Home Office to move more people into Napier Barracks despite multiple warnings from health officials

The Home Office plans to move more people into Napier Barracks within weeks, despite a series of damning revelations about unsuitable and non-Covid compliant conditions on the site.

A letter has been sent to residents stating that they will be moved out of the controversial army camp, which was repurposed to house asylum seekers in September, by 2 April, and that other people will be moved in.

Home Office ministers were originally granted planning permission to use the site, located in Folkestone, Kent, for six months, until 31 March. It is unclear whether the department has secured an extension beyond this.

Video footage from inside the barracks seen by The Independent reveals a Home Office official informing residents via video link that “people will be moving onto the site”. A separate audio clip shows a different Home Office official stating that there will be new arrivals “no later than 2 April.”

It is not clear whether the new residents will be asylum seekers who have recently arrived in the UK or those who have been living in other Home Office accommodation such as hotels.

It comes as The Independent reveals that an NHS assessment of the military site in January outlined a series of failings by ministers and contracted firms to prevent and control a Covid outbreak among residents, which saw nearly 200 people - including those who are clinically vulnerable - infected.

The report, carried out by Kent and Medway Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) on 20 January, states that there were “too many people housed in each block to allow adequate social distancing and to prevent the risk of spread of infection”.

Yet Priti Patel, the home secretary, has repeatedly suggested the asylum seekers themselves were to blame for the spread, accusing them of “mingling” as recently as last week.

Around 400 asylum seekers were placed on the site in September, but the number has dramatically reduced in recent weeks as people have been moved out into other Home Office accommodation following the Covid outbreak, with around 45 said to remain.

Video footage taken from inside Napier Barracks on Wednesday reveals a meeting held via video link between a Home Office official and a number of residents, in which plans for other people to be brought onto the site are discussed, and concerns are raised over Covid transmission.

One of the residents states through a translator: “Please make sure you don’t let anyone come in who has Covid-19”, to which the Home Office official responds: “We’re going to make sure people are moved on site when it is safe to do so and they are Covid free.”

Another resident states: “You shouldn’t bring them in until we are taken out, because they might be with Covid-19. I dont want them to be on this site until we come out.”

The Home Office official responds: “What I’m saying today is people will be moving out of the site, people will be moving on site, but we’re only going to do it when it’s safe.”

In a separate audio clip, also said to have been recorded on Wednesday, a different Home Office official tells residents: “You will be leaving Napier Barracks but I wanted to let you know that while you are at the barracks you will see new arrivals, and that will definitely be no later than 2 April.”

A Home Office letter distributed to residents on Thursday providing a “summary” response to the questions raised at the meetings states that the department has been “working with accommodation providers” and that they will be moved out of the site by 2 April.

“While we are looking to move you from Napier, we will be bringing new people to the site. We will do this in a Covid safe way. Please be assured this will not impact your move out date,” it adds.

Shadow immigration minister Holly Lynch said that following the revelations in the CCG report that social distancing was not possible at Napier Barracks, she was “staggered” that the home secretary would “even be considering moving more people into the site”.

The Labour MP has written to the home secretary demanding answers over “contradictions” between the findings of the CCG assessment and evidence she gave to cross-party MPs last week, in which she claimed the advice around dormitories was “all based on social distancing”.

It comes after a number of other damning revelations about Napier Barracks in recent weeks, including a warning from Public Health England that it was “not suitable” to house people weeks before asylum seekers were moved in, and that a planning report in in 2013 found that it did not meet “acceptable standards for accommodation”.

Bridget Chapman, of Kent Refugee Action Network, who is in touch with a number of people in the camp, said: “Obviously we are pleased to hear that current residents will be moved, but the site remains totally unsuitable, and downright dangerous in a pandemic. We remain committed to seeing it closed."

The Home Office had not responded to a request for comment at the time of publication.