Concerns were raised about Wethersfield site relating to radiological contamination and unexploded ordnance

Asylum seekers staying at a former RAF airfield that is used as the Home Office’s largest mass accommodation site were moved out after safety risks were identified including radiological contamination and unexploded ordnance.

Planning permission for the Home Office to use the Wethersfield airfield site in Essex for a three-year period was obtained last month with the granting of a special development order (SDO), circumventing the usual route for obtaining planning permission from a council.

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Freedom of information request reveals potential offences include immigration crime, drug offences and fraud

• UK politics – latest updates

Dozens of Home Office staff are under criminal investigation for a range of offences including immigration crime, fraud and drug offences, the Guardian has learned.

In response to a freedom of information (FoI) request about its little-known anti-corruption criminal investigation unit (ACCIU), the department revealed that 16 allegations were either awaiting charging advice or trial and a further 18 were under investigation.

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Families of those who helped British forces could be deported from Pakistan despite promise to resettle them in UK

Afghan families who helped UK forces and then fled to neighbouring Pakistan are in danger of being deported back to the Taliban due to Home Office delays in bringing them to the UK.

In the chaotic evacuation period in the Afghan capital, Kabul, in August 2021 some family members eligible for resettlement in the UK became separated from the rest of their families. Some boarded flights while others were unable to due to crushes at the airport and instead fled over the border to Pakistan.

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Exclusive: Data reveals 239% rise among those evicted from assigned accommodation, including hotels, in two years

There has been a 239% increase in homelessness among asylum seekers evicted from Home Office accommodation including hotels in two years, according to a report.

Data analysed by the Refugee Council found that 12,630 households in England faced homelessness after eviction from asylum accommodation in the two years to the end of September 2023.

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Government’s aid watchdog says Foreign Office taking ‘financial hit’ for Home Office overspending

• UK politics – latest updates

The UK government’s decision to use the overseas aid budget to pay for supporting refugees in Britain is “wreaking havoc” with the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office’s development partnerships, an official government watchdog said on Wednesday after it was revealed that £4.3bn was diverted to support refugees in 2023.

Official statistics show 27.9% of the total UK aid budget in 2023 was spent on supporting the first-year housing and food costs of refugees in Britain, an increase of £600m.

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Fee rises by 7% to £88.50 for adult online application, while applying by post will cost £100

The cost of a new or renewed UK passport is going up again for the second time in 14 months – rising by 7% to £88.50 for an adult online application from Thursday.

Thursday’s rise follows a 9% price hike to £82.50 in February last year. Before that increase, passport fees had not changed for five years and a standard adult online application cost £75.50, or £13 cheaper than this week’s new price.

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A new income threshold means only the richest 30% of employed Britons will be able to bring their partners here. It’s unspeakably cruel

Six years ago almost to the day, with my 15-month-old daughter strapped to my chest, I fought back tears, waved my husband off at Bengaluru airport in India and boarded a plane back to the UK. I wasn’t sure when I’d see him again, or when he’d see his child.

Even though he was the foreign spouse of a British citizen (at that point, we had been married for more than five years) and the father of a British child, he had no right to accompany us when we relocated to the UK. This despite the protestations of friends and relatives, who felt sure we’d not done our research properly.

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Libertarian politicians like Jacob Rees-Mogg are out of touch with a public comfortable with sharing its personal data

‘Britain has never been a ‘papers, please’ society,” said Jacob Rees-Mogg, speaking on his GB News radio show last week. “I’ve always loved the quotation from the historian AJP Taylor, who wrote that ‘until August 1914, a sensible, law-abiding Englishman could pass through life and hardly notice the existence of the state beyond the post office and the policeman’. But the world has changed… is it time to sacrifice freedom for administrative efficiency, and bow down to po-faced officialdom?”

What prompted this rallying cry for freedom? A subject that has ebbed in and out of public discourse for decades: whether or not every Brit should be required to carry an identity card. It ebbed in again last week when former Labour home secretary David Blunkett challenged Keir Starmer to set up a national ID scheme to tackle the small boats crisis, which in turn prompted the usual lines of debate.

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Organisers say event will remember those who died before getting compensation as ‘journey towards justice continues’

A vigil to mark the sixth anniversary of the Windrush scandal being exposed will take place on Saturday to “honour victims” and “remember those who have died without redress”, campaigners have said.

The rally, organised bygroups supporting victims of the scandal including the Windrush National Organisation (WNO), the Black Cultural Archives and Churches Together England, will take place at Windrush Square in Brixton, south London, at midday.

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