A reminder that Suella Braverman is expected to make a statement to MPs later about the fire attack at the Border Force centre in Dover and the Manston asylum centre in Kent.

Braverman is also under pressure over the issue of her personal email use - she may well be asked about this by MPs, but it's not something the statement is due to address.

The timing depends on other parliamentary business, but we expect to hear from her around 17.00 GMT.

Mark Easton
Home editor

Image source, PA Media

The situation at Manston is still understood to be critical with thousands of people housed in temporary tents hastily erected in the grounds of the former military air base.

Over the weekend, activists recorded children at the centre shouting “freedom, freedom” and “we need your help”.

Following a visit by the Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick yesterday, there has been significant effort to secure alternative accommodation for up to 4,000 migrants at Manston, some of whom have been there for more than a month.

Four coaches have been seen going into the base today, but one left early this afternoon with just a handful of people aboard.

It was originally intended that the facility would process migrants in a matter of hours before they were moved on to accommodation elsewhere.

The UK has a significant asylum backlog - 96% of those who arrived by small boats last year have still not had an initial assessment of their claim, and there are more than 127,000 stuck in the system.

Image source, .

As you can see from this graph, Albanians make up the biggest national contingent crossing the channel in small boats, according to Home Office figures for the first half of this year.

They are followed by Afghans and Iranians, with smaller numbers from other countries such as Iraq and Syria.

Officials say it can take some time for the details of claims to be checked, so for nearly a thousand people, nationality was not recorded.

Image source, .

Figures also strongly suggest that the people arriving in the UK are predominantly male and under 40 years old.

More than 80% of those arriving by boat were male.

Image source, Reuters

As the spotlight falls on the treatment of those at Manston immigration centre, here's a look at the key questions on the process for arrivals claiming asylum.

How many holding centres are there, and where are they?

There are four short-term holding centres like Manston operating in the UK. Manston is located in Ramsgate, Kent, and the others are in Manchester, Northern Ireland, and inside Yarl's Wood detention centre in Bedfordshire.

Is Manston just for people arriving on small boats?

Manston immigration centre opened in February 2022 in order to concentrate on small boat arrivals, carrying out initial immigration, border security and asylum checks and processes.

What happens after people are processed at a centre like Manston?

People would normally either go on to a hotel, or an immigration detention centre if there were concerns they might then abscond.

There are seven detention centres in the UK. In a detention centre, people wait for permission to enter the UK. If they are not granted permission, they will be deported or removed from the country.

What does the government mean by ‘processing’?

This term is used to describe the start of the administrative checks to process someone's asylum application.

During the first stage of processing, facilities like Manston identify someone's medical needs, vulnerabilities and any known criminality before they are moved on to another location.

Downing Street has said there is "no silver bullet" to the migrant crisis.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's spokesman said their package of measures to deal with the "longstanding problem" included the Rwanda deal, working with French colleagues and changing the law to make it easier to combat people-smuggling gangs.

But the spokesman admitted: "There is no silver bullet to this.

"We do want to proceed with the Rwanda policy, which we believe will have a significant deterrent effect.

"But there is a great deal of work that needs to be done across the board before we make further progress.”

He added the high number of crossings meant it was a "significant challenge" to provide the right accommodation, but the Home Office was working to secure more of it.

Downing Street also rejected criticism from Tory MP Sir Roger Gale, who blamed the Home Office for failing to book hotels, leading to overcrowding at the Manston migrant centre.

Image source, PA Media

The overcrowding at the Manston processing centre in Kent comes amid an increasing number of people crossing the English Channel in small boats.

Here's a summary of the latest:

• Nearly 1,500 people crossed the Channel in boats this weekend, according to the latest government figures
• So far this year, 39,898 have made the dangerous sea journey from France
• The UK is spending almost £7m a day on hotels for asylum seekers - with the cost likely to rise, MPs were told by experts last week
• The government has said in the year ending June 2022, there were 63,089 asylum applications - 77% more than in 2019
• Last week, independent border inspector David Neal told MPs he had been left speechless by the "really dangerous" situation in Manston
• The migrant processing centre, on a disused airfield site near Ramsgate, is designed as a short-term holding facility where up to 1,000 migrants are only meant to spend a few hours
• The local Tory MP, Roger Gale, has said there are currently about 4,000 migrants at the former RAF base, with some being there as long as five weeks
• The Guardian reported on Sunday, external there were now at least eight cases of diphtheria and a case of MRSA at Manston
• The Home Office says it "has taken urgent decisions to alleviate issues at Manston" and source alternative accommodation. It says claims advice to book more hotel rooms for arrivals being deliberately ignored are "completely baseless"
• Pressure is mounting for Home Secretary Suella Braverman to respond to the crisis. The home secretary is due to give a statement on Manston and Dover in the Commons later on Monday

Sir Roger Gale says he wants to see the situation at the Manston migrant processing facility "reversed".

