Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill

Debate between Stella Creasy and Robert Jenrick

Committee of the whole House
Wednesday 17th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

I entirely agree with my right hon. Friend.

[Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

As somebody who has served on the Council of Europe and was proud to do so because of the United Kingdom’s history of setting it up to protect citizens from overbearing Governments, I think it is worth looking at the data on interim measures. In 2019, 82 requests were made to the Strasbourg Court for interim measures against this Government and zero were granted; in 2020, 47 requests were made and two were granted; and in 2021, 51 requests were made against this Government and five were granted. That is just seven out of 180. Is the right hon. Gentleman really suggesting that this Government get things right all the time, so there should be no capacity to challenge them legally, even when irrevocable harm is on the agenda?

[Robert Jenrick]

That is not the point I am making. Once again, the hon. Lady is not listening. The point I am making is not about the virtues or otherwise of our membership of the European convention on human rights, which I have said is a matter for another day. The discussion on the amendment is simply about whether we believe it is right that the Strasbourg Court should confer upon itself, without our consent, the ability to impose binding injunctions. There is a separate question, not unrelated, as to how those injunctions are made. I would like to believe that most of us agree that doing them late at night with an unnamed judge, without giving reasons, raises serious rule-of-law questions. Perhaps the hon. Lady disagrees with that, but the purpose of the amendment is to enable us to return to a previous position. [Interruption.] She now has her clip for social media, so the rest of the debate is largely irrelevant.

Illegal Migration

Debate between Stella Creasy and Robert Jenrick

Tuesday 24th October 2023 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

The two hotels; my right hon. Friend corrects me. I would obviously like them to be closed at the earliest opportunity, but today we are setting out the beginning of a phased closure, with the first 50 hotels being notified. I hope that more will follow in the weeks and months ahead. I am fully aware of the situation in Chelmsford that she described, and I would like it to be resolved.

I take my right hon. Friend’s broader point about the importance of the Home Office working closely with the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, and the Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, my hon. Friend for Kensington (Felicity Buchan), is sitting beside me. She and I and the Secretary of State are working closely together to ensure that local authorities can plan for any new individuals who might live in their area.

[Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

Further to that response, the Minister talks about the planning between the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities and the Home Office, but I wonder what experience he has of the London private rental market. In my constituency, refugees who have been granted asylum are being kicked out of their hotels by the Home Office contractor within a week.

[Robert Jenrick]

indicated dissent.

[Stella Creasy]

The Minister shakes his head, but I am happy to share with him the letter that shows that. No assistance has been provided for those people. They are being told to go back to the council, but the council does not have time to follow up with them, so they end up at our local homeless night shelter, which will ultimately cost us all more than an orderly system. The Minister is shaking his head, but what does his data show about the number of refugees granted asylum while staying in migrant hotels who have been rehoused? Will he look at a more orderly system, and work with those of us on the ground to ensure that today’s announcement will not just be a way of passing on the cost to another Department?

[Robert Jenrick]

First the hon. Lady wanted us to clear the backlog; now she does not want us to do that because of the consequences of clearing it. Perhaps it would be better if she just supported us in trying to stop illegal migrants coming to the country in the first place. On her specific points, it is not correct that the Home Office gives seven days’ notice; it gives 28. [Interruption.] I am happy to look at what she is waving in my face, but I assure her that the policy is 28 days’ notice. The key point is that everybody who is granted asylum has access to the benefits system and can get a job. Given that the overwhelming majority are young men, that is exactly what they should do now: get on and contribute to British society, and integrate into our country.

Illegal Migration Bill

Debate between Stella Creasy and Robert Jenrick

Report stage
Wednesday 26th April 2023 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

It is a pull factor to the UK that individuals can work in our grey economy, which is a cause of serious concern. If we were to add an additional pull factor, by enabling people to work sooner, it would be yet another reason for people to choose to come to this country. I will return to that point in responding to other questions before the House today.

[Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Robert Jenrick]

I will not give way at the moment.

The vast majority of people arriving on small boats come from an obvious place of safety—France—with a fully functioning asylum system, so they are choosing to make that additional crossing. They are essentially asylum shoppers, even if they originally come from a place of danger, and they are doing that because they believe the United Kingdom is a better place to make their claim and to build a future. Their ability to work is obviously part of that calculation, as our north European counterparts frequently say.

