Points of Order

Andy McDonald Excerpts

Tuesday 6th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

rose—

[Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) (Lab)]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I will call the shadow Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government first. I have the hon. Member for Middlesbrough (Andy McDonald) in mind; he need not worry.

[Mr Speaker]

The short answer to the hon. Gentleman, to whom I am grateful for giving me an indication of his intention to raise his point of order, is no. I have received no such indication from the Secretary of State.

The hon. Gentleman is a notable eager beaver in the House. He is most assiduous in the discharge of his duties, and he obviously wanted to be here today to air his serious concern about this matter, invoking third-party support as he developed his argument. Let me say to him that I think that his opportunity for direct exchange will come ere long. Local government finance is to be debated in the Chamber tomorrow. It is a reasonable expectation of the hon. Gentleman that the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government will be in his place on the Treasury Bench, ready to speak from the Dispatch Box, and I have a hunch that the hon. Gentleman will be in his place, and very likely leaping up from it to interject on the Secretary of State in pursuit of satisfaction. The House will be agog to witness those exchanges.

[Andy McDonald]

rose—

[Clive Lewis (Norwich South) (Lab)]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

I am saving up the hon. Member for Norwich South (Clive Lewis); as I often say, it would be a pity to squander him at too early a stage of our proceedings.

[Andy McDonald]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Yesterday, in his statement to the House, the Secretary of State for Transport was asked by the right hon. Member for New Forest West (Sir Desmond Swayne):

“How good is Lord Adonis’s memory”

in connection to the collapse of East Coast. The Secretary of State replied:

“I am not a doctor, but I know that there is no record whatever of any ban on National Express continuing to bid for franchises after 2009”.—[Official Report, 5 February 2018; Vol. 635, c. 1247.]

That was when it defaulted on east coast rail.

That is entirely incorrect. On 1 July 2009, Lord Adonis told Parliament that National Express was banned, as recorded in Hansard. He said:

“It would clearly be reasonable not to invite a company to bid for future franchises in circumstances where it had recently failed to deliver on a previous franchise. A company which had defaulted in the way that National Express now intends would not have pre-qualified for any previous franchises let by the department.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 1 July 2009; Vol. 712, c. 226.]

Lord Adonis has made it clear that the ban was based on advice from the Department.

The ministerial code says:

“Ministers must give accurate and truthful information to Parliament, correcting any inadvertent error at the earliest opportunity.”

Can you advise me, Mr Speaker, of whether the Secretary of State’s statement amounts to a breach of the ministerial code, and how an appropriate apology and correction might be secured from him?

[Mr Speaker]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, whom I indulged fully as he developed his point of order. I say with respect to the latter part of his observations, in respect of an alleged breach of the ministerial code, that I am not its arbiter. It is not for the Chair to adjudicate upon whether a Minister has breached the ministerial code. Whether the hon. Gentleman likes it or not, that is in the hands of the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister looks at such matters, or can ask others to look at them on her behalf, but it is not a matter for the Chair.

I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising the matter, and although it is not—simply as a matter of constitutional fact—a point of order for the Chair, he has none the less taken the opportunity to put his concerns on the record. It is up to the Government if they wish to respond to the matter he raises, because there is absolutely no doubt that Ministers will have heard what he had to say—it will have been heard on the Treasury Bench, and it either will have been heard, or will very soon be heard, by the particular Minister at whom his remarks were directed.

Asylum Support Contracts

Andy McDonald Excerpts

Wednesday 10th February 2016 Westminster Hall

[Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

I beg to move,

That the House has considered contracts let by the Home Office for the provision of asylum support.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship today, Mr Stringer, and it is also a pleasure to be joined by many colleagues from across the House to consider this important issue this morning.

It is my hope that this debate today will elicit some better answers from the Home Office in response to the serious concerns that have been raised by many Members from all parties in the House about the provision of support to asylum seekers under contract to the Home Office.

I begin by paying tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough (Andy McDonald) and my neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff Central (Jo Stevens), who have done an excellent job, alongside many others, in bringing concerns about the practical implications of the failures of companies providing asylum support service across the UK to the attention of the House and the country. These include examples involving G4S and Clearsprings, including the two particularly shocking examples of the stigmatisation of highly vulnerable people by placing them in houses with red doors or forcing them to wear red wristbands to get food. I will come back to those shameful episodes in a moment, but it is clear that there are additional serious concerns on top of those two high-profile examples.

To begin with, it is worth putting asylum into the wider context of the immigration debate. I make it clear from the start that I believe in a tough and robust immigration system. Successive Governments—it is important to be frank, so that includes those of my own party—have failed on a number of measures regarding the immigration system, including counting people in and out. Exit checks were not introduced until recently—I had long argued that they should be introduced—and until relatively recently we had failed to begin to address the debate on, for example, EU migration and benefits, which has deeply and corrosively damaged public confidence in the many positives that immigration has brought and can bring. My own diverse city and constituency know those positives only too well.

Let me also be crystal clear that I am very proud of the role that Britain has played in offering a place of sanctuary to those fleeing persecution and violence, and it should continue to play that role. I was proud that in the midst of the Mediterranean refugee crisis last year, a cross-party group, brought together by young people from the Butetown and Grangetown areas in my constituency, stood up in my city of Cardiff and made it clear that refugees are welcome in our city, just as they always have been.

I am particularly proud of the work of organisations such as the City of Sanctuary movement in cities including Cardiff, and local organisations such as the Oasis trust in Splott in my constituency, which are working to support these vulnerable people in many different ways.

There is a huge amount of misinformation about asylum seekers and refugees, and the truth is in short supply. The 1951 United Nations convention relating to the status of refugees states that a refugee is a person who

“owing to well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country; or who, not having a nationality and being outside the country of his former habitual residence as a result of such events, is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to return to it.”

In the UK, a person is officially a refugee when they have their claim for asylum accepted by the Government, and an asylum seeker is a person who has left their country of origin and formally applied for asylum in another country but whose application has not yet been concluded.

