Violent Crime

Marsha De Cordova Excerpts

Monday 17th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

I am not selectively using statistics. I referred the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson) to the Metropolitan police statistics precisely because of the action that the commissioner has taken in London, including setting up the serious violence taskforce, which, as I said earlier, dedicates 300 officers to hotspot policing across the capital. The commissioner has said that the recent figures show a decline in the increase, which is what I was talking about. It was not selective at all. I am just looking at the most recent evidence we have.

[Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)]

I inform the Minister that Opposition Members do not feel anger but passion, upset and worry about the numbers of young people affected, including those who have lost their life in my constituency, and about the apparent lack of urgency from this Government in addressing what is a national crisis. We saw many lives taken in London this weekend, and I was at a knife crime forum in my constituency on Friday to meet families, stakeholders and constituents who are worried and angry about the lack of action by this Government.

Is it not now time for the Government to take this seriously and recognise that when they cut funding for the police, for education and for youth services, it means we no longer have enough youth workers to work with our young people? Will she finally take note and make a significant investment in youth services so that our young people have a future and a hope?

[Victoria Atkins]

Action we have taken in the past 12 months includes: the serious violence taskforce, chaired by the Home Secretary and attended by the Mayor of London; the ministerial taskforce, chaired by the Prime Minister, to drive cross-governmental action; the establishment of the national county lines co-ordination centre, which has seen more than 1,000 arrests and more than 1,300 people safeguarded; the Offensive Weapons Act 2019, which is tightening the law on knives, acids and firearms, including through knife crime prevention orders; Operation Sceptre, which has been rolled out by police forces in weeks of action, the most recent of which saw nearly 11,000 knives taken off the streets; the anti-knife crime community fund, which funds small local projects—68 of them last year; the £22 million early intervention youth fund, funding 29 projects across the country; the #knifefree national media campaign, which has had more than 6 million views and 20,000 teachers receiving lesson plans in June; investing in Redthread intervention work in A&E departments in London, Birmingham and Nottingham; setting up the £200 million youth endowment fund; closing the public health duty consultation at the end of this month—and we are responding as quickly as we can; setting up an independent review on drugs; commissioning and receiving voluntary commitments from major retailers to prevent the under-age sale of knives in stores and online; giving more than £1 billion extra to the police this year, including £100 million from the serious violence and with the help of police and crime commissioners; making it easier for officers to use section 60 stop-and-search powers; investing £96 million to support victims and witnesses, through the Ministry of Justice; and supporting a new national police capability to tackle gang-related activity on social media.

That shows the complexity and range of the actions we are taking. I hope the hon. Lady is asking the same question of the Mayor of London, because we all bear a responsibility—[Interruption.] The hon. Lady laughs as I say this and does some funny actions. I do not know why she is taking this in such a light-hearted fashion. This is deeply serious. This is the commitment of the Government and our local partners, and we all should really be working together to stop this violence.

Windrush Compensation Scheme

Marsha De Cordova Excerpts

Tuesday 9th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Nokes]

My hon. Friend is right to point out that claim forms can sometimes be difficult and onerous, for the elderly in particular. We deliberately designed the form after speaking to members of the Windrush generation, so that the language used was as simple and straightforward as possible. In addition, we made provision with Citizens Advice, so that it can assist people with their claims. Individuals from my hon. Friend’s constituency of Gloucester need only make contact with the helpline—I understand that the average wait time for an answer last week was just 18 seconds. His constituents should make contact with the helpline and they might then be referred to Citizens Advice, which will be able to provide assistance with making a claim.

[Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)]

I too congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) on securing this important urgent question. Compensation is just £1,000 for those individuals who were forced to leave this country under the so-called voluntary return scheme because they were unable to prove that they were justifiably able to reside here. Many people received letters from the Home Office warning them that they would need to leave the country because they were here illegally. How can the Minister justify paying compensation of only £1,000 to those who were forcibly removed from the country?

[Caroline Nokes]

The hon. Lady is right to point out that serious wrongs were done to members of the Windrush generation. That is why we set up the Windrush taskforce and put in place a compensation scheme, which was designed with the assistance of our independent adviser, Martin Forde. I recognise her, but it is important that we reflect on the advice that we were given and seek to have a scheme that is fair.

International Women’s Day

Marsha De Cordova Excerpts

Thursday 7th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)]

It is an absolute pleasure to speak in this year’s International Women’s Day debate, and I thank the Backbench Business Committee for allowing the time.

