Homelessness among Refugees
Debate between Nigel Adams and Kate Green(5 years, 10 months ago)
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Kate Green
I thank all hon. Members who participated in this excellent debate. It was really good to have interest from parties on both sides of the House, sharing the concern about how we welcome and look after refugees.
Nigel Adams
I apologise for interrupting the hon. Lady, but I did not manage to mention this point. I know that she is keen for the Home Office to engage with this matter and I will ensure that the relevant Minister from the Home Office meets her and interested colleagues to take these issues forward.
Kate Green
I am very grateful to the Minister. I am sure that the all-party parliamentary groups that my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol West (Thangam Debbonaire) and I chair will be very happy to facilitate that meeting.
As we heard in the debate, what refugees, in common with all of us, need to be able to settle and build their lives is a chance to be in contact with their families, a chance to have a decent job if they are able to work and, importantly, a chance to have a secure home. As the Minister, I think, has acknowledged, that requires a response right across Government, and I am very grateful to him for his offer to pass on details of this debate to his colleagues in other Departments.
We have obligations—international obligations and human rights obligations—to ensure that we care for refugees here properly, and that will require an approach that extends right across national and local government, as I have said. I hope that the promises that the Minister has made of new policies and strategies delivering an improved service for refugees will come to fruition and will mean that some of the problems identified in today’s debate become a thing of the past. I can assure him and his ministerial colleagues that if that is not the case, we will be back here again to press the case for action in the best interests of refugees.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered homelessness among refugees.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Nigel Adams and Kate Green(5 years, 11 months ago)
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Nigel Adams
No, it is me. Up and down—you have to be quick.
On 9 May the Secretary of State announced the allocation of funds for the £28 million Housing First pilots, which will be in Greater Manchester, the Liverpool city region and the west midlands. Plans to measure the impact and value for money of the approach are also well under way, and the first beneficiaries of the pilots will be housed in the autumn.
Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)
The Government are currently consulting on sites for Traveller families. Rather than simply looking at more enforcement, which police chiefs and others say will not work, what positive solutions is the Minister considering, and will he meet the all-party parliamentary group for Gypsies, Travellers and Roma to discuss some of those positive alternatives?