Jo Gideon
Main Page: Jo Gideon (Conservative - Stoke-on-Trent Central)Department Debates - View all Jo Gideon's debates with the Home Office
(1 year, 2 months ago)
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Robert Jenrick
We are always looking for further locations, but we do not currently have any agreement with ports in Teesside.
Jo Gideon (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Con)
I thank my right hon. Friend for the work he has done to bring down the number of boat crossings and to speed up people being sent back. I also thank him personally for coming to Stoke-on-Trent to see the challenges we have. My hon. Friend and neighbour the Member for Stoke-on-Trent South (Jack Brereton) mentioned the hotel that is the gateway to our city and symbolic of what we aspire to: levelling up. I am grateful that it is to be one of the 50.
Robert Jenrick
I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s kind words and for the leadership she has shown in arguing on behalf of her constituents for that migrant hotel to close. Her argument was grounded in levelling up, to which she is very committed. I know from working with Stoke-on-Trent City Council on many different things in the recent past how important that gateway to the city is, and how much investment has been secured to improve it, so that leisure and business travellers arrive in that great city and see it at its best. Closing that hotel will, I hope, play a small part in turning that tide.