International Women’s Day provides an opportunity to reflect on how far we have come and on how far we still have to go. We also get the opportunity as sisters to celebrate our sisterhood. The first International Women’s Day was held back in 1911, at a time when women were still considered the property of men and our rights were limited, but, with International Women’s Day organised by an international socialist women’s conference, these pioneering women dared to dream of a world beyond oppression, indignity and subordination to patriarchy, of a world where men and women could stand as equals—imagine that!

It would take a further seven years for some women, and a further 17 years for all women, to win the right to vote. Leading that struggle were women such as Sylvia Pankhurst and Battersea’s own Caroline Ganley and Charlotte Despard—I follow in the footsteps of some fantastic women. Courageous socialists, these women refused to accept injustice. They were oppressed, they fought, they struggled. Charlotte was arrested twice, but she fought on, and, because of what she and others did, we now have the right to stand in Parliament as women MPs. In 1918, Charlotte was the first woman to stand in Battersea North, and while she did not win, she paved the way for others to stand, and in 1945, Caroline Ganley became the first woman to be elected for Battersea.

I come now to the present day. For nine years, women have borne the brunt of austerity: many women services have closed, women have been hit hardest by public service job losses and the pay cap, and according to figures from the House of Commons Library, 86% of the cuts since 2010 have fallen on the shoulders of women. It is a near-decade-long assault on women’s rights and freedoms. Women face sexual harassment and domestic abuse. The gender pay gap stands at 20%. I know that all my sisters on both sides of the House will agree that we have to address these inequalities.

Those inequalities are so much worse for working-class women, black women, women from ethnic minorities and disabled women such as myself, and it is as a disabled woman that I want to share something with the House. I have faced many barriers in my life—in education, in the workplace and so forth—so getting elected was a huge achievement, but unfortunately obtaining the additional support I need in this place to operate as an MP has been challenging. I am continuously fighting for additional support but being told by the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority, “We know you have additional needs, but we are not going to support those additional needs”. It has made it very difficult for me.

The people of Battersea sent me here to represent them, and I should not have to fight the authorities here for the additional support I need, but I will fight on, because that it what I have had to do my whole life. I will keep fighting. It does not stop here. This is the one place where equality should exist and where no one should have to fight for the support they need, whether they are a woman, disabled, a black person, whatever. No one should have to fight that fight.

We have come a long way. We should never forget and never not celebrate it. The struggle and the courage of women such as Charlotte Despard and my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman), who is no longer in her place, paved the way for so many of us, and I am deeply grateful to them. Happy International Women’s Day, sisters, and solidarity!

Macpherson Report: 20th Anniversary

Marsha De Cordova Excerpts

Monday 25th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Moray (Douglas Ross). I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North (Alex Norris) on securing this important debate and thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting it.

I, too, pay tribute to Baroness Lawrence and Dr Lawrence for the time they have spent, when they should have been grieving for the loss of their son, in their tireless fight, for decades, in pursuing justice for him. They have been pursuing justice for their son Stephen but also for any other person whose life could potentially have been lost in exactly the same way. Their fight was for justice for their black son but also for black people across this country who, but for these attacks, would still be here. Doreen and Neville Lawrence’s son was taken from them because of the colour of his skin. His murder was motivated by hate.

As the Macpherson report showed, Stephen was failed by institutions that should have been there to protect him, but also should then have investigated the murder and eventually brought the perpetrators to justice. He was failed because of the colour of his skin. As the report identified, it was due to institutional racism. While that phrase is common and well used now, back when the Macpherson report first came out it was probably the first time that it was introduced. The report said that the Metropolitan police force was institutionally racist—a damning indictment, and rightly so, of the establishment of the time. The inquiry was due to the courageous work that the Labour party did prior to coming into to power and the courageous Labour Government who called for it to take place. We should not forget the hard work that went into bringing about that inquiry.

I was still quite a young teenager when Stephen was killed. I was not in London—I lived in Bristol—but I remember it so clearly. We all remember the images of his parents constantly fighting for justice and for an inquiry to take place, but there had been no positive outcome. Having got to the point of having the report, which came up with 70 recommendations, it is quite unacceptable, and actually disgraceful, that 20 years on we are unable to measure where we are up to with those recommendations. I will not repeat what my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North has already said, but I do hope that the Minister will address that point, because it is really important. If we are not going to audit and follow up on the report’s recommendations, then what was the point in having it in the first place?