I am sorry, Mr Stringer, to have to remind us of these raw facts, but because we are in a time of misleading information and hyperbole about immigration, when the media, debate in this House and indeed the Prime Minister himself frequently and dangerously blur the distinctions between asylum seeker, refugee, EU migrant, economic migrant, overstaying visitor and many other categories, we can come to the wrong policy conclusions, fail to support those seeking sanctuary with dignity, and, at the same time, risk community relations and the potential for integration.

To illustrate my concerns, let me give another example, which gets to the nub of some of the concerns about the issue of these contracts and the way that providers are behaving. A number of constituents and local representatives have contacted me in recent weeks with their concerns about a supposed new asylum facility opening up in a residential area of east Cardiff. They had seen the horrible crowding of people into Lynx House in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff Central, and the media reports, and they are fearful that, for example, a large group of young men might be placed in another unsuitable location, in order to make quick money for a landlord or the contracting company, and with no consultation or dialogue with local residents.

Like most good Cardiff and Welsh people, these constituents and local representatives made it clear to me that they had no objection to asylum seekers or refugees living locally. For example, one older resident told me personally how she would happily welcome in the streets or the local area Syrian families fleeing the horrors that she had witnessed on TV. However, she and others also had very natural fears, which were compounded by rumours that had circulated and the apparent lack of any consultation or dialogue.

In yesterday’s sitting of the Home Affairs Committee, I asked the chief executive of Clearsprings directly whether or not he plans to operate more facilities like Lynx House in east Cardiff, as he had indicated to my hon. Friend the Member for Streatham (Mr Umunna) that he was likely to want to expand his company. I await the chief executive’s urgent reply. Perhaps the Minister can enlighten me, if he is aware of any facts relating to the further plans of Clearsprings in Cardiff.

Many other people have expressed fears, which are often unfounded and based on the hyperbole in the media debate, and other concerns have been fuelled by disgraceful comments, such as the Prime Minister referring to a “bunch of migrants”. As I have said, herein lies the nub of this issue. We appear to have a situation in which the Home Office is contracting with a small number of companies to place highly vulnerable people, often, it seems, in crowded or unsuitable accommodation, in a very small number of areas in a small group of dispersal centres and cities, and frequently in areas of low rents and deprivation. It is good to see the Minister for Immigration himself here in Westminster Hall today, but he admitted yesterday that he had most likely zero or very few asylum seekers accommodated in his own constituency.

[Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. Regarding how these properties are let, was he as amazed as I was to discover that different people can be put into a single bedroom quite inappropriately? A young man in my community who is gay and who has come to this country is having to share a bedroom with somebody who was once a member of the Taliban. Does my hon. Friend not find that an utterly ridiculous state of affairs?

[Stephen Doughty]

I find that absolutely extraordinary; my hon. Friend gives a shocking example. As a gay MP myself, I would find it horrendous to be placed in accommodation with somebody who potentially had persecuted me or potentially would persecute me. However, that is the reality of many people’s experience—they find themselves in unsuitable accommodation. Yesterday in the Home Affairs Committee, we heard one example of 11 people being crowded into a room, and I have heard examples of individuals being placed with people who allegedly may have persecuted them in the past. Some very serious concerns are being raised.

The asylum dispersal and integration process appears to have stopped, and the principle behind it appears to have been abandoned, not only at the limited number of dispersal locations but at the localities within them. I would be interested to hear the Minister’s views on that and on whether we are getting things right. Simply put, the system as it stands is not good for those seeking sanctuary, not good for the communities that those people are being placed in and not good for wider integration, and I also question whether it is good value for the Government.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Doughty]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. People who have been through those fearful situations—many of them are fleeing such places as Eritrea, Syria, Iraq or Afghanistan—will be fearful of expressing concerns.

The situation is apparently not unique to Cardiff. My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips), who unfortunately cannot be present today, wanted me to highlight her experience of working in the asylum system. She noted how women who have fallen through the gaps of the national referral mechanism for victims of human trafficking have suffered greatly under the lack of specialist provision in Government-contracted asylum accommodation. She told me that, for the women who end up housed in G4S accommodation in the centre of Birmingham, none of the same stringent checks and balances that are normally in place for victims of human trafficking are catered for. There are no non-gendered services and there is next to no security in place to protect that vulnerable group of people. Indeed, she was able to walk into the accommodation and witness the name of a woman who had been trafficked written on the wall in the hall, displaying to anyone who might have walked in looking for her that she was there. That is totally unacceptable and raises serious concerns about the special provision needed for some of the people fleeing such situations.

On the COMPASS contract, an answer from the Minister made it clear that in 2012 Clearsprings Ready Homes was awarded two contracts for the provision of asylum accommodation, transport and related services. The estimated contract value for Clearsprings over the seven years—that is, five plus two—for each region is £75 million for Wales and £55 million for London and the south of England. The Clearsprings chief executive admitted yesterday that in 2015, while things were not quite as profitable as he would have liked, he received a salary package of more than £200,000 in return for delivering the contract. His chair, Mr King, received a package totalling £960,000. Most people, whether they are taxpayers or vulnerable asylum seekers, would find those figures astonishing. Other significant and valuable contracts have been let to other providers, including G4S—I am sure we will hear more about those.

The COMPASS contract has a statement of requirements for dispersal accommodation and transport providers. It is worth being specific about the key requirements under the contract. The first is to provide safe, habitable, fit for purpose and correctly equipped accommodation to asylum seekers and to ensure that properties adhere to the standards established in the decent homes standard. The second is to provide adequate transport to and from initial accommodation, dispersal accommodation and medical appointments. The third is to abide by contractual management regulations at all levels, ensuring that there is a complaints procedure for those living in dispersal accommodation and that organisations report on their performance against the specified standards. Each of those duties must fulfil the broader contractual duties to promote and safeguard the welfare of children in particular, to ensure the safety and security of those living within dispersed accommodation, and to ensure that staff have an overview of the asylum process and the needs particular to those seeking asylum.

