Healey's first Budget hands the Home Office £150m for new asylum mega-sites, sparking a fresh backlash in rural communities
John Healey's Budget scraps standing charges on gas bills and extends the VAT holiday on electricity to July, though the gas change will not take effect before 2027.John Healey's Budget hands HMRC sweeping new powers to deduct overdue tax directly from bank accounts without taxpayer agreement.
Treasury documents buried in Budget small print reveal the £150m will be spent as capital investment in 2027-28, funding new large sites built on former Ministry of Defence land, with no locations yet announced. Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp called the spending proof that Labour has "no intention whatsoever of stopping illegal immigrants or deporting them."
Villagers in Piddington, Oxfordshire — population under 400 — already face plans for a 1,256-bed male-only asylum site that would leave them outnumbered four-to-one.
Barnham in Norfolk has since staged its own referendum on symbolically leaving the UK in protest at plans to house 913 asylum seekers there.
Wethersfield in Essex, the blueprint for the mega-site model, cost £49m to set up, is expanding to 1,245 beds and is now expected to run until 2030.
