Asylum Seekers Accommodation and Safeguarding

Scott Benton Excerpts

Monday 7th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for those suggestions; I will bear them in mind. I respectfully disagree about whether those individuals who are destined to be removed from the UK, particularly foreign national offenders, should be in institutions such as the immigration removal centre in his constituency. I appreciate that that that is not all of them.

May I take the opportunity that the right hon. Gentleman’s question gives me to thank his constituents, the immigration enforcement officers, the prison officers and all those who responded heroically to the disturbance over the weekend? I am pleased to say that it has now been brought under control, that all the inmates at the site have been decanted to other IRCs, and that the contractor will be making the necessary improvements to the site as quickly as possible so that it can get back up and running and we can ensure that the situation does not happen again.

[Scott Benton (Blackpool South) (Con)]

My constituents are becoming sick and tired of this ridiculous narrative of economic migrants somehow being mistreated at Manston. The fact of the matter is that after a short time at the processing centre, these economic migrants will receive free food and free accommodation in hotels—something that my constituents, who are paying for all this, can only dream of. How does the Minister think my constituents who cannot get an NHS dentist, a GP appointment or a council house feel about the fact that we are spending £2 billion a year on hotel bills because we cannot be bothered to solve this issue?

[Robert Jenrick]

It is important that we recognise what the United Kingdom is actually doing. The vast majority of those who arrive at Manston have literally had their life saved by the UK. The Royal National Lifeboat Institution, Border Force and the Royal Navy have ensured that as many as 95% of those individuals are saved at sea, brought to land, given clothes, food and medical support and then processed at Manston until they can be accommodated elsewhere. We should be clear about how we are meeting our obligations as a country—in fact, we are going far beyond our neighbours. My hon. Friend is right, though, that those standards of decency and humanity must be matched by hard-headed common sense. We should not be accommodating individuals for long periods in expensive hotels.