Campaigners call for closure of RAF Wethersfield asylum centre after high court rules vulnerable migrants put there unlawfully
Campaigners have welcomed a high court ruling saying that the Home Office acted unlawfully when three asylum seekers who had been victims of torture, violence or trafficking were held at the RAF Wethersfield asylum centre.
Doctors of the World, a charity working with migrants and other marginalised groups, said:
As a humanitarian organisation that has provided medical care to residents of the camp through our mobile clinic, we welcome the court’s recognition that the home secretary’s asylum accommodation policy has, and continues to, fail to adequately protect asylum seekers with special needs or disabilities. This ruling adds to the mounting evidence that mass containment sites like RAF Wethersfield are wholly unsuitable and unsafe for people seeking protection in the UK …
However, despite this welcome judgment from the court, we remain deeply concerned about the ongoing safety and healthcare challenges at RAF Wethersfield. Our experience supporting patients at the site has consistently shown that containment camps such as this one are profoundly damaging to residents’ mental health. The enclosed, isolated environment, lack of community integration, and uncertainty about the future continue to cause severe distress. We know that, between October 2023 and December 2024, more than 62% of our patients at Wethersfield presented with severe mental distress and 30% with suicidal ideation.
And the Helen Bamber Foundation, a charity working with the survivors of torture and trafficking, said:
Wethersfield is both cruel and costly and should never have been used. Placing people in camp accommodation on ex-military sites causes has caused profound and long-lasting additional trauma to people who have already experienced conflict, oppression, abuse, torture and trafficking.
The government must close the site immediately and act on the commitment made by Prime Minister Keir Starmer before the general election in July. If asylum claims are processed fairly and quickly there is no reason not to move to a system where people seeking protection are treated humanely and housed in communities, not camps.
RAF Wethersfield was opened as an asylum centre when Suella Braverman was home secretary and is still being used for that purpose.
Key events
Afternoon summary
-
Campaigner have for the closure of the RAF Wethersfield asylum centre after a high court ruling saying the Home Office acted unlawfully when three asylum seekers who had been victims of torture, violence or trafficking were held there. (See 4.10pm.)
-
The first poll from the Runcorn and Helsby byelection has been published, suggesting Reform UK is on course to win. (See 11.25am.) But an election forecasting model with a good track record suggests that, if there were an election now, Labour would narrowly win. (See 1.49pm.)
DWP accused by expert of making false claims about rise in claims for top rate of universal credit for sick/disabled
Yesterday the Department for Work and Pensions put out press notice about the large rise in the number of claiming the top rate of universal credit for people with sickness or a disability. I covered it on the blog here and here is the full press release is here. It included the claim:
The number [of people in this category] has almost quadrupled since the start of the pandemic when 360,000 people were considered too sick to look for work – a 383% rise in less than five years. In the last year alone, the number has risen by from 1.4 million people to 1.8 million.
Iain Porter, a senior policy adviser at the Joseph Rowntree Foundation thinktank, calims this is highly misleading. He has explained why in a thread on social media.
Yesterday, a Government press release claimed the number of people “considered too sick to work” had “quadrupled” since the pandemic (a “383% rise”). This is incorrect. In fact, it’s not even close. It’s more like 40%. This thread explains why
The press release ignores that Universal Credit was still early in rollout pre-pandemic, so starts from a very low number. It ignores equivalent group in the legacy ESA benefit that UC is replacing. You can’t compare UC LCWRA over time without including the equivalent ESA. 2/7
As a recent DWP statistical analysis shows, the actual rise between 2019 and 2023 in total LCWRA and equivalent group is around 40%. 3/7 pic.twitter.com/boiXa1SlTK
— Iain Porter (@IainKPorter) March 14, 2025
This same DWP statistical analysis also shows that the unexplained rise over this period is actually nearer 30% after accounting for rise in State Pension Age, demographic changes and structural differences between UC and ESA: 4/7
Here’s some other things they’ve got wrong. They suggest people on LCWRA are somehow not allowed to get job help if they want it. In fact, DWP has monumentally failed to offer job support to this group – they should do this, not cut their income. As @jrf_uk @scope showed. 5/7 pic.twitter.com/UjpHvOYhqn
— Iain Porter (@IainKPorter) March 14, 2025
Disabled people are really worried about how these proposed changes will affect them. We know half of people receiving these benefits are unable to afford enough food, to heat home, or pay bills. That’s why it’s so important Govt sticks to the facts and avoids misleading. 6/7
We will have to wait to see the Green Paper to see what exactly happens. But what we know for certain now is that people should take what they’re reading with a pinch of salt. 7/7
Kim Leadbeater welcomes decision by Royal College of GPs to drop its opposition to assisted dying
The Royal College of General Practitioners has dropped its opposition to assisted dying and is now neutral as to whether or not the law should be changed to allow a doctor to help someone end their life.
