Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to work with local authorities to help ensure the adequacy of the supply of suitable asylum accommodation.

The Home Office has been working with asylum accommodation providers, Local Authorities and Strategic Migration Partnerships to increase the amount of accommodation that is available for asylum seekers so that we can eliminate the need for the use of contingency accommodation.

We are grateful to those local authorities who participate in the dispersal scheme and will continue to work in partnership with them to procure suitable accommodation.

Sadly, many local authorities do not currently participate in the dispersal scheme, making it harder to procure sufficient dispersal accommodation. I would encourage them to step up and play their part in the UK-wide effort to provide accommodation to those seeking asylum who would otherwise be destitute.