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Shabana Mahmood is expected to unveil plans to move asylum seekers from hotels into military barracks as Labour seeks to harden its immigration policy amid rising numbers of crossings in the channel.
The new home secretary is reportedly set to announce the use of Ministry of Defence sites to house people after a wave of protests outside migrant accommodation over the summer.
The scale of the challenge facing the former justice secretary was illustrated on Saturday when an estimated 1,000 people arrived in the UK by small boats.
Dozens of asylum hotels are expected to close after they became the focal point of several demonstrations in recent months. Ministers are also close to agreeing a returns deal with Germany, having already secured one with France, the Daily Telegraph reported.
One government source said “nothing is off the table” for Mahmood as she assumes her new brief, which puts her in charge of borders and asylum policy. She has previously signalled a willingness to look at reform of the European convention of human rights within domestic law.
It comes after the prime minister carried out a major reshuffle including wide-ranging changes at the Home Office as he seeks to tighten his grip on immigration and draw a line under Angela Rayner’s resignation.
The chief secretary to the prime minister, Darren Jones, earlier denied that the government was in crisis and insisted Starmer now has the “strongest team” in place around the cabinet table following Rayner’s departure.
He ruled out the prospect of an early election amid opposition claims that the upheaval could open splits within Labour and collapse the prime minister’s authority.
Speaking to broadcasters on Saturday, Jones dismissed suggestions that the rejig could delay the Starmer’s self-described “phase two” of government by moving senior figures to unfamiliar briefs.
“It’s not instability insofar as the outcomes that we’re delivering are the same,” Jones, who is also the newly appointed chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster, told BBC Breakfast.
He rejected the idea Yvette Cooper had been moved out of the Home Office because she was failing to control immigration, adding she would be “brilliant” in her new role as the UK’s top diplomat.
