Unaccompanied Asylum-seeking Children

Debate between Helen Hayes and Robert Jenrick

Tuesday 24th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

I have met representatives of local authorities, London Councils and the Local Government Association to raise this issue. They made the points that many Members across the House have made about the lack of general capacity in this area and the cost of providing this care. We worked with DLUHC in providing the package that has just been made available, and we will learn the lessons from that and make any changes that we need to, so that there is a fair package of support for those authorities that support the national transfer scheme.

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

We know that 200 children across the country are missing from accommodation for which the Minister is responsible. That is nearly seven classrooms of children, or about an entire year group in many secondary schools across the country. The complacency of this Government is disgraceful. Where is the cross-departmental ministerial taskforce with the Department for Education and DLUHC to ensure a day-by-day focus on this issue, to ensure accountability and to drive urgent improvements in the safeguarding of children?

[Robert Jenrick]

I share the hon. Lady’s concern and I have already set out the steps that we have taken so far to ensure that the hotels have significant support attached to them, and the work that we are doing to ensure that local authorities can make more placements available in the future. I can assure her that we are working with all those Government Departments and with the police to ensure that any young person who goes missing is tracked as far as we can, and certainly to the same standard we would expect for any of our own children.

Asylum Seekers Accommodation and Safeguarding

Debate between Helen Hayes and Robert Jenrick

Monday 7th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

My hon. Friend makes an important point, and for that reason I went with my hon. Friend the Member for Dover (Mrs Elphicke) to meet her constituents on Friday morning. They have been at the sharp end of illegal migration, and it is important that we think not just of the migrants but of our own citizens who are facing pressures from this situation. I reassure my hon. Friend that on arrival we screen individuals coming into the UK. Counter-terrorism police are present at all our facilities in Dover and Manston, and they take action against those about whom they might have suspicions. When we choose hotels or accommodation, it is important that we do so judiciously, so that we do not place people in situations that might have safeguarding or other risks. Again, that is another reason why we need to move away from the hotel model altogether.

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

My recent written parliamentary question revealed that 220 children have gone missing from Home Office-procured accommodation. We hear reports from across the country of the difficulty in securing school places for children in Home Office accommodation. Now we hear reports of the most grave matter—sexual assaults against children living in Home Office accommodation, at least one of whom I believe to be in Home Office accommodation in my constituency. I have previously raised safeguarding concerns about that accommodation and received a response from the Home Office that can be described only as dismissive and disinterested. When will the Minister accept that the Home Office is failing in the duty of the British state to vulnerable children on these shores, and when will he take steps to address this terrible situation?

[Robert Jenrick]

If the hon. Lady has specific and, what sound like, serious allegations, I would be very happy to look into them for her. As I said in answer to the question of the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy), the key thing is for each and every one of us who cares about this issue to go back to our local authorities and to encourage them to take more children into their care, otherwise those children will remain in hotels for far too long.

Planning for the Future

Debate between Helen Hayes and Robert Jenrick

Thursday 12th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

My hon. Friend raises an important point. There is evidence that some local plans have been undermined and that the hard work put in by local communities has not reaped the benefits those areas would have liked—they can spend years creating plans only to see development happening on other sites, not those they have chosen themselves. We are reviewing that, taking examples from across the country where we think that has happened and trying to learn lesson from it, and I hope that will feed into our work and create a strengthened plan-making system in the future.

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

The built environment and planning professions have a core role to play in tackling the climate emergency, yet in his statement the Secretary of State made only tangential mention of the climate emergency. I gently say to him: he will not achieve a green revolution with one single net-zero development across the whole UK. Can I encourage him to think again about this most urgent of challenges, to enshrine the climate emergency as a core purpose and responsibility of the planning system and to set the highest possible standards for net-zero development across our planning system to ensure we are not building new homes that will need to be retrofitted in the future?

[Robert Jenrick]

We are committed to a green revolution in the housing industry. We are doing that in many different ways, most notably through the future homes standard, which we have just consulted on. We have received more than 3,000 responses and will bring forward our final proposals shortly. We have consulted on a substantial reduction in CO₂ emissions in new homes of between 75% and 80%. I do not want to pre-empt what we might choose to do, having listened to the views in the consultation. However, the evidence that we saw prior to the consultation was that that was the most credible reduction in CO₂ emissions that we could deliver across the whole of the country, although some parts could go further and faster if they chose to do so. We are listening to the responses, and I want to see the industry respond, change and have much higher levels of energy efficiency and to see new heating systems come in as quickly as possible.