Alistair Carmichael
Main Page: Alistair Carmichael (Liberal Democrat - Orkney and Shetland)Department Debates - View all Alistair Carmichael's debates with the Home Office
Napier Barracks Asylum Accommodation
Alistair Carmichael Excerpts(2 years, 11 months ago)
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Chris Philp
I think my right hon. Friend is raising an extremely good question. It is precisely because of that question that we will be introducing a Bill in the near future, announced in the Queen’s Speech, to reform our system to make sure that the asylum system is fair, as of course it should be, to those in genuine need, but that we deal with these claims quickly, effectively and fairly, and also prevent unnecessary illegal migration, which puts enormous pressure on the system of the kind we are discussing.
Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)
The British Red Cross, which I think we would all acknowledge as the expert in the area of provision of accommodation of this sort, made a recommendation in its recent report that the Home Office
“should introduce a formal, independent inspection regime for asylum…accommodation with publicly available reports,”
in order to better
“monitor the quality and effectiveness of support provided and improve transparency and accountability”
for decisions. Surely, in the Home Office’s own interests, that would be preferable to a status quo where it is left to mark its own homework or to be called out by the courts.
Chris Philp
We do not mark our own homework; we are very widely inspected. In fact, there was an inspection by the independent chief inspector of borders and immigration just a few months ago into Napier.