oxfordshire; and RAF Newton at West Bridgeford, Nottinghamshire. Are those the three sites proposed for planning applications?