--- Later in debate ---

[Robert Jenrick]

I do, and I commend that arrangement wholeheartedly. I took part in what is, in one sense, a successor to that scheme, the Homes for Ukraine scheme, and it was an incredibly rewarding experience for me and my family. The principle at the heart of that is that it is not purely a matter for the state to provide support; individuals, groups, churches, synagogues and mosques might want to come forward to gather support and funding to meet the state halfway and assist those people to come to the UK. That scheme is available. We would like more people to take part in it. It is exactly the sort of scheme that could be considered alongside the future expansion of safe and legal routes.

[Stella Creasy]

rose—

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[Robert Jenrick]

I am going to draw my remarks to a close now, because all Members want others to have an opportunity to speak.

[Stella Creasy]

rose—

[Robert Jenrick]

I am not giving way, because time is very limited.

I have summarised the other Government amendments, which are more detailed and technical in nature, in a letter to the hon. Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock), and placed a copy of it in the Library of the House. I stand ready to address any particular points in my winding-up speech, if necessary. For now, I commend all the Government amendments to the House and look forward to the contributions of other Members. I will respond to as many of those as I can at the end of the debate.

--- Later in debate ---

[Robert Jenrick]

indicated dissent.

[Stella Creasy]

The Minister has not explained why he has put forward that statutory instrument. People will still come because it is still better than the death that they face in the country they are fleeing from. We see that with the Sudanese. The Minister said earlier that he would listen to the UNHCR when it came to taking Sudanese refugees; in that case, he needs to tell us how many he will take because right now, there are people facing that very same situation. There are no queues in a war zone.

Illegal Migration Bill

Debate between Stella Creasy and Robert Jenrick

Committee stage
Tuesday 28th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Stella Creasy]

When the Immigration Minister was dismissing concerns about locking children up, suggesting that they probably were not children because of concerns about age verification, the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael)—I am sorry that he is no longer in his place—used a gentle phrase that his mother might say: “Have a long look in the mirror.” Well, I suggest that the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North gives his head a wobble for what he has just said about children who have gone missing; 16 and 17-year-olds are children—[Interruption.] He is chuntering from a sedentary position. If those children turn up, I hope to goodness that they all turn up safe and well, because if they do not, what the hon. Member has just said will come back to haunt him—[Interruption.] He can keep shouting all he likes, but the vast majority of the British public are horrified by the idea that 200-plus children have gone missing from hotels that the Home Office was supposed to be overseeing.

There is due to be a public inquiry into the Manston centre. The Government have accepted that because of possible article 3 breaches—basically, concerns about how we were treating pregnant women and young children going into Manston—but that investigation has not yet happened and cannot yet inform this legislation. Clause 11 extends detention for families and pregnant women, and clause 14 removes the duty to consult the independent family returns panel about the treatment of children. Children are under the age of 18; we accept that in law.

We have provisions in law—on, for example, the use of bed and breakfasts—that have not been mirrored to date in our treatment of children who have come in through this system. I can hear why in the callous disregard of the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North, but I go back to this simple principle: whatever we think of the parents of these children, we should not be punishing children by agreeing in law that they have second-class citizenship. That is what this legislation will do to refugee children.

[Robert Jenrick]

indicated dissent.

--- Later in debate ---

[Robert Jenrick]

People do come here directly from places of danger. The hon. Lady is incorrect. We have long-standing arrangements for those people who transit through other countries to come here, so her point is wrong.

The wider issue, which she and I have debated on many occasions, is that we have heard continuously from her and her SNP colleagues a kind of humanitarian nimbyism. They come to this Chamber to say how concerned they are for those in danger around the world, yet they take disproportionately fewer of those very people into their care in Scotland.

Let me turn to the serious questions that have been raised about children. We approach these issues with the seriousness that they deserve and from the point of view that the UK should be caring and compassionate to any minor who steps foot on these shores. These are not easy choices, but the challenge we face today is that large numbers of minors are coming to the United Kingdom at the behest of human traffickers or people smugglers, and we have to deter that. We must break the cycle of that business model.

