Kate Green
Main Page: Kate Green (Labour - Stretford and Urmston)Department Debates - View all Kate Green's debates with the Home Office
Asylum Accommodation Contracts
Kate Green Excerpts(5 years, 7 months ago)
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Alex Cunningham
My hon. Friend the Member for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham) makes a fair point. That is why we have to take opportunities with the new contracts to improve on what we had in the past.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees is just one of dozens of organisations that has reached out to me since I secured this debate. In common with many others, it has recommended that the new contracts must have robust monitoring, with compliance and complaints mechanisms built into the agreements. I wonder whether the Minister agrees with that.
Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests in relation to funding support I receive for research capabilities in my office on immigration and asylum. In its report, the Select Committee on Home Affairs suggested a much tighter monitoring and inspection regime—something we would have hoped that the Government would have picked up in issuing the new contracts.
Alex Cunningham
Yes, indeed; that is the case. It is something that I will allude to later on in my remarks.
My staff team and I know first-hand how hard it is to break through the barriers of service providers and their subcontractors to try and get them to fulfil their contracts to vulnerable people. One example in Stockton is a family with a seriously disabled member. They were dumped in a second floor flat, making the person a prisoner in their home. It took us weeks and umpteen phone calls to providers, contractors, subcontractors and the Home Office to sort it out. Had the contract been properly monitored, this would never have happened.
The Home Affairs Committee—I said I would mention it—recommended that the Government recognise local authorities and the third sector as key stakeholders, empower devolved Governments to monitor the delivery of the contracts and give local authorities greater flexibility to determine where accommodation is procured.