Hilary Benn
Main Page: Hilary Benn (Labour - Leeds South)Department Debates - View all Hilary Benn's debates with the Home Office
(1 year, 8 months ago)
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Robert Jenrick
My hon. Friend is right to say that there is a peculiarity in that those on the left of politics seem to be happy to house our brave armed forces personnel on those sites but not to see illegal immigrants temporarily housed there while we process their claims. Of course, we will always be motivated by decency and legality. Those sites will be well run and appropriate, but we must not allow a further pull factor to the UK to emerge.
Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab)
The right hon. Gentleman told the House a little earlier that the three sites, which we presume are RAF Scampton, RAF Wethersfield and a site in East Sussex—perhaps he would care to name it—will
“provide accommodation for several thousand asylum seekers”.
Can he tell the House how many thousands, and in doing so, can he remind us of the total number of people who are being placed in hotels currently?
Robert Jenrick
The number of individuals who will be housed on the sites will step up. Obviously, we want to ensure that the sites are well managed, so initially there will be smaller numbers, but within a very short time, there will be several thousand on those sites.
Robert Jenrick
I am not going to give those details to the right hon. Gentleman now, because it is right that we engage with the local authorities and that they be the first to know the full details of our plans, but there will be a very significant addition to our capacity. The point he is making is that, in addition to that, there is a very large number of people currently accommodated in hotels, but this is the first step—the first step on the road to clearing those hotels and moving forward.
I would just make one further point: it is abundantly clear to me, having spent four months in this role now, that there is no way in which I or the British Government can build our way out of this issue. There are tens of thousands of people entering our country in an irregular manner every year. Of course, we have to get our own processes and management processes in place, but we have to stop people coming here in the first place. That is why we are bringing forward the Bill.