Since 2019, the number of unaccompanied minors coming to the UK has quadrupled, meaning that thousands of unaccompanied minors have been placed in grave danger in dinghies and then brought to the UK, in some cases to enter the black economy and in others for even more pernicious reasons. I have met those children. I have seen them at Western Jet Foil, and I can tell the House that there is no dignity in that situation. As a parent, seeing children in dinghies risking their lives is one of the most appalling things one could see. I want to stop that. The measures we are bringing forward today intend to stop that.

We are going to do this in the most sensitive manner we can, and the powers that we are bringing forward under the Bill do just that. The duty to make arrangements for removal does not apply to unaccompanied children until they become adults. There is a power, not a duty, to remove unaccompanied children. As a matter of policy, the power to remove will be exercised only in very limited circumstances, such as for the purposes of family reunion, or if they are nationals of a safe country identified in clause 50 and can be safely returned to their home country. It is important to stress at this point that that power is already in law and is used on occasion when an unaccompanied child arrives and we are able to establish arrangements for their safe return. The Illegal Migration Bill simply expands the number of countries deemed safe for that removal.

[Stella Creasy]

The Government have accepted that they will be subject to an article 3 investigation to see whether there have been breaches of the Human Rights Act at Manston—basically the treatment of people in inhumane and degrading ways. The Government are resisting that being an independent inquiry. Why not wait until that inquiry happens? Why not learn the lessons of how they got into the mess at Manston before moving forward with this legislation, so that we do not risk again seeing pregnant women and unaccompanied children in the dinghies and in the devastation that the Minister just set out? Why press ahead without learning the lessons of his previous failures?

[Robert Jenrick]

Nobody could dispute the seriousness with which I took the situation at Manston in the autumn, or dispute that the situation we are in today is incomparably different. Manston is a well-run facility, led by a superb former Army officer, Major General Capps, and we are ensuring that the site is both decent and legal. Responsibility for the failures at Manston in the autumn of last year does not rest with the Government. It does not rest with the people who work at Manston. It rests with the people smugglers and the human traffickers. It was a direct result of tens of thousands of people coming into our country illegally in a short period of time.

I can tell the hon. Lady that the same thing will happen again if we do not break the cycle and stop the boats. More people will come later this year. She knows that the numbers are estimated to rise this year unless we take robust action. That is what this Bill sets out to achieve. If we take this action, fewer people will put themselves in danger and fewer children will be in this situation. That is what I want to see, and I think that is what the British public want to see as well.

Illegal Migration Bill

Debate between Stella Creasy and Robert Jenrick

Committee stage
Monday 27th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Stella Creasy]

I agree. Some of us are still dealing with people from Afghanistan—people who put their lives on the line to help British forces but have not been able to come here. They listen to the Minister talk about the idea that somehow we have taken 25,000 people under the schemes. We have not—their families are still stuck. If the Minister wants the casework, I have raised on the record before the case of a family who were split up on the way to the Baron hotel.

[Robert Jenrick]

rose—

[Stella Creasy]

If the Minister will take the casework, I will take the intervention. That family need to be here.

[Robert Jenrick]

The hon. Lady cannot trade in anecdote rather than facts. The facts of the matter are that the scheme has taken 25,000 individuals since just before the fall of Kabul. Those are the facts. As I always say to the hon. Lady, I am very happy to look into individual cases. But in this Chamber, we should deal in facts—not fiction.

[Stella Creasy]

The Minister knows that that is not how the scheme has worked; he knows that only 22 people have been resettled. He already has in his inbox the case I mentioned—it is long overdue his attention. Every single day, I think about that family. They were told that they should go to the Baron hotel. They could not get there because there was an explosion. They are now separated—the family are in hiding and the father is here, desperate and out of his mind about what to do. He was promised a safe and legal route by this Government, but of that promise there came no reality.

That is why I cannot support this Bill in its current form. First and foremost, it does nothing to the smugglers themselves. We all agree that the smugglers are the people we want to stop. Why is there not a single measure in the Bill that directly affects them? The idea that we can cut off their market does not recognise that we have seen these kinds of measures before. All that happens is the prices go up. People disappear; modern slavery increases.

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[Stella Creasy]

I look forward to having a debate with the right hon. Gentleman tomorrow about my amendment 293, which would remove the word “Illegal” from the title of the Bill. It is not illegal to seek asylum. What he is talking about is not what the Bill will do. I have tried to urge him before not to process people’s claims in the Chamber; this is about the evidence of what we see.

