Asylum Accommodation Contracts

Alex Sobel Excerpts

Wednesday 10th October 2018 Westminster Hall

[Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) on securing this important debate.

There are so many horror stories about asylum accommodation in the UK and so many reasons why we need independent oversight that it would be impossible to cover everything in the time I have, but I hope that what I do share gives an understanding of how outsourcing companies acting like vultures are failing our most vulnerable. I hope these contracts can be delivered better locally by those who have the interests of the residents at heart.

G4S holds a contract in the giant north-east England, Yorkshire and Humber region. It has a home for 14 mothers and 14 babies in my constituency. I was first contacted about the property by the manager of a local children’s centre, who described a multitude of issues and the unwillingness of G4S to act. On visiting the house, the first thing that struck me was the stickiness underfoot and the smell of urine. That was the result of an earlier rat infestation, which was reported to G4S and ignored.

Although the local church stepped in and blocked the rats’ entrance to the bedroom, the carpet remained coated in rat urine. A toddler crawling over the carpet had a skin infection. Her mother told me, “There is nowhere else for her to go.” That was not strictly true. Her baby could have crawled in the hallway, where a missing baby gate left a steep set of stairs exposed—something of which G4S had been informed months before. Or perhaps the child could crawl around the kitchen, where rat poison was left on the floor and mould covered every wall.

There are other issues in the property, including a lack of cleaning and cooking equipment, which G4S should have provided. After writing to G4S in exasperation, I met the landlord of the property, who stepped in and provided what G4S did not. That was in addition to the maintenance requests that G4S had failed to pass on, increasing its profit margin at someone else’s expense.

Vermin is a common theme in these properties. Another woman living with a young child reported a mice infestation, caused by holes in the walls of the property. G4S refused to be held accountable. Instead of dealing with it, it sent the woman on a training course in kitchen hygiene. After six months of complaining, and with multiple open wounds caused by mice biting her face, she went to Leeds City Council, which acted swiftly to solve the problem. That cost should have been covered by the asylum accommodation contract. However, the public sector had to step in, subsidising the private sector. It is not only G4S that is failing. I heard about one young woman who moved into Serco-run accommodation only to find human faeces smeared on her bedroom wall. She cleaned it up, but the cockroaches and rodents were more persistent.

These stories represent the dark side of Conservative ideology—a disturbing faith in privatisation and outsourcing, no matter the human cost, and the growing of private profits at the expense of the public and the vulnerable. These contracts underline the unwillingness and inability of the private sector to provide safe, habitable accommodation to some of the most vulnerable in our society.

My experience of working with those 14 mothers in my constituency shows the neglectful regime of G4S, compared with the generous and loving nature of the city of Leeds and our Labour council. I thank our children’s centre, which worked unpaid to support those mothers, as well as the church, which did the jobs the private sector could not, the landlord, who stepped in, and my staff and local party members, who helped to provide basic items that G4S would not.

[Karen Lee (Lincoln) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that, in cases such as this, local authorities ought to be empowered to take over these contracts and oversee them, because this situation clearly is not acceptable?

[Alex Sobel]

It is absolutely not acceptable. I was just coming on to those points, which I thank my hon. Friend for raising. As she said, it is not up to individual and local groups to step in. These contracts cost millions of pounds in public funds, but struggling local authorities step in to prevent homelessness when the private firms cannot fulfil their contracts. Our councils are expected to bail out these companies, but they are not granted any oversight of the delivery of their contracts. That is both insulting and impractical. It has created a system lacking in democracy and dignity.

Everyone deserves a safe and secure home in this country. These contracts must be revisited. Councils and charities must have a central role in ensuring that the safety of asylum seekers is the priority in delivery. There must also be independent oversight of these contracts to ensure that people come before profit.