Migrant camps way of the future

Tens of thousands of asylum seekers could be held in more than 20 huge new accommodation centres across the country.

The Home Office announced its plan today for the first three centres at former defence sites in the Oxfordshire, Nottinghamshire and Worcestershire countryside.

Initially, the Government wants 3,000 places in accommodation centres but Immigration Minister Lord Rooker confirmed for the first time that ministers were planning to hold 60 per cent of all new asylum claimants at the centres.

At current rates, that would mean 21,000 places would be necessary to take 42,000 asylum seekers each year, for six months at a time, while their cases were considered.

The plan raises the prospect of bitter planning battles with residents all over Britain. Already more than 3,000 villagers in Throckmorton, Worcestershire, have signed a petition objecting to one of the first three sites the Government has in mind.

It is claimed that development of the former RAF airfield - used to dispose of more than 100,000 animal carcasses at the height of the foot-and-mouth crisis last year - would blight the area as property prices could be expected to fall.

But the Home Office is determined to forge ahead with the experimental centres as an alternative to dispersing asylum seekers to urban areas.

The aim is to ease pressure on London and the South-East - the entry points for most refugees. Under the proposals, new claimants who cannot support themselves or have no relatives or friends to stay with will have to live in the accommodation centres if they want benefits.

They will be free to come and go during the day but must sleep in the centre at night or see their asylum claims fail on non-compliance grounds.

The new approach is part of the fourth major overhaul of the immigration system in a decade. The package, hailed by Home Secretary David Blunkett as a "radical and fundamental reform", aims to speed up decision-making and the removal of failed asylum seekers and do more to make sure genuine refugees settle quickly in Britain.

Successful claimants will be expected to learn English and it is also likely they will have to take part in "citizenship ceremonies" and swear a new loyalty oath.

At the same time, the Government hopes to cut the number of unjustified asylum claims by making it easier for foreign nationals to work in Britain legally.

Groups representing asylum seekers criticised the move towards accommodation centres in rural areas, saying the sites were inappropriate. Keith Best, chief executive of the Immigration Advisory Service, which provides legal advice, claimed: "When you put large numbers of asylum seekers in rural locations like this it is a recipe for racial tension."

Lord Rooker responded: "I thought his choice of language was most unfortunate, bearing in mind that he knows 100 per cent of asylum seekers are in urban areas at the moment."