Yesterday, I made that point directly to the chief executive of Clearsprings, who appeared to imply in his evidence to the Home Affairs Committee that his duties relate only to the bare provision of housing. The words he used were that he was “contractually compliant”. Given the very specific needs of the group of people he is accommodating, I argue that his company and the Home Office should be acting proactively to ensure that the duties set out in the contract are fulfilled.

I have given a number of examples already, but it is not only from my experience that I question whether the standards are being met. During 2015, the Welsh Refugee Council collated a series of complaints demonstrating persistent failings to meet the standards. Analysis of the data reveals a series of persistent concerns around standards of accommodation, size of accommodation, and harassment and antisocial behaviour experienced in accommodation from other tenants and members of staff.

The complaints reveal that it is not simply the physical condition of the properties provided by Clearsprings—we have heard about the situation at Lynx House—that are of concern for service users and providers; the standards of service provision were identified as a serious concern, and there was a general feeling that the service provider had little appreciation of the difficulties faced by asylum seekers and their reasons for seeking sanctuary in the UK. There was a common perception in the survey that there was a greater focus on internal targets and profit generation than on providing a service that protected and supported vulnerable people.

[Andy McDonald]

My hon. Friend is eloquently analysing the structure of the contracts. Does he share my frustration that Jomast, a subcontractor in my area, has some 3,000 properties, and if they are paid £11.50 per person per night, the back of an envelope calculation shows an income of £12 million a year? Such access to taxpayers’ money could surely provide a better service than the one we are currently enjoying.

[Stephen Doughty]

I wholeheartedly agree with my hon. Friend’s comments. Serious questions need to be asked when such a large amount of taxpayers’ money is provided under the quite stringent terms of the contract, but are those terms followed through and delivered? Given that Home Office inspectors regularly visit the properties, as the chief executive of Clearsprings made clear yesterday, why have those concerns not come to attention before?

The concerns that sanctuary seekers face are a constant source of worry and anxiety, often aggravating pre-existing experiences of trauma in what should be a place of sanctuary. Some have reported that their interactions with Clearsprings staff are not consistently facilitated through interpreters, and there have been multiple incidents of perceived hostility and verbal abuse from staff towards residents. Another issue that has been raised with me is the question of male versus female staff in the properties. It has been suggested that there is a significant weakness in terms of the numbers of female members of staff, so can the Minister tell us what the numbers are?

The Welsh Refugee Council and various other charities that deal with refugees and asylum seekers have strongly advocated a radical change in the Home Office’s approach to housing. It is clear and evident that more care must go into supporting this distinct group of people with complex needs, many of whom have experienced persecution, torture and violence.

I will conclude shortly because I know other Members wish to speak, but I want to talk about what needs to happen with the COMPASS contract, and I have specific questions for the Minister. It is my belief that the Home Office should initiate and lead a comprehensive review of the COMPASS contract in Wales and nationwide to deal with housing standards and the experience of users. The review should be multi-agency and should involve, at the very least, the Welsh Government, local authorities, key housing bodies, refugee representatives and the support organisations that work with them.

The review needs to have clear objectives, including improving the monitoring and contract compliance practice within COMPASS, and it needs to underscore the existing COMPASS statement of requirements with a new person-centred framework and guidelines to ensure that high-quality planning, policy and practice exist within COMPASS for all asylum applicants in the UK. It needs to look at the Home Office’s wider equalities duties and its commitments to those who face human trafficking, because it is clear that there are failings in that area. It also needs to look at the experience of users. At a senior level, a contractor might promise to deal with X, Y or Z and to uphold certain standards, but if that is not filtering down to those who actually interact with the relatively small group of vulnerable people, that is simply not good enough.

My final questions for the Minister are these: is he satisfied with the compliance of Clearsprings and other asylum contractors with the terms of the COMPASS contract? Does he consider that they still represent good value for money? Why did no Home Office inspector raise concerns with Clearsprings about the red band issue prior to its exposure in the media? What other concerns have been raised with him about Clearsprings operations in Cardiff or elsewhere in the UK?

Does the Minister consider the salaries and remuneration of the Clearsprings directors and CEO to be appropriate for a public sector contract of this nature? The chief executive of Clearsprings admitted yesterday that the £960,000 payment to his chair resulted from a discussion with Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs about the best “tax approach” to take to a loan. Can the Minister tell us any more about that and whether he was aware of any such discussions involving HMRC? How many individual sites does the Clearsprings contract house asylum seekers at in Wales? Is he aware of plans to expand those facilities? Obviously, I have specific concerns about the plan to expand into another potentially unsuitable facility in the east of Cardiff.

Finally, is dispersal evenly spread across localities and local government wards in Cardiff and other dispersal locations across the UK? I have a concern that we are not dispersing to enough locations in the UK. There is a question of what happens within cities and the localities into which individuals are placed, which is crucial when we consider integration and balance within a city.

I conclude by reminding Members that we are not asking for special or VIP treatment. We are simply asking for human beings to be treated with the dignity and compassion that they rightly deserve, and it is the Home Office’s duty to ensure that that is the case.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) (Lab)]

It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty) for securing this incredibly important debate. My constituency has the highest concentration of asylum seekers anywhere in the United Kingdom. In December 2015, we had 1,042 asylum seekers, which is way in excess of the cluster limit. The Minister may say that the number has been reduced by some small amount, but the figures are clear. In some communities, there is an asylum seeker for every 18 residents, and I hope the Minister will take that fact on board.

I am terrifically proud of Middlesbrough’s long history of compassion and support. We have Justice First, the Churches—Methodist Action, the Catholic Church and the Anglican Church—and other faith groups, charities and individuals. A fantastic network of love and compassion underpins all that work, and I am delighted to celebrate it.

It was the red doors issue that brought this matter into focus. While I do not criticise Andrew Norfolk of The Times for his excellent piece of work that brought the issue into the light, I do not agree that the local contractor, Jomast, deliberately set out to mark the properties occupied by those seeking sanctuary, but it was clearly known to the contractor. They were its properties and it painted the doors red, so for it to plead ignorance of the issue is indicative of the arrogance that characterises how it goes about its business. However, it was not deliberate so let us paint the doors in other colours and move on.