I have multiple anecdotes about people who have been failed by our asylum system, the processing and the promises they were given of a safe and legal route. That is why this evening I wish to speak to the amendments about safe and legal routes. If the Government think this legislation is about illegal migration, by default there must be a legal process—so those safe and legal routes deserve much more scrutiny and attention. The Government have failed to provide a children’s rights assessment and equality impact assessment. It is so worrying that they are asking us to trust them when they cannot set out how they think people who are entitled to seek asylum because they are fleeing persecution should do so.

When I look at this Bill, I see that it needs a drastic overhaul even to meet its own ambitions or the pledges in article 31 of the refugee convention that somebody destroying their documents should not be penalised by the suggestion that their claim must be malicious. We should look at the actual evidence as to why smugglers encourage them to do that. The right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings suggests that somehow the Bill will do what the Nationality and Borders Act 2022 failed to do and what this Government’s policies keep failing to do. Let us learn from Einstein—that most famous refugee, who this country turned away. He said that the definition of insanity was doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.

My new clause 17 is a probing one, on that basis. If the Government talk about safe and legal routes, we should know what those are intended to do. It simply says that the Government should set out what a safe and legal route is and which countries are therefore unsafe and require a legal route. After all, the Bill sets out countries considered to be safe. Ergo, all the countries not listed must be unsafe. The Government should tell us in Parliament how people should be able to access those routes and therefore not make dangerous journeys.

I also support new clause 13, tabled by the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton), and the proposals put forward by my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Olivia Blake) in new clause 10. We would all agree that all these new clauses need further work, but they all get towards a simple principle: to ask what is the role of a safe and legal route in this legislation. If the Bill is about illegal migration, what is the point of safe and legal routes? My amendment 138, which will be debated tomorrow, is about how that might then play a role in asylum processing itself.

There is a simple message in all this work. I agree with the hon. Member for Stone (Sir William Cash); that might surprise people, and I am sorry he is not in the Chamber to hear it. He said that the processing and assessing of claims matters. Absolutely, and that is why the failures we have seen for a number of years have not been to do with the refugees themselves but to do with the politicians and their failure to get to grips with this. That is why it matters that the Government are not using the correct figures from the statistics authority. They are not showing us the true scale of the problem, which legislation has consistently failed to deal with. That is why we need to do something different, such as clarifying what a safe and legal route is and how it fits into the refugee convention and our processing. In a war, there are not simple processes of admin and bureaucracy that we can push people towards, so it matters all the more that we respect and recognise that in how we treat people who still think that life is better than death and who still choose to run.

I say to some Conservative Members that one of the top countries from which the people in the boats come is Iran. I have sat in this Chamber and heard people call out the Iranian Government and speak of their concern about the persecution of people in Iran. Not half an hour later, those people talk about how awful anybody in the boats is, although Iranians are the third most common country represented in them. There is no safe route from Iran.

[Robert Jenrick]

There is.

[Stella Creasy]

The Minister says there is. I am in touch with people right now, brave defenders of democracy, who have no route out and are at risk.

[Robert Jenrick]

rose—

[Stella Creasy]

I happily give way. Tell me where I can put them.

[Robert Jenrick]

Since 2015, the UK has taken more than 6,000 Iranians directly for asylum purposes. What the hon. Lady says is simply not true.

[Stella Creasy]

The Minister needs to be clear about how those people have been identified. There are people tonight in Tehran at direct risk of harm and needing our help. The challenge with this legislation is that it refuses to set out a safe and legal route, saying that it will be done in secondary guidance. None of us can therefore be confident enough to say to those people, “Hold up—wait for the queue and the bureaucracy. There is somewhere for you to go. Don’t worry, because help is coming.”

The Government must connect with international organisations and uphold the international rule of law. The honest truth is that the only way the world will be able to stand up to dictators and persecutors and against war is by collaborating. We have seen that in such a powerful way in Ukraine, yet we do not seem to be capable of learning the lessons by setting out schemes and being able to say to people, “Actually, there is a way forward, and we will all share the burden of standing up for these values.” That is what a sensible asylum policy would do, because it would be effective. We would cut off the boats at source by having proper, safe and legal routes for people so that they would not need to get on a boat to claim in the first place. Irregular routes are inevitable because of why people are running in the first place.

