Migrants: Hotel Accommodation

Debate between Lord Hanson of Flint and Lord Clarke of Nottingham

Tuesday 1st July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord. We took an early decision, as he knows, to work with the local authority, Kent, to ensure that safeguarding was in place, and that is in place now. There are still a number of unaccounted migrant children, who precede this Government’s responsibilities, and we are making efforts to track them down as best we can. I assure him that we are taking every step we can to make sure that that situation does not occur again.

[Lord Clarke of Nottingham (Con)]

Are the Government making any progress in their search for safe third countries where applicants for asylum could have their case processed before being admitted to this country at all? That is the only policy they have that would avoid the need for hotel accommodation almost completely in future. Is this still the Government’s policy? Is there any prospect of progress being made in the near future?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

The Government, as the noble Lord knows, have been discussing a number of matters with a number of countries. I cannot bring him up to date today on the final details of those projects. We have scrapped the Rwanda scheme, which was costly, ineffective and did not remove people. We are continuing to work with our French, Dutch and Belgian colleagues to look at how we can stem the flow of people coming here through irregular migration, so that we can look at proper asylum assessments and proper removals, in conjunction with those European countries most impacted in the European community.