G4S is the main contactor in my region. It has no record of running housing contracts and yet it still got the contract. The local subcontractor, Stuart Monk of Jomast, then had them over a barrel. He held out for the best deal that he could possibly extract, because he had the properties and G4S did not, and he has made a mint. G4S says it does not make any money out of the contract. Well, diddums. If it does not like it, let us bring the contract to an end and get G4S out of the picture as quickly as possible. It has demonstrated that it should be nowhere near Government public service business. Just look at what it did in our prisons. We only have to cast our minds back to the dreadful fraud it perpetrated on the taxpayer over the prisoner tagging contract. It is not a fit and proper company and the sooner it is out of our national life, the better.

The arrogance and contempt that characterises so much of G4S’s behaviour was never more evident than when John Whitwam, a managing director, recently appeared before the Home Affairs Committee. He quite deliberately tried to leave the Committee with the impression that the local authority was totally engaged throughout the process, but that is simply not true. Indeed, the problem is that local authorities have no standing in the business of housing asylum seekers and have been cut out of the loop. Following Mr Whitwam’s suggestion that local authorities are somehow involved in the approval and inspection of properties, I trust that the Minister will speak to the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee because I think that Parliament was grossly misled and I hope that action follows.

What on earth are we doing as a country? Why do the Government think that the right thing to do in response to a humanitarian crisis is to create a structure that is all about making money—profits created by handing over taxpayers’ money to private companies? There is something wrong here. Of course, we want to carry on providing succour and support for our sisters and brothers, but the Government simply abuse our good nature. That support and sanctuary should come with a commitment to support the local services that have to respond. My town has been hammered by the lunacy of austerity. My local authority has suffered cut after cut, so that I am now questioning whether it can even begin to discharge the barest of statutory functions.

In addition, what do we learn today on the back of the abolition of the revenue support grant, which will cripple communities up and down the country? In The Guardian this morning it is laid bare: again, the Tory Government punish Labour councils and give support to their Tory boroughs. The Government’s behaviour is partial, inequitable, grossly discriminatory and ill-becoming a party that purports to govern for the entire country. It is beneath the shires and City bankers to trouble themselves with such matters—leave it to the northerners, the Scots and the Welsh—because those in their cosy world do not want to be troubled.

It will escape no one’s attention that in the Prime Minister’s constituency we will not find a single person seeking sanctuary, even though areas such as his receive the favourable local government finance settlement transitional relief, while areas that take asylum seekers get nothing at all. The unfairness is stark. Perhaps the Prime Minister’s mother should write him a letter. Understandably, the Tories will say, “Look to the regions, look to the Labour heartlands. They won’t protest, they won’t complain, so we can get away with it.” Therein lies the dilemma.

We are proud of our compassion and of the welcome given to strangers in our communities—many of us and the people we represent have been strangers too. We try to recognise our good fortune and to be generous to those who have not been so fortunate. Yes, we will not walk by on the other side of the road and we will try to treat people as we would like to be treated ourselves, but we look to the Government to behave in a patriotic, fair and balanced way. That means that we respond generously as a nation and we do not leave it only to those parts of our country that are already facing immensely difficult times.

We look proudly at our history as a nation. We are rightly marking the 71st anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau. We rightly remember the Kindertransport of the 1930s as a positive response to the crisis faced by thousands of children throughout Europe. It therefore pains me to hear the Prime Minister of Great Britain and Northern Ireland describing the modern-day Kindertransportees as a “bunch of migrants”. I want better from our country’s Prime Minister and so do millions of our fellow citizens. I am afraid that that laid bare the true thinking of this cruel and pernicious Government.

If every town and city in the United Kingdom welcomed 5% of the distressed, vulnerable and persecuted people that my wonderful town of Middlesbrough does, no one would even notice that they were here. What happens instead? The whole exercise has been turned into a profit-making, value-extracting one for the likes of Stuart Monk and his company Jomast to make millions of pounds of profit from.

The Minister is a decent man and I look forward to further discussions with him about how things might be progressed. However, I met with him in November 2014 and many of the issues that are being raised now were raised with him then. I regret to note that absolutely no progress has been made since. I hope that he takes on board the comments of hon. Members from throughout the United Kingdom today and accedes to the request for a formal review of a rotten contract. Let us start behaving properly.

[Graham Stringer (in the Chair)]

Before I call Stuart McDonald, I advise the Minister that the proposer of the motion does not require the two minutes or so at the end of the debate.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stuart C. McDonald]

The hon. Lady makes an excellent point and I agree wholeheartedly. Having only 17 Home Office inspectors for some 36,000 placements seems wholly inadequate. Furthermore, the lack of complaints is not surprising given the vulnerable nature of many of the people who use the services, as hon. Members have said, and given the evidence that induction packs are often insufficient, if they are even given out at all. It is little surprise that it is not the KPIs, inspections or complaints that are throwing the problems up—it is campaign groups, non-governmental organisations and diligent investigative journalists.

The question is, what more would we discover if we had a thorough inquiry into how the contracts are working? At the moment we can only speculate, but we can all agree that there are enough danger signs for us to say that we definitely need such an inquiry. I have asked for the Home Affairs Committee to undertake that task, although I agree that other possibilities exist.

In fairness to the Immigration Minister, he did not make the decision to switch to the COMPASS contract. That decision was made in 2009, with the then target contracts phased out in time for COMPASS kicking off in 2012. As the hon. Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) pointed out, the ambition was to save £140 million on services over seven years by replacing 22 separate contracts with six larger COMPASS contracts.

Although the Minister was not responsible for instigating the contracts, he will soon have to decide whether to extend them and I hope that he will not do so without a thorough and wide-ranging review of contractor performance. I also hope that the Home Office will wait for such a review before pressing ahead with the welcome plans to broaden the number of local authorities involved in dispersal.

