Chris Ward
Main Page: Chris Ward (Labour - Brighton Kemptown and Peacehaven)Department Debates - View all Chris Ward's debates with the Home Office
(3 days, 1 hour ago)
Commons ChamberI would be more than happy to meet the right hon. Gentleman to discuss that and hear more about his local area. As he knows, we have made great progress in closing asylum hotels, and we are committing to doing that by the end of this Parliament. We have saved over £1 billion since inheriting the chaotic and disastrous hotel accommodation situation from the previous Government.
Chris Ward (Brighton Kemptown and Peacehaven) (Lab)
October marks the first anniversary since the appalling arson attack on a mosque in Peacehaven in my constituency. I will forever be grateful to the Home Secretary and the Policing Minister for coming to Peacehaven in the immediate aftermath and standing with me and the local community. I am also grateful to the Home Office for the extra security measures it has given to my community. A year on, what more does the Home Secretary think we can do to stop this kind of appalling hate crime and rebuild community cohesion so that something like that never happens again?
I thank my hon. Friend for the work he has done to support his community in Peacehaven. We need to make sure that the right policing is in place. Our £40 million fund for mosques is there to protect those buildings, but we also need to bring back cohesion to our communities, and our social cohesion plan “Protecting What Matters” is designed to do that.