Afghan Resettlement Update

James Gray Excerpts

Wednesday 13th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[Johnny Mercer]

I welcome the hon. Gentleman to his new post, and on another day I look forward to engaging with him across the Dispatch Box on veterans policy. As of 8 December, 215 families remain in temporary accommodation, and as of a few days ago, around 1,826 ARAP-entitled personnel are still in Pakistan. That is obviously blending with the ACRS pathway. Indeed, a flight of 246 people is arriving today on the ACRS pathway and will be met by Home Office officials. As I said, 70% of those have been pre-matched to houses, and we are looking to accommodate the remainder and get them into settled accommodation as soon as possible.

The red lines remain the same: nobody has slept rough as a result of this policy. We are clearly juggling multiple different dynamics when it comes to getting people into this country, into temporary transit accommodation so that we do not delay the flow out of Pakistan or Afghanistan, and then into settled accommodation, which is where we all want these people to be. The numbers are changing every day, and I am more than happy to share what they will be. I do not want anybody to be in a hotel for a day longer than they want to be, whether in Pakistan or the United Kingdom. I am not really interested in what has happened before; we are where we are today.

I am determined that we will see through our duty to this cohort—both ARAP and ACRS—and I will turn myself inside out until we get to the place where all entitled personnel are in settled accommodation in the United Kingdom, in line with our commitments.

[James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)]

It is a matter of honour and common human decency that we should give these people, who served us so well in Afghanistan, proper accommodation and a safe refuge here in the United Kingdom. I very much welcome the fact that the Minister is doing that for the remaining people in Pakistan and Afghanistan. I also welcome the fact that he has been clear that hotels are not the right place for these people to be housed, and I am proud that we in Wiltshire are making a significant amount of our empty military accommodation available to them, including 40 in my own constituency, but also a large number across the county. That is a good use for empty military accommodation and I hope it will work extremely well.

Will the Minister make representations to his colleagues in the Home Office that the strength of feeling against the use of hotels for these people stands in some contrast to the Wiltshire golf club hotel, not one mile away from Lyneham, where those people will be housed, which is crammed to the doors with 120 other asylum seekers and refugees of one kind or another? The Home Office must take steps to do what the Minister has done by removing those people from unsuitable hotel accommodation and into decent, permanent accommodation.

[Johnny Mercer]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question. Wiltshire Council is one of many local authorities across the country—I had a call on Monday with officials, and yesterday with council leaders, 270 of them across the country—that are part of this real national effort, and I pay tribute to them for their work on this. The operating box that I am within is the Afghan cohort, both ACRS and ARAP-entitled personnel. Those in the Home Office are dealing with the wider migration issue, and I will let them write to my hon. Friend and answer those points in due course.