Nick Ferrari pressed Labour minister Luke Pollard on Friday over the government's decision to proceed with an asylum centre in Piddington despite overwhelming local opposition. On LBC, Ferrari read out figures from the local MP, Lib Dem Calum Miller, stating that 3,177 people objected to the proposal while one person supported it.
Ferrari asked Pollard: "Minister, what is the point of public consultation if your government blithely ignores it in cases such as these?"
Minister defends government approach
Pollard responded by saying: "It's right that we engage with communities around big proposals. Especially ones where we know there will be local interest, and this is certainly the case."
He added: "We've roughly closed half the asylum hotels that we inherited from the last government, but we want to close every single one of them. To do that, the Ministry of Defence has to look at the sites that we have that can be used for temporary accommodation by the Home Office. We have already transferred Crowborough, a barracks in southern England, to the Home Office, and we've allocated a small part of Bicester to the Home Office as well, and that will help us close asylum hotels faster."
Ferrari challenges minister again
Frustrated that Pollard had not addressed his question, Ferrari interjected: "Minister, respectfully, you've totally ignored my question. Understandably, you've justified the actions, but I put it to you again: what is the point of public consultation if 3,177 people object to a proposal, one person supports it, and it proceeds?"
Ferrari continued: "This is a complete fallacy. The idea that you consult the public; you ignore the public! And you go ahead, don't you, minister?"
Pollard replied: "It's pretty obvious that there's a strong sense of feeling from the community and around Bicester, especially in Piddington. The Home Office continues to engage with those. The consultation is an opportunity to listen to the concerns of local people and make sure that, should this proposal proceed, and there are still a few more stages to go here, Nick. It's not yet fully locked in and delivered; we can understand where the concerns are so they can be mitigated."
Public reaction
Following the interview, listeners reacted on X. One wrote: "@UKLabour, the party that ignores the people of this country and hates democracy." Another tweeted: "Another totally inept and useless government minister. An utter disgrace of a decision!" A third commented: "The 'public consultation' was just a tick-box exercise to say the residents were asked. The government never had any intention of actually listening."
