Diane Abbott
Main Page: Diane Abbott (Independent - Hackney North and Stoke Newington)Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration
Diane Abbott Excerpts(1 month, 3 weeks ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate
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Tom Pursglove
My hon. Friend is a diligent member of the Home Affairs Committee. It is fair to say that where recommendations are made, we engage with them constructively, and progress will quite often be made against those recommendations even in advance of reports being published. He can absolutely have an assurance from me that we will continue to work through the commitments that we have made in responding to various recommendations in those 13 reports and, having made this promise to this House, that future reports will be published within an eight-week window.
My hon. Friend has raised a point about procedure. I am happy to take that point away and raise it with ministerial colleagues who have direct responsibility for the ICIBI relationship.
Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Ind)
As colleagues have said, the Home Affairs Committee found Mr Neal to be a very diligent and committed public servant. Does the Minister share the chief inspector’s concern about unaccompanied child migrants? He reported on them playing very unsuitable games—trying to bet which one of them would be the first to go into foster care—and on their ages being overestimated, resulting in children sharing bedrooms with much older adults. Does the Minister propose to follow up on any of the issues that the chief inspector raised?
Tom Pursglove
The right hon. Lady should know that that is an area we have been very concerned about. The issue of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children should never, ever be the subject of a game. I think all of us were horrified to hear about that incident, and following those inspection findings, the Department launched an immediate investigation into the inappropriate behaviour of the support worker, who was removed from site immediately and did not return. As I have said, all seven hotels used to accommodate unaccompanied asylum-seeking children have since closed. The Department has taken the recommendations seriously, and there is a lot of learning there for the future as we take forward our work, including our wider work with local authorities on safeguarding the most vulnerable children.