Draft Asylum Seekers (Reception Conditions) (Amendment) Regulations 2026 Draft Immigration and Asylum (Provision of Accommodation to Failed Asylum-Seekers) (Amendment) Regulations 2026

Andrew Snowden Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd April 2026 General Committees

[Mr Andrew Snowden (Fylde) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Jeremy. I feel slightly sorry for the Minister in this scenario because he is going to be attacked from the left and the right, which is the tightrope that this Government are trying to walk—the fence that they are trying to sit on. They need to decide which way they are going.

It has been announced to fanfare that the Metropole hotel on the Fylde coast is being closed and will no longer be used for asylum seeker accommodation. Lots of people are nervous and are trying to get information on where those people are going. On behalf of the Government, Serco has been buying up properties to house asylum seekers in my Fylde constituency. Fylde borough council has had to engage Serco formally and ask it to stop buying those properties due to the scale of movement, which we believe is in anticipation of the closure of the hotels. The people will still be in the same area, just housed in a different way.

The Minister will be relieved to hear that I do not have a long and lecture-like speech to make. I simply ask him: what change does he feel—or has his Department estimated—these regulations will make to the number of beds required for the housing of asylum seekers? Has that been quantified, and is it quantifiable, or are these regulations just twiddling around the edges? Will communities like mine that are concerned about the issue actually see any change in the beds required by Serco to house people?

--- Later in debate ---

[Alex Norris]

I gently say that I do not think it is my test. The public are very clear about what they think about the system: the system lacks order and control. The test by which we judge our efforts is whether we bring order and control to the system, and that is what we are doing.

That allows me to segue nicely to what the Liberal Democrat spokesperson, the hon. Member for Woking, said about a credible plan; that is the plan, as he well knows, given that he was part of those deliberations and has been on many occasions. He talked about the appeals backlog—a very important point. I gently say that that is a sign of a system that we are getting to grips with. He will know—indeed, I think I have heard him talk about this before—that the original sin, particularly in relation to hotel capacity, comes from the backlog in initial decision making from when the previous Government just stopped making decisions. As a result, a huge backlog built up. I am very pleased that, as a Government, we have been able to get through that backlog.

The hon. Member has talked about this before, and I listened carefully to what he said about Nightingale-style decision making. I gently say that we do not need to do that, because of the decisions that have been made at a quicker rate, without affecting the grant rate but with better and improving quality. That of course creates pressures on the appeal system while that cohort of people move through it. That is not a forever thing, although I recognise it. He talks about a plan; he will have seen what we have said about appeals reform. I hope that he and his colleagues will feel able to support that in due course.

The hon. Member also talked about knock-on effects on others. I am particularly mindful of local government; he knows my passion for local government. The intention of this measure is not to shift the burden from the Home Office to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government or to councils. Indeed, he will have seen our plans to reduce homelessness, in respect of which we are a significant stakeholder. Of course we are mindful of those effects. I argue that the article 3 backstop in relation to destitution should give him—I hope it does—a degree of confidence that that is not going to happen.

The point about a right to work is one of principled disagreement between us. My strong view is that, if we know that traffickers are saying, “Come to the UK—you will be housed in a hotel and allowed to work illegally”, simply changing the reality so that the people can work legally would be an intolerable pull factor. However, to help close that gap there is the right to work at 12 months, so the gap is not so big. The hon. Gentleman suggested around six months. I do not know if he would go any further, but he certainly mentioned six in his contribution.

With regards to important questions around slavery, the hon. Member mentioned that he does not quite understand the definition of “deliberate”. I do not think people will be accidentally working illegally, but I accept they could be compelled to. That is why we have modern slavery protections through the Modern Slavery Act 2015. We of course take that exceptionally seriously. That vulnerable group of people will not be affected by these provisions.

The hon. Member gave me a slightly impossible challenge by asking me what I will do to make sure that a future Government who do not currently exist do not do something that he and I would not want. I kind of get that, but, as many people have said in this room over the centuries, one Government cannot bind the hands of a future Government. There is a reality there. That is why we have elections and we seek to continue in Government. However, at least in most cases, we have a backstop—we have an article 3 backstop and a refugee convention backstop—that gives universal protections irrespective of the Government of the day. Those principles are of course contested, although not by us, but I hope the hon. Member is reassured that the backstop exists.

The SNP spokesperson, the hon. Member for Dundee Central, spoke at great length about a world that I did not quite recognise, and which I have to say is not in anything we are preparing here. I say gently to him that there is nothing progressive about defending a status quo where human traffickers have the most agency and people routinely lose their lives in the channel, and that is before any sort of transit effects—never mind the impact on the women and children in that transit. If that was a challenge about where I sit on the political spectrum, there was language in what he said I would not recognise.

This is a hopelessly broken system; there is nothing progressive about defending it, which is why we are seeking to change it. The hon. Member set out quite a dystopian vision, but I gently say that for around six years of our nation’s history, between 1999 and 2005, we relied on the power rather than the duty. I was at school at the time and remember those days only tangentially, but it was not exactly a dystopian past, so I do not recognise what he said.

The hon. Member said that the support we have today should be a floor, not a ceiling. I have not heard from Scottish nationalist colleagues—even, I suspect, as a feature of the current election in Scotland—a suggestion of what services or public investments they would cut in order to top this up, and in what way. I hope that he will be out making the case for that on the doorstep as soon as possible, and at least quantify what we should stop doing, so that we can do more on this.

The hon. Member also mentioned destitution. Again, I would rely on the article 3 backstop on that. He talked about a “straw man”, but that is not in the nature of my politics. I reassure him that this is a genuine attempt to grip a system that does not work. We have had lots of debates in the Chamber on the other things we are doing; this is a serious attempt to grasp a serious problem. It is a good thing that the level of offending is mercifully low, but we want that level to be nil, as that is a fair balance with the taxpayer. That is why we are doing what we are doing.

The hon. Member for Fylde asked what side we are on—left or right? I am on the side of the British people. That is the reason why I am here. It is why I stood for my council. It is why I stood for Parliament and why I wanted to be a Government Minister.

[Mr Snowden]

That’s a cop out!

[Alex Norris]

It is not a cop out, as the hon. Gentleman suggests from his seat. It is about saying that there is nothing progressive about defending a broken status quo or a reality that the British public know does not work—and we do know that. We are all knocking on doors at the moment, right? Instead, we seek to build something rooted in British values. That is the side I am on.

The hon. Member talked about hotel closures. He challenged me by saying that his community is not seeing change, but the closure of a hotel is a significant change, and that is coming to the 180 or so hotels that are still open, down from 400 at the peak.

[Mr Snowden]

I want to make sure that the Minister does not put words in my mouth. I did not say that this was not a good thing, but that we are waiting with bated breath to find out whether it is a good thing, based on where the people who were being housed in the hotel will be placed.

[Alex Norris]

People enter and exit the system at various points for various reasons. Our number one principle is that we want to reduce demand. In the last two years, there have been more than 80,000 applications. Between 2011 and 2020, there were a third of that number. The No. 1 way to close hotels is to reduce demand.

Dispersal accommodation is a factor in all our communities. We operate the policy of full dispersal, which we inherited from the previous Government, to make sure that that is done in an equitable way. [Interruption.]