Asylum Accommodation

Afzal Khan Excerpts

Thursday 14th December 2017 Westminster Hall

[Afzal Khan (Manchester, Gorton) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to speak under your chairmanship, Mr Hanson. Our asylum accommodation system is not fit for purpose. Those who come to the UK for protection are housed in appalling and at times unsafe conditions.

I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) on securing the debate. She does an excellent job as the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee. Today, she has clearly and forensically exposed the Government’s failures to implement the Committee’s recommendations on asylum accommodation, and I, too, agree with most of the contributions we have heard from hon. Members.

I will take a slightly wider view this afternoon. The issue of asylum accommodation exposes three underlying issues in the Home Office that run through everything it does: first, the inability to deal with its workload and process cases efficiently and fairly; secondly, the lack of transparency and accountability; and thirdly, the pursuit of cost savings above what is best for communities. There is an urgent need to change our asylum accommodation system. We have that opportunity, as the current contracts are coming to an end, but so far the Home Office has not been listening. Now is their chance.

The Committee highlighted in its report that demand on the asylum system has increased and that the Home Office has not been able to keep up. The backlog is significant. The chief inspector of borders and immigration said of his recent report:

“Given the life-changing nature of asylum decisions, the Home Office’s performance needs to improve.”

When the Home Office takes too long to decide a claim, real people suffer. When it makes inaccurate decisions, people suffer.

Research by Refugee Action found that on average, people spend 37 days in initial accommodation, waiting for their claim to be assessed, despite the fact that the Government have recognised that such accommodation is not suitable for long-term stays. The temporary nature of initial accommodation prevents people from registering with GPs, placing their children in school or appointing a legal representative to progress their asylum claim. Will the Minister regularly publish data on the length of time people spend in initial accommodation? Do the Government even collect that data?

I am deeply concerned about the extent to which the Home Office evades transparency and accountability. Contracts to provide asylum accommodation have been granted to private companies and look like they will be again. As complex services are outsourced, they evade scrutiny. The Home Affairs Committee report found that the

“current compliance regime is not fit for purpose.”

Will the Minister assure us today that he will provide an independent oversight and accountability role for local authorities, as the Committee recommended?

Asylum accommodation deals with some very vulnerable people. The Committee’s report highlighted deeply concerning reports of unannounced visits. One person came home to find a housing officer going through their phone. The report found victims of trafficking being re-traumatised by officers entering their property with keys, without waiting to be let in, as well as threats of repercussions if people complained, and rude and intimidating behaviour.

I seriously question why the Home Office has granted contracts to companies that have very dubious records in other contracts they hold. Only recently, staff of the security firm G4S were found to be abusing detainees at Brook House. The conduct of the staff was disgraceful, but so was the lack of Home Office oversight. What assurance will the Minister give that companies with such terrible records will not continue to be granted asylum accommodation contracts? Will he confirm that when we find appalling practice, we can terminate the contract? Will the Minister agree that councils are much better placed to manage the service? They already manage integration and other public services that asylum seekers would be accessing.

The new contracts are being advertised for 10 years, with no break clause. From a purely practical point of view, that is wrong. Asylum is a volatile and unpredictable area. We need proper accountability and the ability to change contracts that are not working. Will the Minister commit to a review of the new contracts within three years of operation to check whether they are performing well, need reform, or need to be halted?

The Home Office’s aim was to save £140 million through the COMPASS contracts. It seems unlikely that they will achieve those savings. The dispersal system has not worked. Instead, asylum seekers are clustering in some of the most deprived areas of the country, which are already at the sharp end of cuts to local government and are now being asked to absorb the significant extra costs associated with housing and integrating high numbers of asylum seekers and refugees.

The report highlights some success stories. The vulnerable persons resettlement scheme has involved local authorities in designing the process to offer holistic support to refugees and facilitated integration. Will the Minister re-examine the dispersal policy and roll out the resettlement scheme’s approach to all asylum seekers in the UK? Does he agree that privatising that service provided this Government with yet another reason to cut funds from already stretched council budgets? Councils are not being given the opportunity to use such funding to invest in the local area for the benefit of all; instead, it is being used to provide substandard housing to make a profit.

