Asylum Seekers: Hotel Accommodation

Gareth Snell Excerpts

Wednesday 20th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Dame Angela Eagle]

We certainly want those who gain status to be usefully employed, and my part of the system is ensuring that we get those asylum decisions up and running as fast as possible. Unfortunately, we have inherited a difficult situation, which we are working hard to resolve. Once someone has gained status in this country, of course they are able to work, so we have to get the system working faster.

[Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

In my constituency, two hotels were opened under the previous Conservative Government, and they are still there, so I find the new concern from Conservative Members slightly disconcerting. Although I accept what the hon. Member for West Suffolk (Nick Timothy) says about this now being the Labour Government’s problem, I am certain that Conservative Members do not want to publicly defend their appalling legacy, wo need a little less from them. The question I put to the Minister—[Interruption.] That is how it works here: we ask a question and wait for the answer. [Interruption.] The shadow Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Croydon South (Chris Philp), can keep quiet.

Schools in my constituency say that accessing children in those hotels for educational welfare visits or safeguarding checks is proving more and more difficult because the providers do not understand their responsibilities. I encourage the Minister to speak to her counterparts in the Department for Education and the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to ensure that those necessary checks to keep children safe can be done unimpeded.

[Dame Angela Eagle]

Since we came into government, we have done much more to co-operate across Departments, and I will certainly take that issue up with my opposite numbers in the Department for Education and MHCLG.