Asylum Accommodation Contracts

Paul Sweeney Excerpts

Wednesday 10th October 2018 Westminster Hall

[Mr Paul Sweeney (Glasgow North East) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Main. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) on securing the debate, and my fellow Glasgow Member, the hon. Member for Glasgow South West (Chris Stephens), on his speech. No sooner did the summer recess hit than we found we were dealing with a major crisis in the city of Glasgow, because Serco announced its intention to undertake mass evictions of asylum seekers. Indeed, in my constituency, which has the highest population of asylum seekers in Scotland and, indeed, the UK, I have had to deal with 106 asylum cases in the past five months alone, largely because of Home Office service level failures. I do not think it is the job of Members of Parliament to do the Home Office’s job for it and to have to deal with that level of failure. Clearly the asylum contract is not working. I do not know whether the new proposal will deal with the issue, because there is no clarity about it.

I want to pay tribute to those working in the area of refugees’ and asylum seekers’ housing, who stepped up when there was failure and crisis in Glasgow, including the Living Rent campaign and the Scottish Refugee Council, as well as numerous registered social landlords across Glasgow who undertook collectively to say that there would be no forced evictions from their properties under the Serco contract. That is to their credit. They stood up for what was morally right in the face of Home Office and Serco intransigence. It is clear that the message needs to be taken on board at the Home Office. Glasgow will not accept that level of indignity and callousness in dealing with the “move on” policy.

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald (Glasgow South) (SNP)]

As well as being undignified, is not that approach also counterproductive? It forces people into further destitution and the black economy and the rest of it, with people effectively going missing.

[Mr Sweeney]

The hon. Gentleman makes a pertinent point. The self-contained parallel bureaucratic process does not interface in any meaningful way with other services provided in the dispersal areas, such as integrated assistance provided by the city council and associated NGOs. As for the fundamental definition, what does it mean to have exhausted the asylum application process? There is no clear definition of what that means, which is why in most cases the service providers will act to maximise profit, dealing with things in an overly bureaucratic, distant and dubious manner.

One example is the Umeed family in my constituency, who have been living in so-called temporary accommodation for seven years. They are subject to relentless antisocial behaviour, which has had a serious impact on their mental health and that of their young children. Yet they show dignity in their situation. Time and again we confront people who show immense dignity in the face of an appalling situation. That is the clear issue. When the “move on” policy is applied to people who have achieved refugee status, the fact that it is so rapid creates huge trauma for people trying to go through the transition. My young constituent Giorgi, whose mother died earlier in the year—he is a 10-year-old orphan—was granted leave to remain. He was told within seven days that he had to leave his temporary accommodation, leave his school and seek accommodation elsewhere in Glasgow, which would wrench him out of all that he had left in his life of sustaining comfort and established order. That shows how the policy is failing even young children, and how disgusting the contract is.

I want to understand a few things about what the new contract will do. What checks will be carried out to ensure that accommodation is habitable? Who will define and monitor the minimum quality standards for housing, and what assessment has been made of the habitability of accommodation provided since 2012? It is clear that for most people it is below the liveable standard. What assessment and review has the Department made of the current asylum accommodation approach, and particularly the work carried out by contractors such as Serco? It has been dealing with the “move on” policy in particular. I should like the Minister to assess the impact of the change in approach at local level since 2012 when, for example, the YMCA provided the contract in Glasgow, which is now provided by Serco. What change has that meant to the quality of service provision?

What provisions exist in the new draft asylum contract for future Governments to alter or terminate that contract, and what costs would those provisions incur? What learning from the current contract period has been used to inform the design of the new contract? Did it involve engaging with the views of asylum seekers or speaking to charities on the ground to assess and improve the contract? I do not think any of that has happened, and there has been no discussion and no indication whatsoever that such things have taken place.

I note that the hon. Member for East Renfrewshire (Paul Masterton) is sitting behind the Minister as her understudy, but there has not been a word from the Scottish Conservative party on this issue throughout the summer. I have great respect for the hon. Gentleman, but he should stand up and be counted. The 13 Scottish Conservative MPs hold the balance of power in Government, and they should start exercising that power in the interests of the most vulnerable people in Scotland today.

[Mrs Anne Main (in the Chair)]

Before I call the Front-Bench speakers, may I remind them that we wish to leave one minute for the mover of the motion? To give the Minister plenty of opportunity to respond, perhaps the Opposition speakers could confine their remarks so that a lot of the questions can be answered.

--- Later in debate ---

[Caroline Nokes]

I will give way to the hon. Member for Glasgow North East, because he has been very patient.

[Mr Sweeney]

I thank the Minister for giving way on that point. When Rupert Soames phoned me in July to describe his concerns about the contract, as he saw them, he said it was actually the charity of Serco’s shareholders that was keeping people in accommodation for far longer than they were being funded by the Home Office. Somewhere in that balance, there is clearly a point where the Home Office is prematurely cutting funding for provision of housing. Surely there should be a longer cooling-off period to enable legal counsel to be consulted, to see if the intent is to appeal and so on and so forth before people are turfed out of their housing by Serco.

[Caroline Nokes]

I refer the hon. Gentleman back to my comments about information sharing and ensuring that information is accurate, because that is the only way in which we will make the best decisions.