Support for Asylum Seekers

Kevin Foster Excerpts

Tuesday 27th April 2021 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Kevin Foster)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies. I thank the hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Neil Coyle) and my hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (David Simmonds) for securing the debate. I also thank right hon. and hon. Members who have taken part for their contributions. I will try to respond to the points raised, but as you touched on, Mr Davies, I do not have the opportunity to do that in any great depth with seven to eight minutes left. I will also allow a short period for the hon. Member who secured the debate to offer his closing remarks.

The UK has a proud history of welcoming and supporting those in need of our protection. Throughout the pandemic, we have taken action to ensure that those seeking asylum in the UK have the support they need. Asylum support is provided to destitute asylum seekers until their claims are finally determined and to failed asylum seekers if they are destitute and unable to leave the UK immediately due to circumstances beyond their control, including the current pandemic. That includes access to free accommodation, asylum support allowance and access to our advice, issue reporting and eligibility provider Migrant Help.

The Home Office’s accommodation providers are required to provide safe, habitable, fit-for-purpose and correctly equipped accommodation that complies with the decent homes standard in addition to standards outlined in relevant national or local housing legislation. We worked with our providers to improve property standards over the lifetime of the previous asylum accommodation contracts and have made a number of improvements in the asylum accommodation and support contracts now in place. Where a provider is found to be falling short of those standards, we work with them to ensure that issues are addressed. If they are not, we can and do impose service credits. Housing providers are required to inspect each property every month, and the Home Office also inspects properties on a targeted basis each year. I hope that Members will, however, appreciate the impact of the pandemic on some of those inspections.

There was much focus in the debate on contingency accommodation. The Home Office, along with many local authorities across our whole United Kingdom, has had to use hotels as contingency accommodation during the covid-19 pandemic. Accommodation providers engage with police, local authorities and local contacts prior to and during hotel use in all locations. We regularly provide local authorities and partners with information about hotel use in their areas, including occupancy figures. The hotel accommodation provided is of a reasonable quality, and those housed in it receive three meals a day, with staggered meal times to cater for social distancing requirements, and support to meet all the current public health guidance and our standards.

Where issues have been raised, such as with food, we have inspected menus ourselves. Our providers have also conducted surveys, and we have acted on recommendations arising from them. We have also undertaken several measures in the short term to mitigate the use of hotel contingency. Working groups have been established with three providers to monitor the availability of accommodation within their portfolios. The groups meet Home Office officials weekly with the objective to mitigate moving to hotel use wherever possible by increasing the amount of dispersal accommodation in all regions and nations of our United Kingdom. As a result, we have reduced our reliance on contingency accommodation of all sorts by 25% since December. To be clear, hotels are only ever a contingency option; they are not a long-term solution.

At our contingency accommodation at the Napier site, all the basic needs of asylum seekers are met, including their welfare needs. The site is catered, with three meals a day, and options are provided that cater for special dietary, cultural or religious requirements. Additional meals are provided as required. There is power, heating and water, and access to phones and support items such as toiletries is provided, along with access to laundry facilities. All asylum seekers housed there have access to a 24/7 advice, issue reporting and eligibility service, provided, again, by Migrant Help, where they can raise any concerns regarding accommodation or support services.

On the effectiveness of the dispersal system, I acknowledge the concerns of hon. Members and local authorities who have asked for a more equitable spread of dispersal. The pandemic has presented us with significant challenges when it comes to the provision of asylum accommodation, including sourcing sufficient accommodation to meet demand. Our priority is to ensure that we meet our legal duty to house destitute asylum seekers and ensure their safety and wellbeing, as well as the safety and wellbeing of the communities in which they live. While the numbers of those supported have increased, the majority of asylum seekers do not receive Home Office support, and the majority of those who are not supported live in the south-east of England.

The Home Office is working with a range of local authorities to increase the number of areas that accommodate and support people seeking asylum and protection. Each local authority is encouraged to contribute. I am grateful to the councils that cover the constituencies of the two hon. Members who secured the debate for playing their part, along with the city of Stoke-on-Trent and the city of Glasgow. We have managed to increase the number of voluntary dispersal agreements from 92 to 163, and we continue to try to increase them across our United Kingdom. In the last three years, areas that have agreed to participate include Aylesbury Vale, Gosport, Oxford and Wiltshire, which might all be described as being in the “Tory shires”, to use one hon. Member’s definition.

In addition to those currently participating, we have agreements in place with over 40 more where the provider is finding it difficult to procure suitable properties. I urge all local authorities to assist us and play their part in this work, as simply passing motions and making declarations does not give us options to house or resettle people. I highlight in particular the situation in Scotland, where only one local authority—Glasgow—is taking part. It was interesting to hear that Members from Scotland are desperate to do more. Here is an option: their constituencies can become dispersal areas. Let us not have a Meatloaf-style, “We will do anything to support refugees, but we won’t do that.”

At the root of the issues with accommodation is the fact that our asylum system is broken, with delays, repeat applications and opportunities to game the system. It is expensive and it has lost public trust. It is therefore vital that major reforms are made, and that is exactly what the Government will do through the recently announced new plan for immigration. We will look to increase the fairness and efficacy of our system so that we can better protect and support those in genuine need of asylum, while deterring illegal entry into the United Kingdom based mostly on economic migration reasons, not protection. It is particularly vital that we put an end to dangerous and unnecessary sea crossings. I am sure all hon. Members would agree that we must put an end to such criminal activities.

I will wind up to allow the hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark some time. The UK has a proud history of welcoming and supporting those in need of protection. We are committed to doing everything necessary to protect the rights of asylum seekers and to provide them with the safe and secure accommodation they deserve. As we take forward our new plan for immigration, our focus will remain on supporting the most vulnerable, ensuring their fair and humane treatment and working with all of our partners on matters related to asylum-seeker support to ensure that those who do need protection receive it here in this country.