Jenrick rebuked for not providing evidence to asylum detention inquiry

The former Conservative immigration minister Robert Jenrick 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.

The independent Manston inquiry was set up to examine the events surrounding the detention of thousands of people who arrived by small boat between 1 June 2022 and 22 November 2022 and were held at a former military base in Manston, Kent.

The Reform Treasury spokesperson was the Tory immigration minister when conditions at the base deteriorated.

An asylum seeker, Hussein Haseeb Ahmed, fell ill with diphtheria at the site and later died from complications relating to it in hospital.

The Manston site opened at the beginning of 2022 – a year in which a record of about 46,000 people arrived in the UK by small boats. The site was designed to hold a maximum of 1,600 people for periods of 24 hours or less. But after a failure to move enough detainees from the site to make space for new arrivals, there were 4,000 people temporarily housed at the centre at its busiest.

Conditions were squalid. Faeces overflowed from toilets and people were forced to sleep on the floor for extended periods. There were also major outbreaks of disease including scabies and diphtheria.

Jenrick admitted to parliament that people were being kept at Manston for longer than he would have liked. After the then independent chief inspector of Borders and Immigration David Neal visited Manston in October 2022, he told MPs that conditions were “wretched” and “really dangerous”.

In July 2023, Jenrick gave an order to have brightly coloured children’s murals at both Manston and another processing centre in Kent, Western Jet Foil, painted over because they were deemed “too welcoming” for children.

Issues investigated by the inquiry include the policy decisions ministers made about Manston during that period and the action taken to mitigate the extremely poor conditions.

The inquiry is also investigating the circumstances surrounding Ahmed’s death on 19 November 2022.

In her rebuke, inquiry chair Sophie Cartwright KC said in a statement posted on the Manston inquiry website: “These issues raise questions for former government ministers including the Rt Hon Mr Jenrick MP.”

She said the inquiry first wrote to Jenrick on 17 October 2025 seeking a draft statement. Since that date, the inquiry’s legal team agreed a number of extensions to the time limit for providing one.

On 27 April 2026, the inquiry wrote to Jenrick’s legal representatives to confirm that the most recent deadline had passed and to seek clarification as to whether and when a statement would be provided.

“As at the date of this update, the inquiry has not received a statement nor any update,” she said. “The inquiry is non-statutory and so relies on those with relevant information and evidence cooperating by providing witness statements and oral evidence.”

“Many months have passed without any certainty as to whether or when he will provide a statement,” Cartwright added.

A mass legal challenge was launched in relation to the conditions at Manston at the end of 2022.

Seema Syeda of the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants condemned Jenrick for his failure to cooperate. “As former Minister for Immigration, Robert Jenrick was at the head of a Victorian-era system responsible for the cruel detention and death from diphtheria of Hussein Haseeb Ahmed.

“Hussein, like hundreds of others, came here seeking safety, but instead was imprisoned in conditions fit for neither humans nor animals. Robert Jenrick showed no accountability for this horrific incident and now seeks to return to government, shapeshifting from Tory to Reform, but bringing the same inhumane governing record.”

A spokesperson for Jenrick from Reform UK said: “Robert’s written statement will be with the inquiry in due course. It is telling that Labour commissioned an inquiry into the detention of illegal migrants, and not into the daily harm illegal migration is inflicting on the British people.”