The Home Office are sending out some very confused signals with regards to the effect of the concession that the Home Secretary made to the Asylum Bill.

Home Office "spokesmen" seem to be wanting to suggest that the independent monitor can only advise on the suitability of a location for an accommodation centre once the planning procedures have been completed and the accommodation centre has been built!

This is of course a crazy approach. It could mean the spending of hundreds of thousands of pounds of taxpayers' and Local Councils' money on a public enquiry and the possible spending of millions of pounds of taxpayers' money on the building of an accommodation centre only then for the Independent monitor separately to take evidence and advise that the location was not suitable to meet a particular need of the residents.

(It is important to note that under Bill as now drafted, the independent monitor can advise that the location is not suitable if the location prevents any needs from being properly met. So that would include consideration of need generally in relation to rural locations and in this regard, it is perhaps worth recalling that the Home Secretary himself has admitted that remote rural locations could give rise to a sense of isolation and psychiatric problems so far as asylum seekers are concerned but the independent monitor would also have to consider specific questions such as health and education needs.)

I think in part the confused signals from the Home Office are because they are trying to speak to a number of different groups simultaneously. On the one hand I believe yesterday's concession is intended as a ladder down which the government can climb over time to announce they do not intend to proceed with Bicester and Nottingham without losing face. On the other hand, they have got themselves into a muddle because part of the deal apparently with the French for the closure of Sangatte was that they would open accommodation centres including Bicester in the UK.

To try and get an objective view on all of this, I am today personally instructing solicitors to instruct Counsel to give an Opinion on thefollowing:

Having regard to the totality of the Bill as finally agreed by Parliament what are the prospects of

• successfully seeking judicial review to prevent the proposed Planning Enquiry from taking place until after the independent monitor has had the opportunity of expressing an opinion on the suitability of the location;

• further and alternatively what is the prospect of successfully seeking judicial review to prevent the Home Office from building an accommodation centre until the independent monitor has had the opportunity to express a view on the suitability of the location; and

• further, what are the prospects of successfully seeking judicial review if it appears that the Home Office are dragging their feet on the appointment of such an independent Monitor?

It is utterly bizarre that the Home Secretary should bring forward what on the face of it is a very clearly worded amendment that gives wide powers to an Independent Monitor and then almost immediately seeks to obfuscate an undermine the role of such an Inspector.