Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, for what reasons the Supporting the asylum dispersal scheme invitation for funding published on 23 November 2017, issued jointly by his Department and the Home Office is not open to equivalent asylum dispersal local authorities in other regions and constituent parts of the UK; and if she will make a statement.

The Government is providing funding of up to £2.5 million from the local services element of the Controlling Migration Fund (CMF) which is administered by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG).

The funding made available for this scheme comes from an existing MHCLG budget; it is not new funding. Therefore Barnett consequentials do not apply.

The Government has no plans or remit to extend the scheme to local authorities in the devolved nations, which have their own funding arrangements in this area including through the Immigration Enforcement part of the CMF.

Funding is available for 2018/19 and the Government intends to publish its plans for the national evaluation of the scheme in due course. We expect all participating local authorities to contribute to the evaluation exercise so that lessons can be learned to inform the new arrangements for asylum seeker support from 2019.