We have to salute the fight that Baroness Lawrence has continued, and I will continue to do so, but progress has been very slow. We saw that in the recent report by the London School of Economics, which showed that black Britons are stopped at more than eight times the rate of white Britons. That is just not acceptable. I appreciate that the police must do their job. As the representative of a constituency in inner London, I have had to experience the loss of life of three men in the past six months, and that has not been good. I went to see those families and I literally had no words for them because their children had been failed by the system.

We also have to look at the gangs matrix, because many see it as a form of discrimination or racial profiling—picking out young black men because they listen to a certain type of music or because they access certain social media. Although the Met’s own figures show that just 27% of serious youth violence is committed by young black men, more than three quarters of those on the gangs matrix are black. There is a disparity there that obviously needs to be addressed. That racial discrimination was even condemned by Amnesty International on the grounds that it leaves Britain in breach of some of its human rights obligations.

But racism is not limited to Government Departments, or just to the Government. Although progress has been made, racism still exists in society. We saw that in the hostile environment policies that led to the Windrush scandal last year. When we introduce policies, it is important that they are fully tested and audited, with impact assessments carried out, because anything that disproportionately affects a particular group clearly is not right. We know from the Windrush scandal that people were deported in error, lost their homes in error and lost out on vital social security in error, and many are still paying the price.

Nobody in this House would say that we live in a post-racial society, because that is not the case. I encourage the hon. Member for Moray (Douglas Ross) and others to think about how we move forward from the Macpherson report, particularly for our young black men because they are disproportionately affected, particularly in London, by what happens in this House. We see it in the education system and we see it in our community services.

Many of us on both sides of the House, as well as people in my community and in the country at large, will be marking Stephen Lawrence Day. What Baroness Lawrence said is so important, because young people are the future. They are the next generation, and we must give them that future and that opportunity, and we must give them hope. It is our responsibility.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North (Alex Norris) on securing this very important debate. There is no question but that the Macpherson inquiry changed the way that the state spoke about race. At 350 pages, with 88 witnesses and 100,000 pages of evidence, it was a game-changing report, but it was called “The Stephen Lawrence Inquiry”, and it is the death of Stephen Lawrence that I turn to now.

People forget—or perhaps they were not in the House then—that the death of Stephen Lawrence was one of a series of deaths of young black men in south-east London at that time. This was partly related—some of us think—to the fact that the British National party had its headquarters in Bexley. In 1991, Rolan Adams was stabbed to death by 12 thugs. Only one of them was ever convicted. In 1992, a 16-year-old, Rohit Duggal, was also killed as a consequence of a racist attack. In the months after Stephen’s death, 19 people were injured in a brawl outside the local BNP headquarters.

At that point, Stephen Lawrence’s death made no impact in the wider society. I give the Daily Mail genuine credit, because it took Paul Dacre’s extraordinary front page to make it a subject that the wider society took up. In the black community, however, there was tremendous feeling about it from the beginning, because we knew it was part of a series of deaths of young black men.

Stephen Lawrence died in 1993, and later that year I was the first person in the House of Commons to make a speech about his death. I said:

“The black men and women who came to this country in the 1950s and 1960s went through difficult times and had to work hard to keep themselves and their families together. They always believed…that, for their children, times would be better…Therefore, the recent spate of killings of”

young black people

“and the killing of Stephen Lawrence in particular is distinctly cruel. Black”

young people are being killed

“in a way that makes it look as if society is throwing a community’s hopes back in its face.”—[Official Report, 21 May 1993; Vol. 225, c. 541.]

That was the feeling in the black community at the time. It did not get coverage in the national papers until the Daily Mail took it up, and it was not an issue in this House, but people felt very strongly about it.

For several years, Doreen and Neville Lawrence campaigned on the issues, and it was hard going, because there was little interest. They went to court, and they lost. They organised demonstrations and they lobbied their local MPs. They never gave up. The thing I remember most vividly about the aftermath of the death of Stephen Lawrence is taking Doreen to see my colleague Jack Straw, then Member for Blackburn and shadow Home Secretary. It was the last thing that Doreen could think of to do. We went with other Members of colour, including the then Members for Tottenham and for Brent, South.