I also want to speak briefly to amendments 131 and 132—I pay testament to the Member who spoke to me previously about them—which are about our role in the European Court of Human Rights. I am sorry that the hon. Member for Devizes (Danny Kruger) is not here, because I was hoping he might want a chance to clarify his earlier remark, in which he genuinely tried to suggest that Winston Churchill opposed us being part of the European Court of Human Rights. As somebody who served on the Council of Europe and repeatedly saw pictures of Winston Churchill—

Knowsley Incident

Debate between Stella Creasy and Robert Jenrick

Monday 20th February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

As I have said, we are pursuing a strategy of replacing hotels with dispersal accommodation, which is agreed constructively between the Home Office, providers and local authorities and provides better value for taxpayers’ money. That is the way to avoid this situation, other than addressing the root cause by preventing people from coming across the channel in the first place.

I encourage the hon. Gentleman to support our further steps over the coming months to bear down on individuals crossing the channel and to create a system whereby people who come here illegally will not find a route to remain in the UK, because that is the enduring solution to this problem.

[Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

The truth is that this is not the first time we have seen violence and intimidation directed towards refugees in these hotels. Indeed, the hon. Member for Boston and Skegness (Matt Warman) outlined his fear of a further protest coming this weekend.

Hope not Hate has documented hundreds of incidents involving Patriotic Alternative, Britain First and so-called migrant hunters. The Minister says the Home Office reports to the police incidents that it feels may breach the Public Order Act 1986, perhaps in the same way it is monitoring these lawyers, yet nothing is happening. He says these groups are being monitored closely. For the avoidance of doubt, will he set out the threshold for prosecution? This will keep happening until we are clear that free speech does not involve 50% of participants in the conversation being in fear of their life. This is harassment and terrorism on our doorstep, and it needs to be dealt with properly. What on earth is he doing to prosecute these people?

[Robert Jenrick]

I have spoken on a number of occasions in recent days to Home Office officials, the national police co-ordination centre and operational policing colleagues. They are monitoring this activity very closely, and they are keeping a close eye on these groups. Where they believe content requires further action, they will take it, but it is for the police to take that action rather than the Home Office.

Unaccompanied Asylum-seeking Children

Debate between Stella Creasy and Robert Jenrick

Tuesday 24th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. This is a symptom—a very serious and disturbing symptom—of the problem, which is the people-smuggling gangs luring tens of thousands of people, a significant proportion of whom are minors, across the channel. We have to do everything we can to deter those people and break the business model of the people smugglers. That is what we are determined to do, and that is the purpose of the legislation that we will bring forward very shortly. My right hon. Friend and others have only a short period to wait until we present it to the House. I hope it will have broad support, because if we do not address the problem, all the evidence suggests that in the years to come we will find it magnified, with tens of thousands of people, if not hundreds of thousands, attempting to make the crossing.

[Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Minister says that safeguarding these children is a priority for him. He will know that since October last year, I have been asking to see the safeguarding requirements that he has placed on the private companies involved in running these hotels for both unaccompanied and accompanied children. I understand now why he was so reluctant to give that information: when I finally used a freedom of information request to get it, there was no mention at all of requiring these private companies, which are making millions of pounds running these places, to do anything about modern slavery or human trafficking—not one word.

Let us be clear. It does not matter whether these children are Albanian, Syrian, Pakistani or Iranian. It does not matter whether they are boys or girls. They are children. Will the right hon. Member now use his authority as the Minister responsible to require these companies to have a duty to prevent human trafficking and modern slavery? Will he finally make sure that, for all the money they are making out of this, they do something to protect these children? It is on his watch that these children are going missing, and it was on his watch that he missed out that requirement from the contract.

[Robert Jenrick]

The hon. Lady and I have met to discuss the issue on a number of occasions. We take this very seriously. We have asked all our providers, of course, to take their responsibilities for safeguarding seriously. We have a safeguarding hub in the Home Office and we work closely with the local authorities, which also have a duty to support people in their care.

The hotels that we are discussing today are not run by private providers. There are providers that support us in terms of security arrangements, but these hotels are run by the Home Office, so the hon. Lady is not correct to say that they are run by external providers. But that does not change the reality that, as I have said on a number of occasions, we should take the care of these minors as seriously as we would take that of our own children. I hope that I have given her the assurance that we do.