Standards in asylum accommodation are shocking. Nobody should live in a vermin-infested house, or in fear of officers who could arrive at any time. The Home Office’s approach to the issue highlights underlying trends: an inability to deal with its caseload, a lack of transparency and accountability and the pursuit of cost savings above what is best for communities. I encourage the Minister to re-examine that approach and accept the Committee’s recommendations.

[The Minister for Immigration (Brandon Lewis)]

It is a privilege to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hanson.

Many specific points have been made and questions raised during the course of this debate. I will do my best to cover them, but I will also make a point of going back through the debate, and if there are any points that I do not cover in the next few minutes, I will write to the Chair of the Select Committee to cover them. Although we have quite a lot of time, I want to leave time for the right hon. Lady to respond.

Before responding more generally, I will say that the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Stuart C. McDonald) seems to have a better grasp of my diary than I do. I do not doubt that I will be in Scotland shortly. I am not sure whether I will be in Glasgow, but I am happy to meet or talk in Glasgow or in London, whichever works.

Many speakers this afternoon have outlined the ethos and the moral position. The Government agree on the overarching principle of how we look after, support, work with and integrate people who gain asylum here. Although we might disagree sometimes on the details, I would like to think that we agree across the House on the principle.

I urge slightly more caution in the comments made by the hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Afzal Khan) and the right hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Sir Edward Davey). It is dangerous and wholly inappropriate in a debate such as this to confuse asylum with detention for returning people. They are different things, and bringing them together in the way that the Opposition spokesman did is wrong and does a disservice to the position that we take as a country. We try to be clear about how we want to deal with asylum seekers, and I will come to that.

The opening and closing remarks made by the hon. Gentleman on the state of accommodation in asylum were also somewhat misleading. Hon. Members from his own party have said that much of the accommodation is very good. I will come to that point. I do not deny that any property that is not up to the right standard, whether it is social housing or accommodation for asylum seekers, is not acceptable. However, to cast it in the way that he did is simply wrong. Having visited Barry House recently, I disagree with him categorically.

Similarly, I understand the point that the right hon. Gentleman was trying to make about what I always refer to as the compliant environment. Again, it is not helpful to have that in the same conversation, because it does not apply to someone who is gaining asylum. He is right about that. Somebody who is gaining asylum will hopefully play a hugely important part not just in our economy, but in our communities and our society. Much as he described, when I have travelled around the country meeting people who have been resettled, whether they are refugees or people who have gained asylum, I have seen that they play an important part in their local community and are valued by the community. He made a good point about that. I am happy to confirm that the compliant environment is a different thing. It is about people who are here illegally, which is different. Personally, I try to keep them in different conversations, because asylum is different from being here illegally.

[Afzal Khan]

To ensure that things are clear, I am not saying that all accommodation is poor.

[Brandon Lewis]

That is what you said.

[Afzal Khan]

Well, we can check that again. Some of it is appalling. The key point on which I wanted clarification is whether the Minister, in saying asylum and detention are being mixed up, is saying that asylum seekers are never detained.

[Brandon Lewis]

I am saying that confusing the completely unacceptable and abhorrent scenes that we saw in the “Panorama” programme on Brook House with somewhere like Barry House and the work done by organisations around the country on asylum accommodation is simply wrong. It is a mistake to go that way. It gives the wrong impression and confuses two very different things.

Ultimately, the United Kingdom has a proud history of providing an asylum system that should look to protect and respect the fundamental rights of individuals seeking refuge from persecution. I have always been clear that I personally and we as a Government are committed to continuing to ensure that destitute asylum seekers are accommodated in safe, secure and suitable accommodation. They should be treated with dignity while their claims are considered.

Since the current system for asylum accommodation contracts began in 2012, there have been changes. It is important to be aware that the contracts for the provision of housing for asylum seekers demand high standards of accommodation—in many areas, higher than in the social housing sector. I should also be clear that a third of all properties are inspected every year—more than in social housing—and where it is required, appropriate and requested, that is done in conjunction with local authorities, to involve them in the process. It is a requirement that every property be inspected every month by the accommodation provider. We encourage service users to report defects to their provider as they arise.

The contracts also contain strict time limits within which repairs must be made, and we in the Home Office have an inspection monitoring regime to ensure that those time scales are met. The vast majority of accommodation provided has been maintained at a good standard, but as with all housing, property defects and issues can and do occur. Where they do, our providers are required to rectify them. If any hon. Members have examples of where that has not been done, I want to know about them so that we can chase them through the system.