I remember talking to Jack Straw before the meeting, and he was actually more interested in issues of diversity than was common at the time. I hope he will not mind my saying that he was a little sceptical about the Stephen Lawrence case, because the Met police at the time were really sceptical. I went into that meeting with my colleagues and Doreen, and she turned Jack Straw around with her passion, her commitment to justice for her son and her fixity of purpose. Jack Straw started that meeting a little sceptical and he came out committed to a public inquiry. No sooner had Labour been elected in 1997 than he delivered on his promise. He gave Doreen her inquiry.

When the inquiry was set up, it was to be led by Judge Macpherson, and some of us asked, “Who is this establishment figure? What kind of report are we going to get?” In fact, it was an amazing report that transfigured the debate. If it has not been implemented in the way that I would have liked, that is no criticism of Judge Macpherson. It shows that sometimes an establishment figure leading an inquiry can have rather good results.

The extraordinary thing is that the Labour Government gave Doreen her inquiry, and it was an important and well thought-out inquiry. The sad thing has been the lack of progress since the Macpherson inquiry. Chief Constable Jon Boutcher is the lead on race and religion for the National Police Chiefs’ Council, and he has said:

“My challenge to policing is that the pace of change is too slow, since Macpherson. In my view it could have been faster. I think it’s about commitment at a senior leadership level. I don’t accept that everything has been done...There have been the words, but not the actions. We need to make sure we have words and actions.”

[Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)]

My right hon. Friend is making a fantastic speech. Does she agree that there are still problems in the Metropolitan police force, and that it is probably accurate to say that more work needs to be done to ensure that any form of institutional racism is eradicated from the Met?

[Ms Abbott]

I agree that there is more work to be done. Chief Constable Jon Boutcher also said that race was continually at the heart of the biggest issues facing policing. He spoke about the disproportional over-targeting of black people for stop-and-search purposes which was referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Edmonton (Kate Osamor), about knife crime, about female genital mutilation, about honour-based violence, about modern slavery and about terrorism. He said:

“Race is at the core of so much, we should always have race as a priority regarding representation and community confidence. Race has not continued to be the priority that it should have over the last 25 years.”

That was said by a chief constable, not by some dangerous black radical.

There has been progress, and the narrative is different now. Phrases such as “institutional racism” can be used, and people understand what they mean. The phrase “institutional racism” does not imply that every single individual in an individual in an institution is racist; it means that there are ways in which a certain institution works. However, there has not been enough progress. People forget that after Macpherson, police chiefs from the 43 forces in England and Wales agreed on a Government target: there must be the same proportion of black officers in their ranks as in the community that they served. They were given a decade in which to achieve that, but none of them ever did so.

My hon. Friends have identified a number of issues that arise from any consideration of Macpherson, such as the use of the gangs matrix, in which young black men are disproportionately racially profiled, and the use of stop and search. Labour Members believe in evidence-based stop and search, but its random use has done more to exacerbate bad relationships between the police and the community than anything else. We continue to insist that evidence-based stop and search is one thing, but random stop and search is another. It is all too easy for politicians so say, in the face of a crime wave, “Let us have more stop and search”, but we must insist on its being evidence-based. My hon. Friends have spoken about the importance of recruiting more policemen of colour, the issue being that members of police forces should look like the communities that they serve. There is also the long-standing issue of the promotion possibilities for black policemen.

Macpherson was probably one of the most important events in my lifetime in the context of the debate about race. It has changed the way in which we talk about race, particularly in relation to policing. It is a tribute to Doreen Lawrence for her tenacity, her courage and her persistence that we ever had a Macpherson inquiry. However, there is more to do. We cannot be complacent. Because race is at the heart of many of the issues involved in policing and community safety, we need to look again at those recommendations and proceed with their implementation.

The Macpherson inquiry threw down a gauntlet to society about race. We must pick up that gauntlet, and fulfil the promise of that important inquiry.

Windrush Scheme

Marsha De Cordova Excerpts

Tuesday 5th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

The hon. Lady chooses to lower the tone of the debate when she could try to help her constituents. The whole House is proud of immigrants who have come to this country, whether they are first or second generation, and whether they came from Jamaica, Pakistan or anywhere else. The hon. Lady does herself no service by lowering the tone of the debate.

[Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) on securing the urgent question. Will the Home Secretary confirm that 13 of the detainees who are scheduled to be deported this week came to this country as children? We know that there is a grey area in the definition of “British citizen” and “foreign national”; does not the right hon. Gentleman believe that it is time to review it?

