Sam Tarry
Main Page: Sam Tarry (Labour - Ilford South)Department Debates - View all Sam Tarry's debates with the Home Office
Safe Asylum Routes: Afghan Refugees
Sam Tarry Excerpts(7 months ago)
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Robert Jenrick
On the question of non-dependent children, that is not in our proposal, but I am happy to revert to the hon. Gentleman with more detail on that.
Sam Tarry (Ilford South) (Lab)
Colleagues have covered many of the points I was going to make, but I want to ask a question just specifically on that point. My office has received many stories similar to those of hon. Members here about people in horrendous situations. Particularly on ACRS pathway 1, it would be very helpful if the Minister were able to publish some more guidance that offices can use. My understanding was that, under ACRS pathway 1, people cannot access the refugee family reunion procedure, so there is then a danger that if they apply, the application will be rejected as invalid. We do not want to advise them to do that then be deemed invalid, when actually we know from what the Minister has said today that there should be a pathway for family members to come to the UK safely. Some guidance on this from the Minister would be so helpful for all of our offices, if that is possible.
Robert Jenrick
I will be very happy to do that. I appreciate that all those represented here today, and in fact most Members of this House, are working with constituents in this situation. I will instruct my officials to review the information that we have available and send it to the hon. Gentleman and other interested Members. If he feels it is insufficient, then he should please give us guidance.
One of the questions at the heart of this debate is our ability to house people satisfactorily here in the UK. With the Minister for Veterans’ Affairs, we worked intensively over the first half of this year to ensure that almost all individuals in the Afghan bridging hotels were moved on into settled accommodation. The remaining individuals are in pre-matched situations where they are awaiting their property becoming available, so will swiftly move out of that accommodation. That is a success, but we need to ensure that we do not find ourselves in that situation again. It is for that reason that we have exercised a degree of caution in bringing individuals to the UK without accommodation available.
We want to work with as many local authorities as possible to find further homes that we can then match with families in Pakistan awaiting entry to the United Kingdom. We all appreciate the pressures on local authorities: their own housing lists for the domestic population; handling Homes for Ukraine, the Syrian scheme and the Hong Kong scheme; and the consequences of illegal migration. Together, those factors make it an extremely challenging period for them. Since 2015, we have welcomed 530,000 people into our country on humanitarian grounds—more than at any time in our modern history—and much of that pressure lies with local authorities. That does not mean we should prevent individuals from coming to the United Kingdom. We need to work intensively with local authorities to bring forward more properties swiftly.
A further avenue is to ensure that service family accommodation units are brought up to scratch, made available and matched with individuals and their families in Pakistan, or indeed in Afghanistan. Understandably, the Ministry of Defence is leading that work, and we are doing everything we can to encourage them to bring forward their hundreds of properties very swiftly.