Hotel Asylum Accommodation: Local Authority Consultation

Debate between Stella Creasy and Robert Jenrick

Wednesday 23rd November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. There is a global migration crisis, and the mass movement of individuals across the world, including in Europe, will be one of the big features of the 21st century. We are committed to working with our friends and neighbours, as we saw from the Prime Minister’s early success in securing a deal with President Macron. We would like to go further and will shortly convene the Calais group of—primarily—northern European nations to discuss what further steps we can take. If there are further ways that we can work with our partners to crack down on the pernicious people smugglers and criminal gangs, we absolutely will.

[Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is nearly a week since I raised a point of order with you, Madam Deputy Speaker, about press reports over the private contractor charged with running a hotel for asylum seekers in my constituency. It had taken somebody who had been charged with the sexual assault of a child and then bailed, and it housed them in another hotel, from which they absconded. I asked for an urgent update from the Minister. I am pleased to hear that he has met with other MPs, but I have had no information about that.

The concerns about the safeguarding experience of private contractors are legion. The permanent secretary could not even tell MPs today whether there is a clear safeguarding policy that children should not be housed with strangers in these hotels. We are talking about children who are with their parents, so fostering is not a solution. Will the Minister finally publish the safeguarding requirements that are put in place for private contractors, so that we can hold them to account for their behaviour?

[Robert Jenrick]

I have been concerned by the reports that the hon. Lady raised and have asked my officials to investigate them. I would be happy to discuss them with her, if that would be useful. The most important thing is to ensure that hotels are run in a sensible and decent manner. If we are dealing with such large numbers of individuals, unfortunately, incidents will occasionally happen. That does not excuse them. They are completely unacceptable, and we need to ensure that the police vigorously investigate them when they arise.

Asylum Seekers Accommodation and Safeguarding

Debate between Stella Creasy and Robert Jenrick

Monday 7th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

My hon. Friend is right that in sourcing accommodation for migrants, we should be guided both by our common desire for decency, because those are our values, and by hard-headed common sense. It is not right that migrants are put up in three or four-star hotels at exorbitant cost to the United Kingdom taxpayer, or that migrants who come here illegally are given preference of any sort over British citizens. That is the kind of approach that we will take going forward.

We will now work closely with our allies in France to ensure that more crossings are stopped in northern France. The Prime Minister will speak with President Macron this week while they are in Egypt, and we hope to take forward that partnership productively and constructively in the months ahead.

[Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

The second half of this urgent question was explicitly about the safeguarding of accompanied minors in the hotels. That matters because there are thousands of children—verified children—in those hotels. Last week, we learned that two of them—one a child under the age of 13—were sexually assaulted in a hotel in Walthamstow, and more cases of sexual assaults on children in these hotels have since come to light. We are all clear that those who committed those crimes must be held responsible. We all have duties to those children, just as we have to any other child under state protection.

When I asked the Home Secretary about this, she made a cheap jibe about hotels. The Minister did not even mention those children in his response. He has not yet given us a straight answer. Surely all of us in the House will be concerned about the sexual assault of children of any background. Will the Minister publish the details of all these cases, including how many incidents of violence or sexual assault against children in these hotels have occurred in the past year, what action has been taken, and crucially, what safeguarding the private companies that run these hotels must undertake? If he will not publish those details, that tells us what he thinks about those children and the responsibility that we all have to them.

[Robert Jenrick]

It is a pity the hon. Lady takes that approach because I take my responsibilities to children, whether accompanied or otherwise, very seriously. We have put in place a wide range of support mechanisms. I mentioned earlier the work we are doing for unaccompanied children. The hotels, most of which are in Kent, have extremely sophisticated support. It is costing the taxpayer up to £500 a night for that accommodation, which gives her a sense of the degree of the support we are making available. The best thing she could do is to support her local authority and encourage others to take more unaccompanied children and families into good-quality local authority accommodation, or to find them foster care in the community. That is the task because we need to disperse these individuals as fast as we can across the country. She may shake her head, but I am afraid that suggests she does not understand that the way to resolve this issue is to help the children out of hotels and into the community as fast as we can.