[Sajid Javid]

The law is very clear on this. It focuses on the crime and on the nationality of the individual, as in whether they are British or not. When someone has committed a serious crime such as rape or murder, the law requires that, as a foreign national offender, they should be deported.

Police Grant Report

Marsha De Cordova Excerpts

Tuesday 5th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the fantastic speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Redcar (Anna Turley).

Police funding is a major issue in my constituency, as it is across London, and has become a major issue because of nine years of devastating Government cuts. In the name of austerity, central Government funding for the Metropolitan police has been cut by more than £650 million since 2011, and the Government are enforcing a further £263 million of savings by 2023.

Those cuts have consequences, including for police numbers. More than 3,000 police community support officers have been taken off London’s streets since 2010, which is a decrease of nearly 75%, and nearly 3,000 police officers have been taken off our streets, including hundreds from my streets in Battersea. Nearly one in six police officers in Wandsworth have been lost in the last three years alone. One result of these cuts has been the decimation of community policing, which used to ensure that police officers were embedded within communities, were trusted and knowledgeable, and had relationships with the local community.

As I said, funding cuts have consequences for the police and police cuts have consequences for crime, community safety and the wellbeing of my constituents. Just as the Government are slashing police funding, violent crime is rising dramatically. I wish the Home Secretary was in his place, because he refuses to acknowledge that the reduction in policing will lead to a rise in violent crime. It is a fact; the evidence is there. We on the Opposition Benches can acknowledge that, because we witness it daily.

Since 2013, violent crime has increased by 57%. In the first six months of last year in Wandsworth, it increased by more than 15%. Moped crime has been soaring.

[The Minister for Policing and the Fire Service (Mr Nick Hurd)]

indicated dissent.

[Marsha De Cordova]

I ask that the Minister show me some respect when I am making my speech. I did not interrupt him, and he should not interrupt me. In 2014, there were 1,000 incidents of moped crime. By 2017, that had shot up to 17,500. That is an increase, in my opinion.

I am regularly contacted by constituents who are understandably fearful and shocked, be they parents who fear their children will be caught up in crime or those who have been victims of crime themselves. They are being failed by this Government, and too often in Battersea, as across the country, we see the tragic consequences of those failures. Last year, my constituency had two fatalities from knife crime—two lives lost too soon as a result of a reduction in policing.

The police funding grant is just a drop in the ocean. It means a ninth consecutive year of Government funding cuts. It means police numbers falling to the lowest levels in three decades. It is even forcing Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary to warn that the police are so stretched that

“the lives of vulnerable people could be at risk.”

Just as police cuts have consequences, cuts in public services across the board are also leading to a rise in crime. When public services are cut, that means that youth centres and services are cut; when school funds are cut, that means that there are not enough resources to enable our children to be taught and educated. Those are the results of this Government’s funding cuts.

If evidence were needed, the last nine years have shown that communities cannot be safe on the cheap. Austerity for the police and public services means misery, fear and crime for the people. My constituency is suffering from the Government’s failure to learn those lessons. Before more lives are lost, I call on them to invest in our services and invest in our communities.

Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill

Marsha De Cordova Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution: House of Commons & Programme motion: House of Commons & Ways and Means resolution: House of Commons
Monday 28th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Ms Abbott]

The Home Secretary knows perfectly well that I never voted for those aspects of Labour policy, and I made the point that some of the aspects of the hostile environment, particularly in relation to the health service, were introduced under a Labour Government.

[Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that the Home Secretary should not be trying to score political points on what is quite a serious issue and that it is not for her to apologise for what a past Labour Government did? We are talking about what this Government have done in relation to the Windrush scandal and the hostile environment policies they introduced.

[Ms Abbott]

Rather than trying to score the political points, the public would want the Home Secretary to move much faster in sorting out the Windrush scandal and to look further into its effects, because persons from the Caribbean were not the only Commonwealth cohort affected. Unless the Home Secretary moves faster and with more will, other cohorts of persons from all parts of the former British empire will be treated in the way in which the Windrush persons were treated.

Police Funding Settlement

Marsha De Cordova Excerpts

Thursday 13th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hurd]

Yes, I can certainly confirm that this settlement has the potential to increase funding to GMP by up to £35 million, of which almost £15 million comes from central Government grants. Again that is an enormously important police force that is stretched and is facing challenging circumstances, which is why we are determined to come to this House with an ambitious settlement to increase resources for policing and capacity for policing, and I look forward to my hon. Friend’s support.

[Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)]

My constituents in Battersea are seeing an alarming rise in crime, with violent crime having increased by more than 15% in just six months this year. Following over £2 billion of cuts by this Tory Government to our local forces, can the Minister now confirm that the funding settlement today is only a tiny fraction of what has already been cut from our forces since 2010, and this will leave our police forces unable to meet the surge in violent crime?

[Mr Hurd]

I do not think my constituents would consider £172 million of increased investment in London policing, if that is what the Mayor enables, to be a small, tiny step; I think most people would recognise that to be a large amount of money. They want the police to have more support and welcome the fact that the Met are recruiting additional officers, yet the hon. Lady joins other Labour MPs in punching the same old tune on the jukebox, which completely ignores the economic reality that the last Labour Government ran out of money and ran up the biggest budget deficit in the history of this country, and it was our responsibility to sort that out.

Oral Answers to Questions

Marsha De Cordova Excerpts

Monday 3rd December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hurd]

I hope that the hon. Lady will welcome the additional public investment of just under £11 million that has gone into Greater Manchester police this year, and I hope that she will support us on the police funding settlement, which is imminent.

[Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)]

Today is the UN International Day of Persons with Disabilities. On this day, we celebrate the contributions made by disabled people and call for our rights to be realised. In the last year, hate crime towards disabled people has risen by 33%. The UN has warned the Government that statements about disabled people have encouraged negative attitudes, which leads to the rise in hate. On this day, what action are the Government taking to tackle the rise in hate crime against disabled people?

[Sajid Javid]

We must of course—all of us, in every Department—do all we can to help vulnerable people, including disabled people. That includes addressing hate crime against disabled people, which is of course completely unacceptable. We refreshed our hate crime action plan recently. We are always looking to see what more we can do.

Asylum Accommodation Contracts

Marsha De Cordova Excerpts

Wednesday 10th October 2018 Westminster Hall

[Alex Cunningham]

That is a very strong point. Local churches including my own, the Portrack Baptist church, are running the English classes for refugees in our community, so the point is well made and I am sure that the Minister will have taken it on board.

Asylum Matters commissioned an analysis of the statement of requirements for the new asylum accommodation and support contracts in order to identify how they differ from the current COMPASS—commercial and operational managers procuring asylum support services—contracts. It found that, on the whole, the new contracts resemble the current one, with most of the alterations being made unlikely to improve significantly the service that is provided. Has the Minister seen that analysis and, if so, what does she think of it?

There is also serious concern that the contract is for 10 years without any review period built in. That is reckless and wrong. The whole approach lets the Government wash their hands of the whole issue for a whole decade. With inadequate monitoring, many profit takers will just maximise their returns by short-changing refugees.

[Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend for securing the debate. Does he agree that it is wrong to award 10-year contracts without adequate contract compliance being in place to ensure that people meet the obligations and that basic standards are met, so that the human rights of asylum seekers are not violated?

[Alex Cunningham]

Exactly. I really look forward to hearing from the Minister how the compliance and monitoring will be improved for the new contracts.

Things may have changed in the last few days, but we believe that the Home Office has not yet received compliant bids in north-east England, Yorkshire and the Humber and Northern Ireland. With no information provided to local authorities about why that situation has happened, the people who could be left to pick up the pieces are being left in the dark. Perhaps the Minister can update the House on the current status of compliant bids and, if we do not have them, tell us about plan B.

In a report put together by Asylum Matters on asylum housing in Tyneside, it was found that there are real concerns about mother-and-child accommodation. Women with two children of different ages are still all put together in one room—a situation that would never normally be accepted in the UK. Babies are particularly vulnerable to sickness in such situations, and the cramped conditions are causing disease to spread at an alarming rate, leading to everyone suffering from a sickness bug but still having to join a queue to use the bathroom down the hall. That is intolerable and even inhumane.

One of the other more emotive issues with the proposed contract has been highlighted by the Home Affairs Committee and so many other people. I am referring to asylum seekers being forced to share a bedroom, perhaps with a person of a different culture, different nationality and different religion. Often, it can be a victim of torture who is forced to share a room. Freedom from Torture has many examples that demonstrate that the Government and their contractors are failing to consider properly the vulnerability of many of these people.

One asylum seeker was placed in a shared room, and even though his therapist wrote to UK Visas and Immigration on three occasions, outlining his depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, suicidal ideation and chronic pain, no response was received for weeks on end and the suffering continued.