GB News guest slams Labour over Bell Hotel appeal: 'They've lost the public'

A former migration minister has slammed Sir Keir Starmer's Government on GB News over its appeal against the Bell Hotel housing asylum seekers. The Home Office won a legal appeal, on Friday, meaning the Epping site can continue to accommodate 138 asylum seekers. Appearing on GB News Breakfast, Tory ex-MP Tom Pursglove described it as a "terrible situation" and "pretty frustrating", claiming Labour has "lost the public".

"It's almost is a pyrrhic victory, isn't it, because Government has won in court, but I think they've truly lost the public on this," he said. "And this is a terrible situation to be in, and I find this pretty frustrating, because I was the minister, along with James Cleverly, that presided over closing the Bell Hotel in Epping. What this Government has done is squandered all the progress that we made.

"We managed to close 188 hotels. We pivoted towards larger sites. We got a deterrent in place that needed to happen. Of course, we needed to get flights off the ground. But things were moving in the right direction, and they've really squandered all of that. Numbers are going completely in the wrong direction."

Host Anne Diamond pointed out that before closing hotels, the migrants would need somewhere to go and enquired where that would be.

"Well, what we had done is we moved the direction of travel on accommodation to some of the larger sites," said Mr Pursglove. "So for example, RAF Scampton, I recognise that it's not an ideal situation, but that was a site that we had brought forward. Obviously, RAF Wethersfield as well.

"They closed Scampton, the Bibby Stockholm barge, which actually was basic accommodation. Better value for money for the taxpayer was also part of the arrangement.

"They weren't enough. But that was the direction we wanted to take the accommodation provision in.

"But what was also critical was that you've got to stop the need for the accommodation in the first place, and that's where the Government has no credible policy whatsoever.

"The only way that you're going to solve this is to detain illegal migrants on arrival and send them somewhere else. That's the way that you break the business model.

"Everything else is playing at the edges, and what this is now doing is fundamentally eroding the public's trust in our borders, the public's trust in our institutions and in our democracy more generally.

"I think that's really worrying. And I totally get why people are just so angry," he concluded.