The MP for North Thanet constituency, which includes Manston, told the BBC he had been told a policy decision was taken at the "top in the Home Office" to not find more hotel spaces - leading to the current overcrowding at the migrant centre.

He said the system at Manston had been operating "perfectly efficiently" until about five weeks ago, when "political intervention" changed the situation.

"I want that reversed. Robert Jenrick [the minister for immigration], having seen the situation for himself, has gone away to find more accommodation, so we can get the flow going again and allow Manston processing facility to do the job it was doing very well," he said.

He also described rumours of a diphtheria outbreak as "hogwash", saying four people came into the camp with the highly contagious infection but there was no outbreak.

A Home Office spokesperson said claims advice was deliberately ignored are baseless. It follows allegations the department failed to book hotels to house migrants under Home Secretary Suella Braverman or her predecessor Priti Patel, worsening overcrowding at the migrant processing facility.

The prime minister's spokesman also said it was not his understanding of the issue.

Dominic Casciani
Home and Legal Correspondent

Image source, House of Commons Research

This chart from a Parliamentary report, external shows how the Home Office has - in the opinion of its critics - a woeful record in dealing with asylum seekers.

Put simply, the quicker officials make decisions, the quicker a refugee can be integrated into society - or a claimant without a case to remain can be shown the door.

In 2002, asylum claims hit a record of more than 84,000. Today, the current rate is very high but looks like it will remain below that record.

But … since 2010, the time taken to process claims has worsened year-on-year, despite the incoming caseload having probably decreased.

The lowest number of claims was in 2017 - but that year inspectors found, external massive problems in decision-making - not least because of staff turnover. And so the backlogs began to grow. By the end of 2021, there were 55,000 cases awaiting an initial decision.

On top of that, the number of people refused asylum - who the government said it would remove from the UK, but hasn’t - has also grown, to around 39,000.

Virtually all of these people, who are banned from seeking to support themselves in work, are being accommodated at public expense.

Nick Eardley
Chief political correspondent

Image source, Reuters

Suella Braverman has been back at the Home Office for less than a week. But already there is significant pressure on her position.

Firstly, there are still criticisms over Rishi Sunak's decision to reappoint her as home secretary, just a few days after she was sacked for breaking the ministerial code.

Braverman has set out her version of events, saying she did not send secret information and had been transparent in admitting her mistakes.

But Labour isn’t satisfied. They want to know why Braverman sent official documents to her personal email six times during her first spell at the Home Office.

There are also growing questions about why Braverman didn’t do more to alleviate overcrowding at Manston.

Sources familiar with what went on have told the BBC Braverman was told the government was in breach of its legal duties at the facility – but Braverman didn’t act.

Sources have told us this was extraordinary, and calls her position into question.

Combined, these stories mean there is real pressure on Braverman ahead of her appearance before MPs later.

Callum May
BBC News

Image source, PA Media

After an influx of small boat arrivals in recent weeks, officials on the ground in Dover are understood to be expecting a quiet couple of days.

The weather is good and the sea is calm, but the conditions on the French coast have made it difficult to launch small boats.

It comes after nearly 1,500 people crossed the Channel in boats this weekend, according to government figures. So far this year, 39,898 have made the dangerous sea journey from France.

Image source, Reuters

Suella Braverman failed to sign off on measures which could have eased pressure at Manston, despite being warned the government was acting outside the law, the BBC has been told.

Sources familiar with the situation said she was warned the government was in breach of legal duties by failing to sign off on ways to immediately move people to hotels or alternative accommodation.

Sources said Priti Patel, whom Braverman replaced as home secretary in September, had been “reluctant” to sign off on sending asylum seekers to hotels, but did so because she was aware that it was her statutory duty.

Grant Shapps, who briefly replaced Braverman before her reappointment to the Home Office last week, is also said to have taken action to ease congestion during his brief period in office.

The Home Office said Braverman had taken "urgent decisions to alleviate issues at Manston and source alternative accommodation".

"Claims advice was deliberately ignored are completely baseless," a spokesperson added.

“It is right we look at all available options so decisions can be made based on the latest operational and legal advice," they added.

Brad Blitz, a professor specialising in immigration policy at UCL, tells BBC News the situation at the Manston centre is "a crisis in part of the Home Office's making".

Speaking before it was confirmed Suella Braverman would be making a statement to MPs later, the professor said she needed to "show up and answer some questions".

"The home secretary needs to tell us how she is going to go about addressing those problems," he says, arguing there is "an urgent humanitarian problem that must be addressed".

Conditions at the immigration centre have come under fire after independent border inspector David Neal told MPs he had been "left speechless" at the "really dangerous" conditions there.

There are concerns over the health and wellbeing of migrants at the overcrowded facility. It is now housing some 4,000 people, when it's meant to hold up to 1,600.

Reality Check

Almost 40,000 people have crossed the Channel in small boats so far this year, which is already considerably more than the 28,526 who crossed in the whole of 2021.

