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A roll-call of former UK prime ministers, secretaries of state and ministers could be called to give evidence into a scandal at a controversial processing centre in Kent for small boat arrivals, according to an internal government memo disclosed to the Guardian, following a legal challenge.
The inquiry into Manston, a former military base used as a short-term detention facility to process people who crossed the Channel in dinghies, “will probably be reputationally damaging for the Home Office”, the memo said.
Those listed included the former prime ministers Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak, the former home secretaries Priti Patel, Grant Shapps and Suella Braverman, the former defence secretary Ben Wallace, and other ministers and officials from various government departments.
Manston started accepting asylum seekers in February 2022 but by the summer of that year had become completely overwhelmed, taking in 4,000 people at a site built to accommodate 1,600.
Poor conditions led to outbreaks of infectious conditions including diphtheria and scabies and a 31-year-old man from Iraq, Hussein Haseeb Ahmed, died after contracting diphtheria. Detainees were referred to by numbers on the wristbands they were given rather than by name.
At the beginning of 2024, the then home secretary, James Cleverly, agreed to hold a public inquiry into what went wrong at Manston in the second half of 2022, but when Yvette Cooper became home secretary in July 2024 she decided to scale back the inquiry. It was changed to a non-statutory inquiry, which would not be able to compel former ministers or prime ministers to give evidence about the role they played in events at Manston.
Judicial review proceedings were launched to challenge Cooper’s decision.
During the course of these proceedings in November 2024, counsel challenging the home secretary’s decision to scale back the inquiry referenced in open court an internal government document that had been disclosed late the previous evening. It was an information note to Cooper alerting her to the key issues that had arisen at Manston.
Guardian News & Media (GNM) was in court for the hearing, but when a request was made to the government later that day for a copy of the note, the government refused to hand it over.
GNM then joined with the BBC and the Independent to make an application to the court for the internal document. The judge in the case, Mrs Justice Lang, made an order granting the internal document to the media.
In her order, she said: “I am satisfied that the balance falls in favour of granting disclosure. Disclosure will further the open justice principle and the topic is one of significant public interest on which there will be legitimate reporting by journalists.”
The eight-page information note to Cooper dated 24 July 2024 and marked “official sensitive: legally privileged. Not to be disclosed beyond named recipients”, contains a list of 16 individuals or groups of individuals who may be required to give evidence at a statutory inquiry. Along with Johnson, Sunak, Patel, Shapps, Braverman and Wallace, it also lists five former immigration ministers, ministers and officials from the Cabinet Office, HM Treasury and the Ministry of Defence, along with the current permanent secretary at the Home Office, former second permanent secretary, current and former directors general and an unspecified number of officials from the Home Office’s immigration enforcement, Border Force, asylum, and private office.
The note says preparation for the future investigation into Manston is being led by Home Office legal advisers and the Home Office team established to respond to the UK’s Covid 19 inquiry.
It adds that an “initial chronology” of issues at Manston has been drawn up to support the department to act “with candour and frankness” and to make full disclosure of relevant documents. The note says: “The investigation of the conditions at Manston will probably be reputationally damaging for the Home Office.”
It highlights five key issues to be examined including the death in custody of Ahmed on 19 November 2022, the unlawful detention of adults and children between May and November 2022, the unlawful use of hotels for unaccompanied asylum seeker children, which were being used as unregulated children’s homes, and officers arrested for conspiracy to steal and misconduct in public office on 21 October and 6 December.
Along with the five key issues, 18 separate allegations and concerns about Manston were raised by a series of individuals and organisations including the then archbishop of Canterbury who raised concerns about safeguarding and welfare of children on the site, the British Red Cross, the Immigration Service Union, the Independent Advisory Panel on Deaths in Custody, Thanet council, NHS Kent and Medway, the HM chief inspector of prisons, and the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants.
Allegations raised include threats to life, misfeasance in public office, false imprisonment, assault and battery, breach of human rights legislation that prohibits torture and inhuman or degrading treatment, unlawful seizure of asylum seekers’ phones and other property, unlawful use of force, breaches of fire safety and of food safety legislation, along with concerns about a lack of toilets and hand-washing facilities.
The independent inquiry into events at Manston in the second half of 2022, chaired by Sophie Cartwright KC, began its work in the middle of last month. According to the terms of reference it, will look at conditions at Manston, treatment of asylum seekers there and whether more could have been done between the period of 1 June to 22 November 2022. The chair may hold some hearings in public.
A Home Office spokesperson said: “The home secretary acted on the advice she was given to establish an independent inquiry into events at the Manston short-term holding facility between June and November 2022, in line with the commitments made by her predecessors, and on the terms agreed through the subsequent legal process.
“That inquiry will now proceed and we are supporting it fully, but it would be inappropriate to comment further whilst it is ongoing.”
