Chi Onwurah
Main Page: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central)Department Debates - View all Chi Onwurah's debates with the Home Office
Napier Barracks Asylum Accommodation
Chi Onwurah Excerpts(2 years, 10 months ago)
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Chris Philp
My hon. Friend is making an extremely powerful point. The experience of his mother and his family illustrates the service that this country does in providing asylum to those who genuinely need it. It puts today’s debate rather in context.
Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab) [V]
Happy birthday, Mr Speaker.
The High Court judgment showed that Napier was unsafe in terms of fire safety, covid security and mental wellbeing, whether for armed forces personnel or asylum seekers, but it is representative of a generalised callousness with regard to support for refugees which leaves many in Newcastle living in inadequate accommodation with inadequate support to keep themselves and their accommodation clean and covid secure. How is the Minister going to change that? Will he say whether Nationwide Accommodation Services, which ran Napier day to day, has other contracts with the Home Office?
Chris Philp
If the hon. Lady would like to raise that case in writing, I would be happy to look into it to find out the details and circumstances. We are accommodating 60,000 people across the country. The cost of running the asylum system now amounts to £1 billion a year, which is a staggering sum and makes the case for reform, for all the reasons that Conservative Members have been laying out.