We on the Opposition Benches doubt whether such services can ever be amenable to contracting when the only possibility to maximise returns is cutting corners and costs and the people accessing services have no choice in who provides their housing. In other words, they have to like it or lump it, and many asylum seekers will lump it silently. Serious consideration should be given to changing fundamentally how we provide housing for asylum seekers, including a possible return to provision by local authorities. We also have to consider whether the savings envisaged by the COMPASS contracts have been delivered.

[Andy McDonald]

The hon. Gentleman is making an important contribution. On local authorities stepping back into the breach, does he share my concern that while that is desirable, it would be a disaster if money did not follow that move? If that path is pursued, my fear is that Government will simply expect local authorities to take that on without that qualification.

[Stuart C. McDonald]

Absolutely. There is a huge question mark over whether sufficient resources have been provided to fund the contracts and that remains as a question whether services are returned to local authorities or not.

We must consider whether the savings envisaged in the COMPASS contracts have been delivered by so-called efficiencies or simply by lowering accommodation standards. I thank the hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth for ensuring that the House considers asylum support contracts, which will require even more detailed and thorough consideration in the months ahead.

Asylum Seekers: Middlesbrough

Andy McDonald Excerpts

Wednesday 20th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) (Lab)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department to make a statement on the revelation today about discriminatory treatment of asylum seekers in Middlesbrough.

[The Minister for Immigration (James Brokenshire)]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for asking this urgent question and allowing me the opportunity to set out the Government’s response to the issues raised in The Times today.

From the outset, I underline that the United Kingdom has a proud history of granting asylum to those who need it, and we are committed to providing safe and secure accommodation while asylum cases are considered. The Immigration and Asylum Act 1999 introduced the policy of national dispersal, which was designed to share the impact of asylum seekers across the whole United Kingdom. Under that arrangement, asylum seekers are housed across the UK under voluntary agreements between national Governments and local authorities. Those arrangements have been in place since 2000. Under current arrangements—the commercial and operating managers procuring asylum support services, or COMPASS, contracts—three companies provide asylum seeker accommodation, transport and related services. In Middlesbrough those services are provided by G4S.

As right hon. and hon. Members will have seen from my response published in The Times this morning, I am deeply concerned about the issues raised and the painting of doors of asylum seeker accommodation in a single colour. Anything that identifies asylum seeker accommodation to those who may wish to harm those accommodated in the properties must be avoided. I spoke to the chief executive officer of G4S this morning, and he assured me that neither G4S nor its subcontractor in Middlesbrough, Jomast, has a policy that states that asylum seeker properties should be identified in such a way. However, Jomast does accept that the company uses red paint across its portfolio of properties.

I have asked Home Office officials to look into this issue as a matter of urgency, and to report to me and the permanent secretary. G4S has advised that doors in the area will be repainted so that there is no predominant colour. As part of the audit that we have commissioned, I have asked it to ensure that COMPASS contracts have been appropriately implemented in Middlesbrough, and I have considered the Home Office’s arrangements for monitoring contract compliance in that area and more generally.

The Home Office works with COMPASS providers and local authorities to ensure that the impact of dispersal on local communities and services is taken into account when allocating accommodation. It is the responsibility of the suppliers to ensure that all accommodation used meets required contractual standards, and complies with the decent home standards—specifically, that accommodation is safe, habitable and fit for purpose. Each property used is subject to a housing officer visit every 28 days. In addition, Home Office contract compliance teams inspect a third of all properties using an intelligence-led, risk-based approach to monitor standards and ensure maintenance faults are rectified within the prescribed timescales.

Let me be clear to the House that I expect the highest standards from our contractors. If we have evidence of discrimination against asylum seekers, it will be dealt with immediately.

[Andy McDonald]

I am very grateful to the Minister for his very thoughtful and considered response. I share with him Middlesbrough’s proud record of welcoming people fleeing persecution and torture. We are rightly proud of the excellent arrangements we have with our churches and charities. I am proud of those people and the welcome they offer.

As the Minister rightly says, the background is that the contract for housing asylum seekers in the north-east is held by G4S and subcontracted to Jomast. The excellent article by Andrew Norfolk published in The Times explains that Jomast has 168 properties in two wards. Some 155 of them have their front doors to the street painted red. This marks out the properties and their inhabitants for those with prejudicial motivations and evil intent. There are accounts of asylum seekers being abused in their homes as a direct result of being so readily identifiable. Their doors have been smeared with dog excrement and daubed with graffiti showing the National Front logo. Eggs and stones have been thrown at their properties and they have been subjected to verbal abuse.

Such a policy may not be deliberate, but Jomast have to think it through. There is clearly a risk of undermining social cohesion and the safety of those seeking sanctuary. I am aghast that G4S claims no knowledge of that. Jomast has undertaken to remedy the position, but it is imperative that the Government insist that remedial action be taken as a matter of supreme urgency, and that the contractor and subcontractor are held to account. The Minister talks about the way the contract is managed. I ask him to stick to the theory he outlined in such great detail, because I am aware that the practice is far from the theory. Many people can be confined to one bedroom. That, simply, is not dignified. It is not a humanitarian response to put people in those conditions.

The public policy implications for contracting out the arrangements are devastating. People should not derive public profit from these matters; they are a matter for central Government and local government. Local government is the best organisation to look at the wider implications of welcoming people into our communities in this way. I therefore ask the Minister to review and reconsider that matter.

When did the Minister first become aware of this concern? When did G4S become aware of it and what action did it take? What steps is the Department taking to ensure that the readily identifiable red doors are corrected and on what timescale? At the moment, Jomast says it acknowledges the issue and will address it over three to six months. I suggest to the Minister that that is simply not acceptable. This must be done as a matter of supreme urgency: I have in mind a timescale of three to six weeks, rather than three to six months. I would like him to address that. If the Minister concludes that what has happened is discriminatory, what action will he take? In short, will he outline what penalties he has available to him to make sure that G4S, which has, frankly, suffered a great deal of reputational damage in recent times, and Jomast are held to account?