The RCGP’s general council voted by a clear majority to adopt a neutral position, after a survey of GPs found that 48% wanted the organisation to remain opposed to assisted dying becoming legal, and 34% wanted it to support the law being changed.
Until today, the RCGP was the only medical royal college still institutionally opposed to an assisted dying bill.
Jamie Grierson has the full story here.
Kim Leadbeater, the Labour MP who has tabled the assisted dying bill passed by MPs at second reading and still going through the Commons, welcomed the news. She said:
The decision by the Royal College of GPs to drop its opposition to offering the choice of an assisted death to terminally ill adults is welcome and reflects the many conversations I have had with GPs during the progress of this bill.
Individual doctors, like all other health professionals, have differing views of this issue and I fully understand and respect that. It is one reason why the bill allows them, for whatever reason, not to participate in the process if they choose not to.
I am encouraged by the evidence from other countries where similar legislation has been passed that, once assisted dying has become established as part of the choices available to people at the end of life and been seen to work safely and effectively, more and more health professionals come to support it and participate in it.
Campaigners call for closure of RAF Wethersfield asylum centre after high court rules vulnerable migrants put there unlawfully
Campaigners have welcomed a high court ruling saying that the Home Office acted unlawfully when three asylum seekers who had been victims of torture, violence or trafficking were held at the RAF Wethersfield asylum centre.
Doctors of the World, a charity working with migrants and other marginalised groups, said:
As a humanitarian organisation that has provided medical care to residents of the camp through our mobile clinic, we welcome the court’s recognition that the home secretary’s asylum accommodation policy has, and continues to, fail to adequately protect asylum seekers with special needs or disabilities. This ruling adds to the mounting evidence that mass containment sites like RAF Wethersfield are wholly unsuitable and unsafe for people seeking protection in the UK …
However, despite this welcome judgment from the court, we remain deeply concerned about the ongoing safety and healthcare challenges at RAF Wethersfield. Our experience supporting patients at the site has consistently shown that containment camps such as this one are profoundly damaging to residents’ mental health. The enclosed, isolated environment, lack of community integration, and uncertainty about the future continue to cause severe distress. We know that, between October 2023 and December 2024, more than 62% of our patients at Wethersfield presented with severe mental distress and 30% with suicidal ideation.
And the Helen Bamber Foundation, a charity working with the survivors of torture and trafficking, said:
Wethersfield is both cruel and costly and should never have been used. Placing people in camp accommodation on ex-military sites causes has caused profound and long-lasting additional trauma to people who have already experienced conflict, oppression, abuse, torture and trafficking.
The government must close the site immediately and act on the commitment made by Prime Minister Keir Starmer before the general election in July. If asylum claims are processed fairly and quickly there is no reason not to move to a system where people seeking protection are treated humanely and housed in communities, not camps.
RAF Wethersfield was opened as an asylum centre when Suella Braverman was home secretary and is still being used for that purpose.
Jenrick says Tories should have abolished NHS England themselves, as PM’s move gets widely praised by papers
Yesterday the Conservative party said that in principle it was in favour of Keir Starmer’s decision to scrap NHS England, but in the Commons Caroline Johnson, the shadow health secretary, indicated that she was slightly hedging her bets. “We are supportive of measures to streamline the management, and we do not oppose the principles of taking direct control,” she told MPs.
