Asylum Seekers: Support and Accommodation
Debate between Mike Wood and Luke Charters(1 week, 3 days ago)
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Mr Charters
I know the hon. Member will therefore welcome the Government’s plan to end the use of asylum hotels. I hope he will join me in accepting the premise that dispersal accommodation, where it is more stable and more community based, is more suitable for children than the hotel that he speaks of in his constituency.
Closing the hotels is a progressive responsibility, but let me be clear about what the Government have already achieved. They have brought down the number of asylum hotels, from over 400 to about 210 now, and have reduced the number of people in hotels—
Mr Charters
Let me just finish. At its worst under the Tories, the system cost the taxpayer £9 million a day, which has already been cut to £5.5 million a day. That is not a gimmick; it is delivery.
Let me talk about the scandal of profiteering, however, because the public are paying the price while private hotel companies and contractors profit. I will be blunt: £180 million in profit was made by one hotel company where toilet roll was rationed, asylum seekers were fed inedible expired food, and families and children lived with cockroaches, rodents, damp and mould. That is absolutely disgusting—it is a disgrace, frankly, that under the last Government taxpayer money was funding such hotels. It is absolutely right that we work to close them by 2029.