Q51 Chairman: Ms Smith mentioned other sites. Hemswell Cliff was another site. Did you bother to consult the local Member of Parliament?
Sir David Normington: I am afraid I do not know. I do know-
Q52 Chairman: Hemswell Cliff in Lincolnshire.
Sir David Normington: I do know about it.
Q53 Chairman: I happen to be the Member of Parliament. You considered it and then it was also withdrawn. I do not recall any consultation going on with me.
Sir David Normington: I do know about Hemswell Cliff, of course. I have been briefed about that.
Q54 Chairman: How much did you waste on that?
Sir David Normington: It was dropped very early in the process because it was not suitable. That was my advice.
Q55 Chairman: Why not suitable?
Sir David Normington: It was too small. It was thought not to be suitable.
Q56 Chairman: It would have been nice to consult the local Member of Parliament, would it not?
Sir David Normington: I do not know. Obviously you know better than I do.
Q57 Chairman: It is the normal way of proceeding. Good manners, is it not?
Sir David Normington: It is always better to consult and inform the local Member.
Q58 Mr Mitchell: You said that it is difficult to put yourself in the position of the people who were making the decision in 2002 or whenever it was. I think it is dead easy. All you have to do is run round in circles, like Corporal Jones in "Dad's Army", shouting "Don't panic, don't panic, don't panic!". It is clear that there was a panic. The whole department was in a state of panic, was it not? A fear of being overwhelmed by asylum seekers-or "swamped" as Mrs Thatcher might put it. You had to do something with them and this was one solution.
Sir David Normington: I do not know whether I would have said the word "panic" and so on, but it was certainly the case that this was a very serious problem indeed at that time. It is true that something needed to be done, and several things were done at that time.
Q59 Mr Mitchell: Yes, you were casting round for alternatives, were you not?
Sir David Normington: There was a White Paper which set out a very comprehensive policy to deal with how we received people, how we accommodated them, how we detained them and how we removed them. Three-quarters of that policy worked, because the number of asylum seekers then began to come down.
Q60 Mr Mitchell: I just wonder where the pressures came from. I assume that ministers were saying: "Find a solution. Do something", and that therefore officials were casting round, to find something to do.
Sir David Normington: Knowing the ministers at the time very well, I think that is very likely: that they were demanding that and they were also contributing to what was no doubt a very active policy debate. This would be, I guess, just after the 2001 election.