Hotel Asylum Accommodation: Local Authority Consultation Debate
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George Howarth
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Hotel Asylum Accommodation: Local Authority Consultation
George Howarth Excerpts(1 year, 5 months ago)
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Robert Jenrick
It is not the Government who have caused the issue here. The primary focus of our attention should be on the tens of thousands of people who are crossing the channel illegally, putting immense pressure on our asylum system. Frankly, even the most well-oiled machine would have found it extremely difficult to deal with that. There are a number of serious issues that the Home Office must get right. Quite clearly, we have to get the backlog of cases down, we have to get people out of hotels, and we have to find sensible accommodation that is good value for money but decent, so that people awaiting the outcome of their cases can be accommodated appropriately.
Sir George Howarth (Knowsley) (Lab)
The right hon. Gentleman is right about one thing: the Home Office has not covered itself in glory. In January, I was informed 24 hours earlier that 150 asylum seekers would be relocated to a hotel in Knowsley. Unfortunately, the Home Office notified the wrong local authority about what was about to happen—although, to be fair, it did apologise. There are now 180 asylum seekers in that hotel. I was told that it was initially only going to be for three months. It is now over 10 months. Can the Minister give me some indication of when that arrangement will end? It has already massively exceeded the prediction of how long it would be.
Robert Jenrick
I would be very happy to get back to the right hon. Gentleman and set out in detail the strategy for hotels and accommodation in his constituency. My approach has been: first, to ensure that Manston is brought to a legal and decent situation as quickly as possible—I think we are broadly there—secondly, to move to good-quality engagement with local authorities while we are still in a difficult and challenging situation; and thirdly, to move to a point where we are not relying on hotels at all, or doing so very judiciously, but accommodating people in dispersal accommodation or larger sensible sites. I am afraid that will take us some time because, as I have said in previous answers, there has been a failure to plan for accommodation over a sustained period. We need to correct that now.