In the first six months of 2022, more than half the people arriving in small boats were from three countries:

• 18% came from Albania
• 18% from Afghanistan
• 15% from Iran

The number of people arriving from Albania has risen particularly sharply this year.

For the whole of last year, Iranians were the biggest group, accounting for 30% of all small boat arrivals, external. Another 21% were Iraqis, 11% Eritreans and 9% Syrians.

In 2021, 75% of all small boat arrivals were men aged 18 to 39 - with about 5% of arrivals being men aged 40 or over. Seven per cent were women aged over 18, and 12% were children under 18 (of whom three-quarters were male).

The House of Commons has now confirmed that Suella Braverman is expected to make a statement to MPs later about the fire attack at the Border Force centre in Dover and the Manston asylum centre in Kent.

Her statement to MPs will also address the issue of her personal email use, the Commons said.

The timing depends on other parliamentary business, but it should be around 17.00 GMT.

Image source, EPA

Meanwhile, Suella Braverman has now released more details of her use of personal email to send an official document to a Tory MP. It's the issue that prompted her resignation as home secretary two weeks ago, before she was reappointed to the role by Rishi Sunak.

Writing to MPs on the Commons Home Affairs Committee, she says the document - a draft policy document on immigration - was not market-sensitive and did not contain "secret" or "top secret" information.

But she adds that some aspects of the document had not been agreed with other departments, and it was "not the correct approach to share the document at this stage".

She also reveals a Home Office review, following her departure, found she sent government documents to her personal email six times between 6 September and 19 October.

She says she did this so she could read documents on her personal phone while using her official phone to conduct video calls with colleagues.

She also says none of these documents were secret, and this was reasonable and "within permitted use".

Read more.

Home Secretary Suella Braverman has taken "urgent decisions to alleviate issues at Manston and source alternative accommodation", the Home Office insists.

A government spokesperson says any claims advice was deliberately ignored "are completely baseless". It follows allegations Braverman failed to book hotels to house migrants, worsening overcrowding at the migrant processing facility.

The Home Office says it is "right we look at all available options" in order to make decisions "on the latest operational and legal advice".

“The number of people arriving in the UK via small boats has reached record levels, which has put our asylum system under incredible pressure and costs the British taxpayer millions of pounds a day," it adds.

The UK's immigration system is broken and people seeking asylum should be housed on a cruise liner, a former chief immigration officer for the UK Border Force says.

Kevin Saunders tells the BBC he would "put a cruise liner in the middle of the Channel" on which to place all migrants who cross the sea from France.

A cruise liner would have "proper facilities and everything that would be needed" to house asylum seekers, he adds.

Saunders says it would be best to anchor that ship in international waters "so they can't claim asylum" as the vessel would not be in the UK.

However, there are no international waters in the Dover Strait between the UK and France where migrants cross, only a dividing line between the shipping lanes in UK and French waters.

The Home Office and contractors "need to get a grip" on the facility in Manston and speed up getting people getting into safe and appropriate longer-term housing, the head of the UK's prison watchdog has said.

Chief inspector of prisons Charlie Taylor, who is due to release a report on the migrant processing centre tomorrow, says their findings lay out that the speed of processing of migrants must be increased.

He tells BBC Radio 4's Today programme that "suitable provisions" must be made so people can be moved off site as quickly as possible, and "housed in humane and decent conditions".

The facilities at Manston, he adds, "are not set up for people to be staying", describing it as a "a short-term holding facility which is supposed to process people through" in a matter of hours.

Image source, Getty Images

Natalie Elphicke, the Conservative MP for Dover, says an "entirely fresh approach" is needed to tackle the "out of control" migrant Channel crossings.

She tells TalkTV: "What's been happening is simply not working, because every single attempt to get on top of this is delayed or thwarted by a rag-bag of people who seem to want open borders and don't seem to want us to get a grip on this particular situation.”

She adds: “I've had many conversations with the home secretary about this issue, as you would expect, and I don't think anyone doubts her passion and determination to tackle this issue.

“As we've seen before, it is a case of actually translating that into actions that will be put into effect and make a difference on the ground.”

Image source, .

Image source, PA Media

As allegations of poor conditions at the overcrowded Manston migrant processing centre emerge, here's a quick look at what you need to know about the facility:

• The centre in Manston, Kent is meant to hold migrants for up to 48 hours before they are transferred
• Currently, about 4,000 migrants are currently housed at the former Royal Air Force base, which was designed to process up to 1,600. This makes it the largest detention centre in Britain
• The temporary base has housed some of these people for five weeks

• There have been concerns over the health of migrants housed there - The Guardian reported on Sunday there were now at least eight cases of diphtheria and a case of MRSA at Manston
• Last week, independent border inspector David Neal told MPs he had been left speechless by the "really dangerous" situation at Manston
• Conservative MP Roger Gale says he has been assured 650 migrants would be moved out of Manston and into hotels or temporary accommodation this week