MIGRANTS should not be housed on military bases rather than hotels because they should be swiftly deported, according to Reform UK MP Danny Kruger.

Asked if he was supportive of the government’s plan, he told GB News: “I’m not, and I’m very concerned about it. I have a large military community in my constituency. We’ve housed huge numbers of Afghans and others in recent years.

“I don’t think the answer to the small boats crisis is to use up our military accommodation for them. The answer is to stop the boats themselves, to stop people coming over the channel in these numbers, stop them absolutely by assuring that anybody who arrives here is swiftly detained and deported.

“We can only do that if we leave the ECHR. My party is committed to doing that. We have a whole plan for detention and deportation. That’s the way to reduce, just to eliminate this problem of illegal migration.

“We should not be putting people into military accommodation or into hotels. We should be deporting them.”

Danny Kruger GB News 28:10.jpeg

Asked about the party’s plans to reduce the size of the Civil Service, he said: “We’re not giving a number yet because we haven’t yet designed the shape of Whitehall that we think we will need to implement the policy plan that we are putting together.

“But even to reduce the size of the Civil Service back to the pre-Brexit levels that it was 10 years ago, would be a 30% reduction in headcount. I think that is evidently achievable, and we’ll actually have a more efficient state that actually serves taxpayers and citizens better.

“I think we can achieve at least that number, but it depends on the functions themselves. I mean, there’s huge areas of Whitehall payroll that are unnecessary in HR, in comms, and indeed, in policy, which has swollen enormously in recent years, which we can get back to.

“Sir Robert Peel, in the 19th century, ran the entire Home Office, which basically was the domestic policy of the state with less than 20 people. Lloyd George took the People’s Budget through parliament in 1911 with a Treasury that was 20 people large.

“That was all you needed in those days. I don’t think we can get back to those sorts of numbers, but you can show it’s possible to run an effective government without what we have, hundreds of thousands of civil servants around here, many of whom we don’t need.”