Mr. Kevin McCarthy:

We are in negotiations at the moment in respect of a potential second transit hub. However, it is important to emphasise that a second transit hub does not necessarily solve our problem. As I outlined, the number of people to whom we have been unable to offer accommodation since 24 January now stands at 203. A second transit hub would have bought us sufficient time in terms of an additional holding facility for those 203 people and potentially others. In the absence of a sufficient pipeline of onward accommodation for international protection applicants, however, we would quite quickly run into the same problem again, to be frank about it. It is therefore a more fundamental challenge for us in terms of the scale of the potential pipeline of accommodation.