[James Brokenshire]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for the way in which he raises his concerns. Like him, I pay tribute to the work and the approach that Middlesbrough, as an authority, has taken for many years in seeking to accommodate asylum seekers. He will be aware that a number of discussions have taken place between my officials, Home Office officials and Middlesbrough Council on the concentration of asylum seekers, as Middlesbrough is the only place in the country where our threshold of one in 200 is exceeded. I have asked my officials to look at that closely and at a plan to bring it back within the appropriate standards we have set.

On the report in The Times today and on the experiences of some people being accommodated in housing in Middlesbrough, I condemn absolutely any crimes of hate, any actions that sow divisions within communities and any actions that seek to intimidate or mark out asylum seekers in any way. We have been in contact with the local police this morning to underline any issues of community reassurance. They are actively considering appropriate steps. Complaints about hate crime should be made to the police, so they can be followed up and appropriate action taken.

The hon. Gentleman asks me about the urgency of response. As soon as I heard about the matter, which was late last week when The Times first contacted us, I instructed officials to look into it urgently because of my very serious concerns about what I was hearing. I expect the audit to be concluded on the Home Office side quickly, and completed at the latest by the end of this month.

On G4S, we have an ongoing regime of inspection of the maintenance and condition of properties. G4S has met standards where maintenance issues have been identified as requiring remedial action. It has followed through on them, but the audit will look at that closely. The chief executive officer of G4S underlined to me, in a conversation this morning, the seriousness and urgency of the issue. He underlined the sense of urgency that he and G4S attach to repainting doors to make sure there is no predominant colour. I said that I expected that to be done quickly. That was the message I got back from G4S.

This is a matter of utmost concern. The Home Office is working on it closely. We will look at it carefully and rigorously. It is not simply a question of looking at the contract. If there are issues that need to be brought to the attention of the police, and criminal action taken thereafter, that will be a matter for the police. I urge those with evidence to come forward and ensure it is reported appropriately.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andy McDonald Excerpts

Monday 6th July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mike Penning]

The NCA has a cyber-unit whose work is done nationally and regionally through the regional organised crime units. We have introduced two new pieces of legislation, but more needs to be done. I was the Minister for online child protection, so I know all too well what needs to be done. What I told the hon. Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock) was that the police force is doing a fantastic job with fewer resources and we should be proud of what it is doing.

[Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) (Lab)]

3. What assessment she has made of the level of regional variation in real-terms funding changes for police forces.

[The Minister for Policing, Crime and Criminal Justice (Mike Penning)]

The way the funding formula works means that there is no change based on the region someone is in.

[Andy McDonald]

The Government have made vague references to a review of the grossly unfair police funding formula, but there is no confirmation as yet of when it will conclude. Cleveland, which has one of the highest numbers of crimes per head of population, has experienced a reduction of 18% in overall funding since 2010, whereas Surrey, which has one of the lowest numbers, has experienced a reduction of 12%. That shows how Cleveland has been disadvantaged by cuts being made with no account taken of local need and circumstances. What assistance will the Minister give to forces that are struggling to keep officers on the front line, pending the review?

[Mike Penning]

The funding formula for 2015-16 has been announced. Crime in Cleveland has dropped by 12%, which is what I think the hon. Gentleman was alluding to. We will consult this summer on the new funding formula for 2016-17 so we have a fairer formula than that which we inherited from the Labour party.

Asylum Seekers (Support)

Andy McDonald Excerpts

Thursday 10th April 2014 Commons Chamber

[James Brokenshire]

In 2013, the number of asylum applications in the EU was the highest since 2002. The UK has experienced a rise, but countries such as Germany and France saw increases of 164% and 37% respectively between 2010 and 2013. We are committed to resolving cases more quickly, and we provide direct assistance to regions in crisis, such as Syria, so that people do not need to travel to the UK or elsewhere to seek that assistance.

[Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) (Lab)]

Will the Minister not acknowledge that to replace services provided in my area by the North East Refugee Service with a simple telephone call is detrimental to the cohesion of services that work together in that locality?

Alcohol: Minimum Unit Price

Andy McDonald Excerpts

Thursday 14th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Browne]

First, yes the results will be published. I have given some of the arguments an airing this morning and they will be provided in much greater detail. Secondly, I am afraid to say that despite the millions of pounds of Short money paid by taxpayers in my constituency and that of my hon. Friend to fund the activities of the Labour party, it seems to be lamentably short of the requisite standard of a proper Opposition.

[Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) (Lab)]

The Government ditched the proposed ban on the sale of alcohol below the cost of duty and VAT. Will they bring that back?

[Mr Browne]

We have had a consultation and we are reflecting on its results. We will make further announcements to those we have already made on alcohol strategy when we are in a position to do so.

Police

Andy McDonald Excerpts

Wednesday 13th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) (Lab)]

I hope to keep my remarks brief and not to trouble the time limit that you, Mr Deputy Speaker, might impose.

I too pay tribute to Paul McKeever. His passing was tragic. He was an articulate, intelligent and passionate speaker, who will be a great loss.

I refer first to the National Crime Agency. My right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) rightly highlighted concern about budgeting, following the change in the landscape that he described. In our Committee discussions, it seemed clear that there would be a nigh-on halving of the total funding for the NCA to discharge its functions in relation to the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre, the Serious Organised Crime Agency and the UK Border Agency. That needs further attention, and I am sure it will not escape my right hon. Friend’s notice.

I very much welcome the tone of recent exchanges in the debate; it is a marked distinction from some of the opening remarks. I do not want anybody to think that I, as a new Member, or anybody else on the Labour Benches has anything but the greatest respect and admiration for our police force, or that we want anything other than to celebrate the reduction in the crime rate. It has been established during the debate that since the days of John Major’s Government the trend is for a continued decline in the crime rate, but we stand by our record: we were the only Government in modern history to leave office with lower rates of crime than when we came in. Perhaps we can nail that issue and celebrate the reduction in crime, although we must for ever be on our guard.

