Dame Caroline Dinenage, Member of Parliament for Gosport, has hit out at the Home Office’s handling of plans to expand Haslar Immigration Removal Centre, branding the public consultation process “utterly derisory” during an intervention in the House of Commons.

Caroline had earlier in the day applied for an Urgent Question on the expansion of Haslar IRC, which was not selected by the Speaker. She instead raised the issue directly with the Minister for Border Security and Asylum during his statement on asylum accommodation.

Challenging the Minister, Caroline pointed out that the Haslar proposals were being driven through using the Crown Development planning route, bypassing Gosport Borough Council as the local planning authority and leaving residents of the surrounding residential area with no opportunity or clarity on how they could have their say on the plans before the final decision was taken by the Secretary of State in Whitehall.

Local support for the IRC is already beginning to wear thin.  Trust was dealt an initial blow last October when expansion plans emerged featuring an unannounced third storey that had never previously been shown to residents. Caroline has voiced her opposition to the updated plans for the second phase of development at the site. The third storey was not included in plans under the previous Government but were revealed in a public meeting with the Home Office at Thorngate Halls in October 2025. She called on the Minister to meet her to address the concerns about the plans that she was seeing in her inbox.

Caroline fears that the limited consultation allowed under the Crown Development planning route risks eroding trust even further.

The Conservative frontbench also condemned the Government’s approach to asylum accommodation announcements more widely, with shadow minister Katie Lam telling the House that, given the scale of the plans, “the least that they can do is to allow those plans to be subject to proper scrutiny.”

Dame Caroline Dinenage MP, said: “The Haslar immigration removal centre proposals are meaningfully different from those originally planned, and the Home Office is bypassing the local planning authority, Gosport Borough Council. The public consultation has been utterly derisory. This is a residential urban area, yet local people do not have any opportunity to have a say, because it will be decided by the Secretary of State in Whitehall.

“Leaving aside all the rhetoric, I want straight answers: how many people will now be housed at Haslar, who they will be and how long they will stay there? What opportunity will neighbouring residents have to influence the development and how it looks? When will the Home Office have proper public meetings, so that Gosport people can put their questions and have them answered? My residents are furious about what this Government are doing, and they deserve a Minister who will meet me and answer their questions properly.”

Responding, Minister for Border Security and Asylum Alex Norris said: “I will of course meet the hon. Lady. Immigration removal centres are, of course, an entirely separate matter from what we are talking about here. I do not have those numbers at my fingertips, but I will get them to her in short order. There is a point of difference in terms of the engagement, as I can see from the correspondence between us on what has and has not been shared at public meetings about the nature of the site, but let us have that conversation so that we are speaking with one version of the truth.”

Speaking after the debate Dame Caroline said: “Trust in this process is hanging by a thread. Residents have watched plans change with no warning and have been left in the dark over proper consultation because of the planning route the Government has chosen.

“I’m pleased the Minister has agreed to meet me, and I’ll be holding him to that, but a meeting with me is no substitute for the Home Office being straight with the people of Gosport.”