Clive Efford
Main Page: Clive Efford (Labour - Eltham and Chislehurst)Department Debates - View all Clive Efford's debates with the Home Office
G4S: Immigration Removal Centres
Clive Efford Excerpts(6 years, 6 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
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Victoria Atkins
I thank my hon. Friend for his interest. An action plan was put in place that included appointing a new manager and dismissing nine staff, enhancing staffing levels with recruitment and training plans, introducing body-worn cameras for staff to provide more transparency and assurance, refreshing and promoting whistleblowing procedures, putting in place an improved drugs strategy, and commissioning an independent review led by Kate Lampard to look at the root causes of the issues highlighted that is expected to report this summer. In addition, the Home Office monitors this continuously. Indeed, the Home Office has strengthened its staff numbers at the centres to try to help on a casework basis people who may wish to return voluntarily.
Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)
G4S’s performance in how it delivers public contracts is woefully inadequate, and not only in the Prison Service. G4S runs the transport service for my local hospital. Last week, I had to go to rescue a 94-year-old relative from a discharge area full of patients who had been waiting over five hours for G4S to turn up, and this is a regular occurrence. I am a governor of a school where G4S consistently fails to deliver on the school maintenance contract. When are the Government going to get a grip and deal with G4S, because there is something fundamentally wrong at the heart of this company?
Victoria Atkins
G4S is held to account not just by the Home Office but centrally through Cabinet Office reporting requirements. The new procurement process will provide a basis for further progress on all these issues, and the progress of G4S will continue to be monitored very closely.