Chief Inspector of prisons Charlie Taylor described the condition some people are in when they are brought ashore in Kent, as he raised concerns about the Home Office’s “haphazard” arrangements for Channel migrants.
He said: “People are arriving wet, sometimes with petrol burns.
"People are still having to occasionally spend a night in a tent without proper bedding.”
Migrants are arriving in the UK with petrol burns
Andrew Matthews
The Chief Inspector, who will be tasked with scrutinising conditions on Rwanda deportation flights if they go ahead, also said families were “crammed into facilities where some basic safeguards were not in place”.
He compared the Kent Intake Unit to a “hospital waiting room with bright neon lights on all night”.
He said inspectors encountered a safeguarding case where a man who had a conviction for a relatively serious offence was spending the night in the facility with children and families.
Facilities housing migrants have been slammed
Gareth Fuller
In an overview of inspections carried out over the last year, Mr Taylor said: “I remain very concerned about the haphazard arrangements in place for those who have crossed the Channel in small boats.
“Promised facilities in Dover had not materialised when we inspected in November 2021, and we found that some families were sleeping on the floor in flimsy tents with inadequate bedding or crammed into facilities where some basic safeguards were not in place."
With the numbers of migrants crossing the Channel increasing in recent days, due to the spate of hot weather, he added how “insufficient preparation to provide for vulnerable adults and children” had been made.
He added that he anticipated “significant improvements” at new facilities being built at the disused Manston airfield.
More than 14,000 migrants have made the journey so far this year, navigating the bustling shipping lanes from France in small boats such as dinghies, provisional Government figures show.
In his annual report Mr Taylor also warned of a “flood” of resignations by prison officers in some jails, adding hows staff recruitment is “perhaps the biggest challenge facing the prison service”.
He added how "employment of unsuitable candidates who left the service within the first year of taking up the job” was intensifying the issue.
Around 14,000 migrants have made the journey from France to the UK this year
Gareth Fuller
The watchdog also discovered young men were being left to lead “long lives of criminality” because of a lack of training and education while behind bars.
Some inmates are spending 23 hours a day or more locked in their cells despite Covid-19 restrictions being lifted earlier this year, while others are left to watch daytime TV or sleep instead of taking part in classes and activities.
Mr Taylor said there is “no reason why” prisons cannot return to pre-pandemic regimes now restrictions have been abolished.
The Government said it had made “significant improvements” in the way it deals with migrant arrivals and is “adhering to our statutory duties in all aspects”.
The temporary facility, Tug Haven, shut its doors in January and now there is a “fit for purpose” system for processing arrivals, going through initial checks at Western Jet Foil in Dover port, then on to Manston for “further processing where appropriate”.
A spokesman said: “The facilities allow arrivals to be held in a safe and secure environment where any safeguarding and vulnerability issues can be dealt with."
The Government also insisted it was “making progress to rehabilitate prisoners; 50 percent more offenders are finding work shortly after release than a year ago – reducing reoffending and making our streets safer”.
Some 4,000 more staff have been hired in the last four years and there are plans to increase the number of officers in prisons by 5,000 by the mid-2020s, a spokesman insisted.