An MP has challenged the government and Kent County Council to come clean over plans to house asylum seekers in the county.

Derek Wyatt, Labour MP for Sittingbourne and Sheppey, asked Home Office minister Beverley Hughes on Tuesday about pledges not to open any more refugee centres in Kent.

The MP's constituency covers the Coniston Hotel in Sittingbourne - where plans to open an asylum induction centre have been put on hold.

In reply, Ms Hughes, the minister in charge of immigration, denied the government had promised not to open any more asylum induction centres in Kent.

The MP asked what promises had been made

She said that although it had been agreed Kent would not be a dispersal area, asylum seekers had been housed there in emergency accommodation.

She said the National Asylum Support Service, which awarded the contract to place more than 100 refugees in the Coniston Hotel, had never told Kent County Council it would not open any additional centres in the county.

But Mr Wyatt claims he has been given conflicting information by Kent County Council.

He said on Tuesday he would ask the council to publish its correspondence with the government.

Consultation period

Mr Wyatt said: "It seems to me that everyone is hiding behind everyone else and I just want the truth to come out."

He claimed Accommodata, the company which plans to open the induction centre at the Coniston Hotel, was preparing to act before consultation with residents had taken place.

He said: "We are still waiting to find out what the deal is over the consultation before they sign it.

"In the meantime the hotel is being got ready for asylum seekers, so we don't understand.

"It's not unreasonable is it? We cannot have a consultation period and in the middle of it the hotel is being got ready."