A spokesperson for Robert Jenrick said he would provide a statement ‘in due course’. The former Conservative immigration minister has been rebuked by the chair of an inquiry for failing to provide vital evidence about conditions for small boat arrivals at a controversial processing centre.
Manston Inquiry Background
The independent Manston inquiry was established to examine events surrounding the detention of thousands of people who arrived by small boat between 1 June 2022 and 22 November 2022. They were held at a former military base in Manston, Kent. The Reform Treasury spokesperson served as the Tory immigration minister when conditions at the base deteriorated.
Death and Deteriorating Conditions
An asylum seeker, Hussein Haseeb Ahmed, fell ill with diphtheria at the site and later died from complications in hospital. The Manston site opened at the beginning of 2022, a year when a record of about 46,000 people arrived in the UK by small boats. Designed to hold a maximum of 1,600 people for 24 hours or less, it housed 4,000 at its busiest due to a failure to move detainees.
Conditions were squalid, with faeces overflowing from toilets and people forced to sleep on the floor for extended periods. Major outbreaks of disease included scabies and diphtheria. Jenrick admitted to parliament that people were kept at Manston longer than he would have liked. After the independent chief inspector of Borders and Immigration David Neal visited in October 2022, he told MPs conditions were “wretched” and “really dangerous”.
In July 2023, Jenrick ordered brightly coloured children’s murals at Manston and another centre, Western Jet Foil, to be painted over as they were deemed “too welcoming” for children.
Inquiry and Rebuke
The inquiry investigates policy decisions ministers made about Manston and actions taken to mitigate poor conditions. It also examines circumstances surrounding Ahmed’s death on 19 November 2022. Inquiry chair Sophie Cartwright KC stated that these issues raise questions for former ministers including Jenrick. The inquiry first wrote to Jenrick on 17 October 2025 seeking a draft statement, granting several extensions. On 27 April 2026, the inquiry wrote to his legal representatives confirming the deadline had passed. As of the update, no statement had been received. Cartwright noted that the non-statutory inquiry relies on cooperation, and many months have passed without certainty of a statement.
A mass legal challenge was launched regarding Manston conditions at the end of 2022. Seema Syeda of the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants condemned Jenrick’s failure to cooperate, stating he was at the head of a Victorian-era system responsible for cruel detention and death. A spokesperson for Jenrick from Reform UK said his written statement will be with the inquiry in due course, adding that Labour commissioned an inquiry into detention of illegal migrants, not into the daily harm illegal migration inflicts on the British people.