It would be remiss of me not to thank the Minister of State, the hon. Member for Taunton Deane (Mr Browne), for the welcome assurance he gave in Committee about the preservation of regional organised crime units. I was concerned that the intelligence and successful operation of those units could have been lost in the changing landscape. I am very much aware of the success of my own regional organised crime unit in recently bringing to account a significant class A drugs crime ring.

For some time, the Opposition have been warning the Government that cutting police budgets by 20% will have an adverse impact on front-line policing. To say that such cuts can be imposed without impact is simply unrealistic. In Cleveland, the number of officers lost between March 2010 and September 2012 was about 234, reducing the total number of police officers from 1,724 to 1,490. According to Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary, that translates into about 15,000 police officers nationally, which will result in the lowest number of police officers for more than a decade. As at September 2011, 11,500 officers had already gone.

All of that necessarily has an impact on the ability of officers to respond to emergency calls, and will result in less visible policing in our communities and on our streets. I took on board the comments of the hon. Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert), who said it was not simply a question of numbers, but I respectfully suggest that it is self-evident: if the critical mass of police officers is too low, it will bite into effectiveness.

The people of this country do not expect politicians to go about their business by reducing the number of police officers. That is evident from the manifestos at the last election, which were couched in completely opposite terms. The Government will plead that crime is down, so the reduction in the work force is manageable, but that does nothing to address the fact that fewer crimes are being solved: 30,000 fewer crimes are being brought to justice, including 7,000 offences of violence against the person. This is the wrong moment to relax and take our foot off the gas. Pressures building in our society may lead us to regret scaling back our state of readiness.

The reduction in grant has consequences. In my constituency, the police and crime commissioner, Barry Coppinger, is doing what he can to mitigate the impact, but it still necessitates asking council taxpayers to pay more. None the less, the commissioner is determined to ensure that every community in the four districts retains its neighbourhood police team. That is a very welcome commitment.

The Government’s offer, which is equivalent to a 1% precept increase for the next two years, will only defer problems and pose significant financial problems down the track. The Cleveland commissioner advises:

“We know that we will be facing a potential funding gap of over £5 million by 2015-16. Finding the further savings…will be a tough challenge…if we were to take the grant for the next two years, it would mean that from 2015-16 onwards there would be a further shortfall of over half a million pounds…that’s equivalent to 11 police officers or 18 Community Support Officers.”

Total Government funding for police was reduced from £9.74 billion in 2010-11 to £8.66 billion in 2013-14. That is a cash reduction of nearly £1.1 billion, equivalent to 22,000 police officer posts. In Cleveland, the result is that savings of £24 million will have to be made. If there are then plans to cut a further £2 billion from police budgets over the next funding period, as discussed today, that is equivalent to 40,000 police officers. In my area, that would track down to a further impact on the £24 million savings figure. That is nearly 20% of the money Cleveland receives from all sources, and would be the equivalent of 480 police officer posts. Mention was made of where funding comes from; it is not all from a single source. It is interesting to put that into perspective. We would be talking about an increase in precept of between 90% and 95% to make up for the loss.

In conclusion, I urge the Government to think and pause. There is a real risk that the cuts will lead to problems in the months and years ahead, and that may challenge our front-line police officers too far. I urge the Government to revisit the Opposition’s proposal to limit the cuts to the budget to 12%, which Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary thought workable without damaging front-line services.

Crime and Courts Bill [Lords]

Andy McDonald Excerpts

Monday 14th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) (Lab)]

I share with other speakers the view that there is much to be welcomed in the Bill, including the provisions on the diversity of judicial appointments, extending the jurisdiction of youth courts and drug-driving.

I note that the hon. Member for Croydon Central (Gavin Barwell) is not in his place, but I too would like to pay tribute to the work he has done. He is quite right in what he says about other instances of the same sort of events that affected his constituent. Some 10 or so years ago, when I was practising as a solicitor, I had the privilege to represent the Nellist family of Acklam in Middlesbrough. As they returned home from an evening out—they had not been out socialising for a long time—they got off the bus opposite their home and their young son Anthony was waiting for them to come back. He was peeping out of the curtains looking to see them come home. He saw his mum and dad walk across the road, only for Susan to be struck by a speeding vehicle coming down Trimdon avenue, knocking her some clear 70 yards down the road, killing her outright.

The self-same issues about impairment and the links between impairment and the charges levelled against the youth concerned raised their head in this case. I was involved not in the criminal side but in the civil case. When we served our proceedings on the defendant, he showed absolutely no remorse whatever. He was sentenced to a term of imprisonment. Bizarrely in those days, he served his driving ban while serving his term of imprisonment. I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw), who put right that wrong in subsequent years, making sure that any driving ban was served at the end of the custodial sentence. That made the sentence more relevant.

Is it ever right for someone in such circumstances ever to get behind the wheel of a car again? Perhaps we can take a look at that as we take the Bill through Committee. Given the tragedy suffered by that family and the fact that not everyone enjoys the privilege of driving a motor car, it is not acceptable for someone in those circumstances to serve a ban for such a short period.

I support the fight against organised crime, but we on the Labour side are concerned that the Home Secretary is undermining that fight by cutting the budget to tackle it. However, I am happy to recognise the valuable work of the north-east regional organised crime unit, which was established by the chief constables of Durham, Cleveland and Northumbria in March 2010. It consists of a specialised team of detectives who target the organised crime groups that pose the greatest threat to the communities in those three areas. No doubt the House will want to congratulate officers in the unit who, last Wednesday, used a warrant to search premises in Topcliffe, north Yorkshire, and recovered approximately 30 kg of heroin and an estimated 40 kg of amphetamine. The street value of the drugs is estimated to be between £6 million and £7 million. Two men have been charged; the investigation continues, and there is more to come.

