Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will place in the Library copies of any letters her Department has sent since 1 June 2015 to chief executives or leaders of local authorities in the UK in respect of the power to request assistance under section 100 (1) of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999; and whether powers under that section have been used.

The Department has not made any request to chief executives or leaders of local authorities in the UK for assistance under section 100 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999. The powers under that section have not been used to date.

However, over the past 12 months, the department has written to local authority leaders and chief executives in the North West, North East, Midlands, Yorkshire and the Humber and Scotland to seek further cooperation and voluntary participation in widening asylum seeker dispersal arrangement.

We will be writing to chief executives in Wales, the South East, South West and East of England to seek their cooperation.