Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to move non-Afghan refugees out of bridging hotels and into communities.

We are working at pace towards moving people out of bridging hotels into settled accommodation and have moved – or are in the process of moving - over 7,000 people into homes since June 2021.

There is a huge effort underway to support the families into permanent homes as soon as we can so they can settle and rebuild their lives, and to ensure those still temporarily accommodated in hotels are given the best start to their life in the UK.

The length of time that a family will remain in bridging hotels is dependent on a number of factors including the availability of appropriate housing. We strive to allocate the right families into the right accommodation to ensure that their integration into their new communities in the UK is as smooth as possible. To achieve this, we triage and prioritise families to ensure the settled accommodation provides the best possible match, taking into consideration date of arrival into the UK, family size, vulnerability and integration factors.

Where local authorities or employers are able to offer accommodation in greater volume and more quickly, this overall timescale will reduce. We would like to encourage local authorities who have not yet pledged support to consider offering to do so.

The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) have also introduced the Find Your Own Accommodation scheme which empowers Afghan families to source their own accommodation, rather than the Home Office. They will need to secure agreement, from their new local authority, that they will continue to receive ongoing integration support from them, once they have moved into their new home.

Some of the arrivals during Operation Pitting were British Nationals - approximately 4000-5000 British Nationals and their families arrived under OP Pitting.