There is a welcome consensus on the issue of avoiding reoffending. The starting point of the consultation was a good one: the Government acknowledged that nearly half of all adult offenders reoffend within a year of leaving custody, and also acknowledged the need for reform of the criminal justice system. Cleveland’s newly elected police and crime commissioner, Barry Coppinger—in common with many others—has made

“diverting people from reoffending with a focus on rehabilitation and the prevention of reoffending”

a key priority. So far, so good. It seems there is a common purpose, but the question must be whether the proposals in the Bill are adequate to assist the attaining of that vital objective.

The powers that the Bill seeks to introduce are already available to sentencers. They can already impose punishment in combination with other elements. Lord Woolf, the former Lord Chief Justice, described the proposals as

“offensive to the judiciary, who strive to ensure that each person dealt with by them is sentenced to the appropriate sentence.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 30 October 2012; Vol. 740, c. 529.]

Lord Ramsbotham, the former chief inspector of prisons, called them “totally unnecessary and counter-productive”.

In the brief time remaining to me, let me say something about clause 23. My constituent David Jukes has written to me pointing out that 2,000 people are employed by Her Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service in the enforcement of criminal fines. I hope that we shall have a chance to ensure that the existing service is given every opportunity to be maintained and to succeed, and also to ensure that rigorous standards and targets are set for recovery of fines and fixed-penalty notices.

Finally and very briefly, I want to comment on the law of self-defence as it applies to householders. I recently went around the houses in Middlesbrough, and none of those on whose doors I knocked told me of their overbearing desire to knock seven bells out of a burglar. People were more concerned about, for instance, employment and being hit by the under-occupancy tax. We must think carefully about whether clause 30 takes us any further.

The hon. Member for North West Cambridgeshire (Mr Vara) referred to the guidance notes that are issued to officers. I rather think that that tells the tale: the notes are available to officers to prevent householders from being taken to court unnecessarily, under the law as it stands—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

Order.

--- Later in debate ---

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

I want to deal with a couple of clauses that have not been referred to so far, but before I do so let me express my support for the comments made by the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Mr Llwyd) about clause 31 and the concerns expressed by others about clause 34 and visa appeals. The abolition of those appeals will have a direct impact on my constituents and I believe that there will be a considerable backlash in the community. Let me also express my support for clause 29, which abolishes the offence of scandalising the judiciary as a contempt of court. I understand which case that relates to, but I feel that scandalising the judiciary should be a right, if not a duty, every now and again.

Three clauses have so far not been mentioned in any detail. The first is clause 16, on the establishment of the family courts. It has been genuinely welcomed, as has the introduction of mediation in the processes of the family courts and the greater emphasis given to it. Concerns have been expressed, however, by Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service officers and family law practitioners about the need to ensure that there is adequate insurance in the delegated legislation and the guidance that the views of the children in these cases are properly represented and protected. I hope that there will be further dialogue with professionals in CAFCASS, in particular, who will be able to advise on the detailed implementation of the legislation, and of this clause in particular.

Let me turn now to clauses 23 and 24. My hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough (Andy McDonald) mentioned the issue with clause 23, which effectively privatises the functions of the officers dealing with the collection of fees. They are judicial functions, which is a step forward in privatisation that we have not seen before. Clause 23 facilitates the contracting out of all the functions of fines officers and makes provision for the cost of collecting compensation, fines and other financial penalties to be recovered from offenders. That will effectively mean contracting out the functions of those officers to private bailiffs. Let me remind hon. Members of those functions: the decision to make a deduction from benefits order; the making of an attachment of earnings order; and the ordering or varying of the length of time to pay or the amount of the instalments that are payable. Those functions relate to the exercise of judicial power and the sentencing of criminals and they are to be privatised.

My concern about that is that as Members we have all experienced the role of bailiffs in our constituencies. In its evidence to Government in the consultation, “Transforming bailiff action”, Citizens Advice reported that it was dealing with nearly 25,000 cases involving problems with private bailiffs. Citizens Advice said that it

“has been seeing problems with the practices of private sector bailiffs for many years and these problems seem to be growing. Unfair practices we see include: misrepresenting powers; intimidating behaviour; charging fees in excess of what is allowable in law; failing to accept reasonable (in the circumstances of the debtor) offers of payment”,

and failing to recognise vulnerable debtors in particular. We are now passing over a key element of the judicial system to private bailiffs, who have this record of failure.

[Andy McDonald]

Does my hon. Friend recognise that the court staff have had some significant successes in recent times, increasing the rate of recovery by 14%? Does he agree that that improved performance is to be welcomed and that they should be congratulated?

[John McDonnell]

My hon. Friend has hit the nail on the head. There are 2,000 people out there in the service, consistently meeting the targets set for them by Government and improving their record of service by 15% last year, not 14%, as he said. These loyal, dedicated staff, who are professionals in their own field, have delivered, yet are being threatened with privatisation. We are handing over this function to a group of people who we know are causing large numbers of our constituents severe problems as a result of their behaviour in the performance of their duties in other areas of fine collection and in the system as a whole.

All that is being asked for is the opportunity for existing staff to bid for their jobs. As the Bill stands, they will be excluded from being able to continue to perform the functions that they currently perform. Moreover, clause 24 would make available information held by HMRC to private bailiffs for use in the collection of fines. That is a step too far and it breaches people’s ability to maintain personal privacy with regard to their taxation affairs. That was never envisaged in previous consultations.

We have had experience of privatisation in the Ministry of Justice in recent times. Members in all parts of the House have raised the problems that we have had with the contracting out of the court interpreter services, which saw only 58% of bookings met. It resulted in chaos in the courts and criticism from the Public Accounts Committee.

I urge the Government to think twice about the proposed privatisation of an important service that is critical to many of our constituents, and to back the concept that what works is what matters. If the existing system is working effectively, it should not be put at risk as a result of what seems to be an ideological decision, rather than one based upon practice. It would be worth while for the Minister to sit down with some of the existing practitioners to gain their advice and, if the Government want further improvements in the service, to work with the existing staff—with the grain of the service—to achieve those improvements, rather than to go forward with this wholesale privatisation, which will prove to be not only counterproductive but, for many of our constituents, catastrophic.