A report published by the National Audit Office (NAO) on March 20 reveals details of Home Office spending on its large-scale asylum accommodation sites, including MDP Wethersfield near Braintree, Essex.

On the NAO's website, it is stated that the report was compiled "in response to public and parliamentary concerns about the Home Office's plans to accommodate people seeking asylum".

The report addresses the demand for asylum accommodation, the Home Office's approach to delivering large sites and efforts to reduce hotel usage in addition to the costs involved.

The report notes that, while the Home Office has made progress in reducing the number of hotels used for asylum accommodation, its two functional large sites – MDP Wethersfield and the Bibby Stockholm vessel which is currently docked at Portland Port in Dorset – are accommodating far fewer people than initially planned.

By the end of January 2024, the Bibby Stockholm vessel was providing accommodation for 321 single adult males out of a predicted 430, with MDP Wethersfield accommodating 576 asylum seekers out of an expected 1,445.

The initial set-up costs for MDP Wethersfield were initially estimated at approximately £5 million.

However, this has since increased to £49 million.

The Home Office is expecting to spend £4.7 billion on asylum support by the end of March 2024, with an aim to reduce the number of hotels used for accommodation.

In its concluding remarks, the NAO said: "The Home Office's plans to develop a coherent strategy for the type and quantity of accommodation it needs are welcome, but it will need to build in flexibility, because of the inherent difficulty of predicting the number of people who might choose to seek asylum, and the uncertainty created by the implementation of the Illegal Migration Act."

In an official statement provided to the LDRS, a Home Office spokesperson said: "We have always been clear that the use of asylum hotels is unacceptable, and that's why we acted swiftly to reduce the impact on local communities by moving asylum seekers on to barges and former military sites.

"Thanks to the actions we have taken to maximise the use of existing space and our work to cut small boat crossings by a third last year – we are now closing dozens of asylum hotels every month to return them to communities.

"But we have further to go, which is why we are passing the Safety of Rwanda Bill, deterring Channel crossings and get flights off to Rwanda, because it is only when people are discouraged from taking those journeys that we can end asylum hotel use for good.

"While the NAO's figures include set up costs, it is currently better value for money for the taxpayer to continue with these sites than to use hotels."

With regards to MDP Wethersfield, LDRS contacted Braintree District Council leader Graham Butland (Con., Great Notley and Black Notley) who said: "We have been clear since the announcement of the government's intention to proceed with large-scale asylum seeker accommodation at Wethersfield Airfield that it is an unsuitable site, given the lack of capacity in local services, its isolated location, the size of the site and the impact the scale of the development could have on the local community.

"We have also continued to push for regular, open and transparent local engagement with residents and community groups.

"Whilst Braintree District Council do not support the use of the site, with the site still in operation, we continue to maintain an open dialogue with the Home Office, whilst holding them to account and doing our best, working alongside partner agencies, to ensure that the needs of residents, both local people and those living at the site, are met."

Former Home Secretary and MP for Witham, Dame Priti Patel, has criticised the Home Office for not disclosing details of costs for its asylum programme and large sites despite multiple requests to do so.

She said: "I have consistently pressed senior Home Office ministers who decided to use this site about these costs and they spent the last year being evasive and covering up these extraordinary sums and refusing to give answers.

"This damning report from the National Audit Office has exposed how poor planning and a failure to get a grip has led to irresponsible public spending with costs spiralling out of control. This catalogue of failure has stemmed from former ministers chasing headlines.

"Instead of Wethersfield, the Home Office should have been developing the detained sites and Greek-style reception centres, a plan that had worked elsewhere, as proposed in the New Plan for Immigration to tackle illegal migration and expedite the processing of applications and removals."