This morning Robert Jenrick, the shadow justice secretary, was doing a broadcast round and he was notably more enthusiastic. In an interview on Sky News, asked if this was something the last Conservative government should have done, he replied:
I think that probably is something that we should have done. We believe in a leaner, smaller state, and so where there are opportunities to get rid of quangos, they should be taken.
(The Conservatives, of course, established NHS England, as part of the much-criticised Andrew Lansley health reforms.)
Jenrick may be expressing a long-held view. But it is also possible that, before he appeared on Sky News, he took a look at the morning papers, where he will have noticed something highly unusual; most papers were strongly in favour of the move, particularly the more rightwing ones.
The Daily Mail splashed on the story. And its editorial said that Keir Starmer’s speech yesterday “will have gladdened the heart of any meritocratic small-state Conservative.
The Sun in its editorial said it “couldn’t be happier”, as a paper that had been calling for a cull of quangos for years. The Daily Express said NHS England “had to go”. The Daily Telegraph said in its editorial the decision was “most welcome”. The Daily Mirror said Starmer had provided “a win for patients”. And the Times, in its editorial, said NHS England was “fundamentally flawed and overdue for replacement”.
Only one paper did not seem to get the memo – some outfit called the Guardian. While not wholly negative, we were a lot more sceptical. Here is an extract from our editorial.
This is less a grand health reform and more a strategic positioning exercise. The health secretary, Wes Streeting, the architect of this plan, is engaged in a delicate balancing act: convincing the Treasury that the NHS can stay within budget while simultaneously lobbying for more money that he knows the health service will inevitably require. The headline-grabbing cull of NHS England is useful – allowing Mr Streeting to claim that he is shifting cash from managers to patient care, a necessary concession when preparing to argue for more Treasury investment.
The problem is that the numbers don’t add up. The savings from axing NHS England will be modest. The organisation’s cost to the Treasury is £2bn, a tiny fraction of the NHS’s £183bn budget for 2025/26. Of this, about £400m is spent on staff who work directly with local NHS bodies, and these roles will probably continue in some form. The savings come nowhere near enough to fill next year’s estimated £6.6bn funding gap. At best, it frees up a few hundred million pounds. At worst, it shifts costs elsewhere while causing months of upheaval in an already overstretched system.
And here is the leader article in full.
MPs back bill to promote more research into rare cancers
Plans to encourage life-saving rare cancers research and “gift families with more time with the special people that they love” have been backed by the government, PA Media reports. PA says:
Labour MP Scott Arthur’s rare cancers bill, which passed its second reading today, proposes to create a database to improve access to clinical trials.
Health minister Ashley Dalton said people living with rare cancers must be “at the heart” of NHS reform, as she pledged her support for the bill.
Rare cancers are complex, often deadly, tumours which affect fewer than six in 100,000 people.
The bill would set up a disease registry with details about rare cancers, and a contact registry to match patients with clinical trials.
A national speciality lead for rare cancers will also be established under the bill’s proposals, to promote and facilitate research into rare diseases.
Phillipson says there does not have to be ‘inclusion versus standards’ choice for teaching Send pupils in mainstream
In her speech to the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) annual conference in Liverpool this morning, Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, spoke about her strong support for “inclusion” – educating some children with special educational needs and disabilities (Send) in mainstream schools.
As Sky News reports, she said the system as a whole was not supporting Send children properly, and that there were children who were not getting the support they need.
Referring to inclusive approaches, she said that disadvantaged pupils had most to gain from being in schools with high standards and she referred to a school where Send pupils were in mainstream classes with support and there were excellent results across the board. She said:
Children thinking differently, in different ways, is a gift, and it’s time we recognise that.
I’ve been told this is too hard, that it can’t be done. Of course it’s not easy, but it is possible. There are schools and trusts doing it already.
She also said schools like this were “proof that the inclusion versus standards compromise is no such thing – they go together”.
