Cameron Barracks: letter to UK Government

To: Alex Norris, Minister of State for Border Security and Asylum Home Office
From: Shirley-Anne Somerville, Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice
By email on 27 November 2025.

Thank you for your response to my letters dated 28 October and 4 November, which asked urgent questions to help reassure and inform the local community.

Although your response is welcome, and I am reassured to some extent that your officials have now informed local service providers there will no arrivals prior to January 2026, I am deeply concerned that a number of key points remain unanswered.

This lack of information to those being impacted by the decision of the UK Government to use Cameron Barracks to accommodate people seeking asylum is causing significant anxiety locally. It is increasingly alarming the UK Government is consistently failing to meaningfully inform those being impacted by this decision, despite your assurances that the Home Office would engage on the detail with the Council, local service providers, the third sector and the local community. This is particularly the case for health service provision given the winter health pressures that the NHS will be preparing for and responding to.

I must stress again the importance of, and the urgent need for, information to be provided in order for local agencies to properly plan and assess what reasonable support they may be able to offer for arrivals. Concern has been increasing significantly in the area given public knowledge of the initially planned arrival date of end November/early December, and providing this detail will help to reduce local speculation and allow proper planning to take place. It is imperative that the decision not to bring people to the Barracks prior to January is communicated publicly as soon as possible, given the rising concern.

As an absolute minimum the UK Government must urgently confirm to local service providers the health provision and integration support being supplied on site. As part of this it is essential you confirm, with no equivocation, there will be no placement of people who look under 25 onto the site as this risks placing a UAS child in an unsafe situation and places obligations onto Highland Council. The UK Government must also seek to agree with local service providers the most appropriate timescale for accommodating people on site, to ensure support can be provided effectively and impacts on the local community minimised.

Finally, any cost impacts for local services must be identified and funding agreed to ensure these are mitigated to avoid the local community having to bear the burden of UK Government decisions.

In conclusion and given the Operational Working Group meeting on Wednesday again failed to adequately inform local partners of all the required detail and that our meeting has now been rearranged to mid-December, I again urge you to provide the detail requested as a matter of urgency. Not doing so will make a challenging situation far worse for the local community and for the people seeking asylum we want to support.

I hope to hear from you soon.
Shirley-Anne Somerville