Asylum Seekers: Hotel Accommodation

Judith Cummins Excerpts

Wednesday 20th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Dame Angela Eagle]

I strongly agree with my hon. Friend: we inherited a system that was at a standstill. There was a backlog of 90,000 cases involving 116,000 people, and the law would not allow them to be processed. We have restarted processing. We are gearing up the asylum system, so that we can get throughput in the system, and ultimately exit the hotels and start using a more cost-effective system. I agree with my hon. Friend that the carping by Conservative Members, who created the backlogs and the mess that we are having to deal with, is a bit rich.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)]

I call the shadow Secretary of State.

[Chris Philp (Croydon South) (Con)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Stone, Great Wyrley and Penkridge (Sir Gavin Williamson) on securing this urgent question. He is right to raise this issue. As he said, Labour promised in its manifesto to end the use of hotels, yet the Minister has just admitted at the Dispatch Box that, far from ending the use of hotels, the Government are in fact opening up even more. She has just admitted to 14. Perhaps it should come as no surprise now that, once again, Labour is doing the precise opposite to what it promised in its manifesto.

When the Conservatives were in government, they were in fact closing down hotels. Luckily, I have the figures in front of me. Between September last year and 30 June this year, the number of people in contingency accommodation, which is Home Office speak for hotels, went down by 47%—it went down—yet under this new Government it is going up. The Minister has told us how many hotels have opened up, will she tell us how many extra people are now in contingency accommodation, compared with 4 July? Will she also commit to always notifying Members of Parliament in advance—at least two weeks in advance—that a hotel will be opening in their constituency?

We all know the cause of this problem. It is the illegal and dangerous channel crossings. I am afraid the position has got even worse since the figures my right hon. Friend quoted were drawn up. Since the election, 19,988 people have crossed the channel. That is a 23% increase on the same period last year, and it is a 66% increase on the same period immediately before the election. Why have these numbers of people illegally crossing the channel gone up? The National Crime Agency has told us that we need a deterrent—that we cannot police our way out of this. Even Ursula von der Leyen, the President of the European Commission, has said that European member states should look at offshore processing. We saw a deterrent system work in Australia, yet Labour scrapped the Rwanda deterrent before it had even started. The first flight had not taken off and that is why the deterrent effect had not commenced. Will the Minister follow Ursula von der Leyen’s advice? Will she emulate the Australians and reinstate the scheme?

--- Later in debate ---

[Dame Angela Eagle]

We are prioritising getting the system up and running again so that we can have throughput in our asylum accommodation estate. The fact that the system had ground to a complete halt when we came into government, with 90,000 unprocessed cases, has meant that there have been delays in getting it up and running. I explained to the House that we have gone from making 1,000 asylum decisions a month to 10,000. The system is beginning to get flow-through, and as that happens, we will exit from hotels. We have had to have a small increase. We have been in power four months. The manifesto did not say that we would end the use of hotels in four months. When the Conservatives were in power, more than 400 hotels were in use at its height, and they did not give any MP two weeks’ notice that those hotels were opening.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

[Lisa Smart (Hazel Grove) (LD)]

While an asylum seeker waits months or even years in a hotel for a decision on their claim, they are trapped in limbo. They are unable to work and are forced to depend on Government funds. That benefits no one—not the asylum seekers, who want to get on and start rebuilding their lives, and not taxpayers, who foot the bill. That is before I mention our local councils, which are left to pick up the pieces.

To end the use of hotels, tackling the backlog that ballooned on the previous Government’s watch must be part of the solution, but we can also reduce the demand for Government accommodation by allowing asylum seekers to support themselves and contribute to the economy—something that the Home Office has recognised will not act as a pull factor for asylum seekers. Will the Minister finally scrap the ban on asylum seekers working and paying their fair share as doctors or dentists if they have been waiting three months or longer for a decision on their claim? Will she commit to providing local councils with the resources that they need—both funding and clear guidance—to provide proper support for asylum seekers and the local communities hosting these hotels?