Child Poverty and Homelessness: Asylum and Settlement Policies

Lord Davies of Gower Excerpts

Tuesday 14th April 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

As my noble friend knows, the earned settlement consultation ran for 12 weeks. It began on 20 November 2025 and closed on 12 February 2026. We are now reviewing and analysing all the responses received. That analysis will help us inform the development of that earned settlement model. I value the contribution that many people who came to this country as care workers have made. We need a supply of care workers; we need people to do those jobs in our community, but I also encourage people in this country who are unemployed at the moment to take on that work. We are assessing the contributions; as I said, we have had more than 200,000 responses and it is fair that we assess them. I assure my noble friend that the Government will act in the interests of the care sector and of the people who are here in the long term, as part of our response.

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

My Lords, homelessness in London has increased by 63% over the last decade—a rise largely driven by an influx of illegal immigrants, who themselves have seen a fivefold rise in homelessness in just over four years. Does the Minister agree with His Majesty’s Opposition that the arrival of people with no means to support themselves will naturally lead to an increase in homelessness, and that the Government must go further than the past and current changes they are making to prevent all illegal channel crossings, which are contributing to this problem?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am grateful for the noble Lord’s contribution. I just say gently that, in the four years between 2021 and 2024, an additional 2.6 million people arrived and 101,000 claimed asylum. The scheme to assess that was very slow and almost non-existent towards the end. We have increased the speed of asylum claims to make sure that we remove people who do not have asylum claims and integrate those who do. We returned 58,539 people between 1 July 2024 and 31 January 2026, and we have halved the number of asylum hotels from the 400 under the noble Lord’s watch to the 200 that are operating today. We have saved considerable resource in doing so. This is a problem and a challenge, but I am not looking to implement the lessons of the previous Government in this Government.