Asylum Seekers Accommodation and Safeguarding

Maggie Throup Excerpts

Monday 7th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

There should be no unaccompanied children at Manston. Unaccompanied children are taken directly from Western Jet Foil. In some cases when they immediately arrive at Manston, they are taken to specialist hotels, where they are looked after with a range of support provided for them. As I said in answer to a previous question, that in itself is not a desirable outcome. We want to ensure that those young people are quickly taken to better accommodation, particularly foster carers. That relies on us being able to find more. There is a national shortage of foster carers, which is why we put in place a financial package to try to stimulate the market and encourage more people and councils to step up and provide that service.

The right hon. Lady makes an important point about conditions at the site. Conditions were poor when I last visited, but the primary reason for that was the sheer number of individuals there. The staff I met were providing a very good quality of care in difficult circumstances. The food was acceptable, and the health and medical facility was good. The clothing and other support that was provided was something I thought was acceptable and is certainly far in excess of that which would be provided in other European countries.

We have to remember that the individuals who arrive at Manston have literally been hooked out of the sea. We saved their lives just hours previously and many of them have come from significantly worse accommodation such as, for example, the camp at Dunkirk. I am not saying the UK should compare itself with that—we want to be better—but I think the right hon. Lady will find that the facility at Manston is now in a significantly better state and I would be interested in hearing her reflections when she returns.

[Maggie Throup (Erewash) (Con)]

As my right hon. Friend is aware, his Department is housing 400 asylum seekers in two hotels in my constituency, sited 50 metres apart on a busy motorway junction. With no basic amenities nearby or extra resources for local services such as healthcare and policing, their location is wholly unsuitable and I fear could lead to significant safeguarding issues. Ahead of our meeting tomorrow, which I thank him for, will he put together a timetable for their closure and in the meantime ensure that Erewash gets extra support to manage the situation on the ground?

[Robert Jenrick]

My hon. Friend was swift to raise this matter with me as soon as it was brought to her attention. She has raised the issues she has mentioned on the Floor of the House today with me and my officials, and I look forward to meeting her tomorrow to take that forward. As I said in answer to an earlier question, the hotels are not a sustainable answer. We want to ensure that we exit the hotels as quickly as possible and to do that we will need to disperse individuals to other forms of accommodation. We may need to take some larger sites to provide decent but basic accommodation. Of course, we will need to get through the backlog, so that we can get more people out of the system either by returning them to their home country, or granting them asylum so they can begin to make a contribution to the UK.