Asylum: Penally Camp

(asked on 2nd February 2021) - View Source

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to the Answer of 1 February 2021 to Question 143914 on Asylum: Penally, what steps she is taking to ensure that the facilities at Penally Camp are (a) adequately heated, (b) hygienic and (c) covid-19 compliant.


Answered by
Chris Philp Portrait
Chris Philp
Minister of State (Home Office)
This question was answered on 8th February 2021

The Home Office and Clearsprings Ready Homes have worked intensively with the Welsh Government, Public Health Wales, Hywel Dda University Health Board, Dyfed-Powys Police and other partners as we have stood up and are now operating on the site.

The site at Penally was immediately available to be used to house asylum seekers and is safe, warm, secure, habitable, fit for purpose and correctly equipped in line with existing contractual requirements for asylum accommodation.

Clearsprings Ready Homes is also taking action where appropriate to augment what is in place, taking account of feedback from service users and others, for example by providing additional heating and entertainment. Work with local faith leaders to provide further support and provision to meet religious needs is also underway.

An independent rapid review was also recently conducted to assure ourselves of the extensive COVID-19 protocols in place to safeguard the health and safety of asylum seekers during the pandemic. The Home Office is currently reviewing and acting upon the recommendations of the review and, as previously stated, will seek to publish a summary of the recommendations in due course.

The Penally training camp is temporary, contingency accommodation whilst we continue to address the issues putting pressure on our asylum system.

At present, the Home Office will continue to regularly move small numbers of people out of Penally into suitable dispersal accommodation in line with business as usual processes and will continue to route new people into Penally in line with public health guidance.

It remains our intention to move all individuals in contingency accommodation into suitable dispersed accommodation as soon as practicable.

In order to reduce the use of such contingency accommodation, we have been working closely with local authorities and devolved administrations to identify opportunities to increase the amount of dispersal accommodation available and to support those that are no longer eligible for asylum support to ‘Move-on’ from asylum accommodation.

We expect the highest standards from our providers and dispersed accommodation provided must be fit for purpose and complaint with the Decent Homes Standard, in addition to standards outlined in relevant national or local housing legislation.

All Asylum seekers in dispersal accommodation have their essential needs and costs met by the Home Office and the contracted providers– such as heating, electric and water and a weekly cash allowance.

Our providers are contracted to respond to and rectify maintenance issues between 4 hours and a 21-day period depending on the category of the issue. Further information can be found here in the statement of requirements: http://data.parliament.uk/DepositedPapers/Files/DEP2018-1112/AASC_-_Schedule_2_-_Statement_of_Requirements.pdf

All asylum seekers have access to a 24/7 AIRE (Advice, Issue Reporting and Eligibility) service provided for the Home Office by Migrant Help where they can raise any concerns or maintenance issues with their dispersal accommodation. The AIRE provider is then responsible for referring the report of the maintenance issue to the Provider, through a designated point of contact.

Our providers have put in place a range of measures and additional support to enable households to comply with public measures on social distancing and self-isolation. This has included food parcels and other items for people who are unable to leave the house, provision of telephony for those who are isolating and do not have a telephone, as well as increased welfare contact for those who are isolating.

For those in dispersal accommodation, service user essential living needs - including for cleaning and sanitary items - are met through a weekly cash allowance which has been increased during the pandemic.

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