Home secretary Suella Braverman risks inflaming the migration row with plans to force vulnerable child refugees to undergo X-rays to verify their age.
The move comes after prime minister Rishi Sunak told cabinet that he wanted Britain to be a “compassionate, welcoming country”, distancing himself from the home secretary’s controversial claim that the UK was being subjected to an “invasion” by asylum-seekers.
As counter-terrorist police took charge of the investigation into the firebombing of a separate immigration faciility in Kent, it emerged that Ms Braverman’s incendiary remark had not been cleared with No 10. And Mr Sunak’s official spokesperson declined to say whether the PM regarded it as appropriate.
Immigration minister Robert Jenrick said Ms Braverman had been trying to express “the sheer scale of the challenge” but accepted it was necessary to “choose your words very carefully” and said he had not used the phrase.
Refugee charity Care4Calais, told The Independent the X-ray proposals raised “serious safeguarding concerns”.
The home secretary faced allegations from a senior Conservative MP that she misled parliament when she denied that dangerous overcrowding at a migrant processing centre was caused by her blocking the use of hotels to accommodate people arriving in the UK by small boat.
And another Tory MP said that Ms Braverman’s focus on tough measures to deter Channel crossings would not work, and the Home Office should instead focus its efforts on clearing the massive backlog of legitimate asylum claims.
David Simmonds, who chairs parliament’s all-party group on migration, told The Independent that the most effective way to undermine the activities of people-smuggling gangs would be to set up legal routes for displaced people to come to the UK to have their claims assessed.
Hundreds of people were being moved out of Manston on Tuesday in a bid to ease overcrowding which has seen some asylum-seekers spend weeks in a temporary holding centre intended only for swift initial processing over a period of no more than 48 hours.
In a defiant Commons appearance on Monday, Ms Braverman denied claims that she ignored legal advice to procure more hotel accommodation to allow individuals and families to move on from the centre.
With the government spending £6.8 million a day putting up migrants in hotels, she insisted she was right to order a review of the way the system was working.
But a source close to Ms Patel said the former home secretary had regularly authorised the use of hotels when capacity at Manston was stretched.
And Tory MP Sir Roger Gale – whose Thanet North constituency includes Manston – told The Independent: “I am absolutely certain that the home secretary put a moratorium on hotel accommodation. That is what has caused this logjam. It was essentially humane and well-organised until give weeks ago, then she arrived and it hit the buffers.
“I am absolutely certain that the home secretary misled the House when she said she had not put a block on paying for additional accommodation. I am told there is documentation inside the Home Office which would prove that.”
Sir Roger welcomed measures to ease overcrowding, but added: “Thousands more need to be moved out. She has been using it as a refugee camp, and I am trying to get it back to its proper purpose as a processing centre. There shouldn’t be more than 1,200 people there and they shouldn’t be there for more than 48 hours.”
A Home Office source insisted that allegations the home secretary had misled parliament were “categorically untrue”.
On Monday, Ms Braverman pledged that “robust” new checks will be introduced in the new year to settle disputes over the age of those arriving across the Channel on small boats.
The Home Office told The Independent that she was referring to proposals, floated by predecessor Priti Patel earlier this year, to use scientific methods to uncover adult migrants posing as children in the hope of being allowed to stay in the UK.
An expert panel commissioned by Ms Patel to look into options including X-rays, CT scans and MRI imaging is understood to be nearing the completion of its work.
