Cooper suggests asylum seekers could be moved into warehouses instead of hotels – UK politics live

Home secretary says government aims to ‘shrink the whole asylum system’ and is looking at ‘military and industrial sites’

Back to the mini-reshuffle, and although it is widely being interpreted as an attempt by Keir Starmer to exert a firmer grip over the Treasury (see 9.22am), the Times’s Patrick Maguire has suggested the opposite might be the case. In his analysis today, he says:

It has been assumed — lazily — that the belated arrival of two economists and a Treasury minister in Downing Street amounts to an attack on Reeves. Inside government, another theory took hold on Monday. Is this, in fact, a reverse takeover of the prime minister’s office by the chancellor?

That would be overstating it, but in private Reeves has long been frank in her assessment of No 10’s policy operation and its absence of any serious economic brain. Whether it indicates a meaningful change in direction is another question. Singled out for praise in Starmer’s private address to his staff was Varun Chandra, his business adviser, who will now be given a “hefty team” to support his work.

Many of the changes, not least the appointment of [Darren Jones, the new chief secretary to the PM], are surely an implicit admission that those who complain [Morgan McSweeney, the PM’s chief of staff] is spread too thinly across government are correct. In some departments, however, confusion continues to reign. “We were trying to draw the organogram of this new team,” one senior official said of the ambiguous hierarchy. “For five minutes it made vague sense. Then we asked: what happens if these people disagree with each other? Does Morgan overrule Darren? What if Tim [Allan, the new executive director of government communications] wants to announce something and Darren doesn’t?”

The obvious answer to that question would be that the prime minister should make his own preference clear. The long, iterative and painful process of sketching out a philosophy of “fairness” for Starmer to call his own drags on in the run-up to the Labour Party conference at the end of this month. He is never more comfortable than in conversations on process. What his new team need now is some politics. Only he can provide that.

I think it’s a mix of things. First of all, you actually have to shrink the whole asylum system. So we actually need to have fewer people in the asylum system in the first place, fewer people needing accommodation. That has to be at the core of this. It’s been allowed to expand in a way that is out of control.

And then, yes, we do also want to see alternative sites, more appropriate sites, including looking at military and industrial sites as well.

That’s one of the things that’s been looked at. But we will provide updates when we’ve got the practical plans.