Five asylum seekers were pulled from the sea by a rescue crew working in thick fog.

The RNLI were called to a group of more than 40 people who were spotted making the perilous journey off Lydd this morning.

Five men had entered the water from a black 10m boat.

A helicopter and RNLI Dungeness rescue boat was scrambled to the scene and rescued the asylum seekers in the water.

The Home Office confirmed this week it will use the former Defence Fire Training and Development Centre in Manston to process asylum seekers.

It was announced last year the centre would close after a 12-year contract - worth £525 million - was agreed to outsource the MOD's fire and rescue to company Capita Business Services.

Training was transferred to a facility already owned by the firm in Moreton-in-Marsh in the Cotswolds.

North Thanet MP Sir Roger Gale slammed the Home Office in the House of Commons on Wednesday.

"All we were told by the civil servant leading the project, who was I understand working from home and has not visited the site, is that the Home Office is establishing a processing centre before Christmas," he said.

The Home Office has not said how many migrants will be processed at the site and over what specific length of time the centre will be used for this purpose.

He accused the Home Office of taking "yet another knee-jerk reaction to a problem that ought to have been foreseen".