In response, Daniel Kebede, general secretary of the National Education Union, said:
We all want to build an inclusive education system and build parental confidence on Send but our question is simply ‘where is the funding?’
Schools cannot safely cater for the range of student needs, at the moment, but if the secretary of state doesn’t fund the pay rise properly then 70 per cent of schools actually face more cuts. It is inescapable to talk about funding if we’re looking at standards.
To our mind, getting the curriculum and assessment review right is at the centre of whether teachers and leaders are given the tools to help more young people get good outcomes and thrive during their time at school.
Trial of Jeffrey Donaldson and his wife delayed for at least seven weeks
Lisa O’Carroll
Lisa O’Carroll is the Guardian’s acting Ireland editor.
The trial of former DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson and his wife on charges relating to alleged historical sex offences will be delayed by at least seven weeks.
At Newry Crown Court on Friday, Judge Paul Ramsey granted an adjournment application on medical grounds after being told Eleanor Donaldson is currently “unfit to stand trial”.
The trial had been due to start on March 24. No new trial date has been set.
But the judge said he would review the case, which is scheduled for two to three weeks, on 16 May.
The former DUP leader 62, has pleaded not guilty to 18 alleged offences between 1985 and 2008.
Eleanor Donaldson, 58, of Dublinhill Road, Dromore, is facing five charges including aiding and abetting, all of which she denies.
Earlier this week the New Statesman’s Ben Walker, a data journalist who also co-founded the Britain Elects poll aggregator, published a Britain Predicts “nowcast” for what would happen if there were a byelection in Runcorn and Helsby this week. This is not the same as a constituency-specific opinion poll, of the kind published by Lord Ashcroft today. (See 11.25am.) Instead it uses a model that takes national polling and uses it to forecast constituency-by-constituency results, making allowance for local electoral factors. The Britain Predicts (Britain Elects/New Statesman) model has a good track record for byelections, and is credited with producing the most accurate 2024 general election forecast.
Walker says Labour is on course to win – but not by much. He writes:
Britain Predicts modelling finds that of the wards which make up constituency, Reform would top the poll in a majority of them – 7 out of a possible 13. But not all wards are equal (some have bigger electorates), so Reform isn’t necessarily topping the poll. The Britain Predicts central estimate is that if an election was held today, Labour would hold the seat with 33 per cent to Reform’s 30 per cent. The Conservatives would languish on third on 20 per cent.
This would represent a 20-point fall in the Labour vote, and a 12 point rise in Reform’s. Voters tend to turn out at lower rates in by-elections, so this contest could only have a few hundred votes in it …
Labour are an error margin from defeat. If we were to apply a typical probability measure to these numbers, Labour have a six-in-ten chance of holding on here, whereas Reform have a four-in-ten chance of gaining it. No rest for either side – not least me, who lives a twenty minutes’ walk from the constituency’s edge.
This is from David Cowling, the former head of political research at the BBC, on how to evaluate the Ashcroft polling on the Runcorn and Helsby byelection. (See 11.25am.) In a note he’s sent out, he says:
It should be said that constituency byelection polls in this country have a mixed history in terms of accuracy. However, they have very often set the terms of the subsequent byelection campaign by their suggestion of which parties are in first and second place. This poll is not likely to be an exception.
No 10 criticises Russia’s response to Ukraine peace proposal as ‘nebulous’
Downing Street has described Russia’s response to the US-brokered peacefire proposal for Ukraine as “nebulous”.
At the morning lobby briefing, the No 10 spokesperson was asked about Keir Starmer’s plan for a virtual summit tomorrow of European and Commonwealth leaders to discuss the potential “coalition of the willing” to support Ukraine.
Asked when there would be more clarity about what the plans might involve, the No 10 spokesperson said:
The prime minister’s intent is crystal clear.
I think the nebulous responses are coming from Russia, the ball is in their court.
There is a proposal there and in the mean time we are concentrating with our international partners on the best way to drive progress to secure that just and lasting peace.
