HOME Office minister Chris Phillp has said it is a “bit of a cheek” for migrants to complain about the conditions in the UK’s processing centres.

The comments were described as “shocking and callous.”

The remark comes amid chaos at the Manston site in Kent, where more than 4,000 people were being accommodated last weekend, despite it only being suitable to hold 1,600.

Despite a legal requirement to get people through the process in within 24-48 hours, some, including families with children, have been there for four weeks. 

There have also been reports of people contracting diseases like diphtheria, scabies, monkeypox and MSRA. 

Staff have also recorded outbreaks of violence as tensions mount due to the overcrowding.

Mr Philp told Times Radio: “If people choose to enter a country illegally, and unnecessarily, it is a bit, you know, it’s a bit of a cheek to then start complaining about the conditions when you’ve illegally entered a country without necessity.”

He added that people who had passed through other countries in Europe “don’t even have to come here."

“We’re spending something like two or three billion pounds a year looking after people who have entered the country illegally and unnecessarily,” he said.

“I think, frankly, that is pretty generous, actually… our asylum accommodation is better than most European countries.”

Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Alistair Carmichael said: “Chris Philp’s comments reveal a shocking and callous complacency over the disaster unfolding at Manston.

“It is unbelievable that as we hear reports of sexual assaults, disease, and chronic overcrowding, his response is to accuse those who complain of ‘cheek’.”

Meanwhile, Mr Philp confirmed that two groups of refugees from Manston had been left at Victoria station in central London on Tuesday without accommodation, appropriate clothing or money.

He said it had been a "misunderstanding."

The minister told Sky News: “There are two groups of people and what I’ve been told by the people on the immigration side of the Home Office is that both groups of people told immigration officials at Manston they had addresses to go to, so friends and family. Obviously, that turned out subsequently not to be the case.

“Clearly that understanding was not accurate; quite how that misunderstanding arose – maybe it was lost in translation – I don’t know, but clearly they have now all been looked after.”

Westminster City Council said its rough sleeping service had offered hotel spaces to 11 of these people, and seven had taken up the offer.

The leader of the local authority, Adam Hug, said the increasing number of refugees in Westminster hotels was putting pressure on local medical services, and called for a “humane and organised” response to the immigration crisis.

Mr Hug said: “The chaos that is engulfing the arrival centre at Manston is now impacting on councils across the country.

“It is not acceptable that people seeking asylum in the UK are effectively dumped at a coach station and left to fend for themselves, we need a more humane and frankly better organised response.”

“The issue is that the Home Office seems to have descended into panic with no clear picture of where people are going,” he added.