Unaccompanied Asylum-seeking Children

Debate between Kenny MacAskill and Robert Jenrick

Tuesday 24th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

I share the hon. Lady’s concern and I have already set out the steps that we have taken so far to ensure that the hotels have significant support attached to them, and the work that we are doing to ensure that local authorities can make more placements available in the future. I can assure her that we are working with all those Government Departments and with the police to ensure that any young person who goes missing is tracked as far as we can, and certainly to the same standard we would expect for any of our own children.

[Kenny MacAskill (East Lothian) (Alba)]

I welcome the Minister’s clarification, but our obligations go beyond simply providing safe and secure accommodation. It has been a few years since I met unaccompanied asylum seekers who were unable to obtain the education maintenance allowance because they could not access a bank account, due to the complexities and what they were required to provide. Those complexities may have been resolved, but others will have arisen. Can he assure me that, as well as safe and secure accommodation, such complexities will be looked at so that unaccompanied asylum seekers can develop and flourish while they are in our care, whether or not they ultimately remain in this country?

[Robert Jenrick]

We take all those things into account, which is why we want to ensure that young people get into local authority care, where they can access education. If the hon. Gentleman has any suggestions from his own experience, I would be pleased to read about them and to take action accordingly.

Migration

Debate between Kenny MacAskill and Robert Jenrick

Wednesday 16th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

My hon. Friend raises an important point. Productivity in the Home Office fell very sharply during the covid period and has yet to recover in its entirety. That is wrong and we need to change it. We need to ensure that caseworkers review and decide on cases at least at the same speed as they did a couple of years ago. A pilot in Leeds on how to do that has more than doubled the productivity of caseworkers. We want to get that still higher and roll it out across the country. The Home Secretary and I will say more shortly.

[Kenny MacAskill (East Lothian) (Alba)]

As legislation rightly progresses to address the shameful sacking of UK seafarers by P&O, another injustice is arising through the Home Office’s actions. The extension of the offshore wind workers immigration rules concession 2017 means that UK seafarers are being replaced by cheap Filipino crew. That is happening 15 km from the coast of Fife in an offshore wind field operated by the state companies of France and Ireland. The contracts have largely gone abroad and the jobs are now going south. Given that this is an urgent question about migration, why is the Minister allowing that to happen? The UK crew who require that employment and have been working hard are now being replaced by workers providing cheap labour, who, frankly, are being exploited and brought in by unsavoury contractors.

[Robert Jenrick]

We are not allowing that to happen. The Nationality and Borders Act 2022 led to a short extension in the practice until April 2023, at which point it comes to a close. Measures relating to the valid criticisms of the hon. Gentleman will be put into effect shortly.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Kenny MacAskill and Robert Jenrick

Monday 5th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

I can certainly confirm that. We want to ensure that the green belt is protected so that there are beautiful green spaces for our constituents to enjoy and the identity of villages and communities such as those that my hon. Friend represents is protected and preserved for future generations.

[Kenny MacAskill (East Lothian) (SNP) [V]]

John Wheatley’s Housing (Financial Provisions) Act 1924 transformed municipal housing not simply for Scotland but for the UK. A century on, that legacy has been tarnished by Tory policies and is now threatened by the United Kingdom Internal Market Bill, as my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow East (David Linden) mentioned. Will the Secretary of State guarantee not to reduce Scottish standards, given the understandable fears that arise as a result of Grenfell and other Tory cutbacks, or will the lesson be, as with other Red Clydesiders like John Wheatley, that only an independent Scottish Parliament can protect the rights of Scottish people?