Manston Update

Tom Hunt Excerpts

Monday 28th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

I was not aware of that, but if the hon. and learned Lady gives me a copy of the letter—I think she has it in her hand—I will ensure that there is a swift and full response to it.

On the conditions at Manston, I have said this before and will say it again—this is not in any sense to diminish the concerns that the hon. and learned Lady may have set out in the letter. The greatest service that she and her colleagues in Scotland could do on this issue would be to encourage more Scottish local authorities to take asylum seekers into their care. Scotland takes a disproportionately lower share of the burden of this issue in each of our resettlement and asylum schemes.

[Tom Hunt (Ipswich) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend knows that it is unlikely that I would ever call this country a villain on this matter—actually, I think we have been too soft. We need to be much more robust. Does he agree that the way to tackle the problem is to make these tens of thousands of illegal journeys a year unviable? That would deal with overcrowding and all the other issues.

I have promised my constituents that at every opportunity—even every week—I will raise the Ipswich Novotel, which my right hon. Friend knows about. Is he closer to giving us a time scale so that we can move away from the use of four-star hotels to basic and cheap accommodation and, potentially, deport a large number of the individuals who have broken our law and illegally entered our country?

[Robert Jenrick]

My hon. Friend is right. My approach from the start has been, first, to ensure that Manston is a legal and decent site; that has involved taking on other accommodation elsewhere in the country to meet our legal obligations. Secondly, it has been to ensure that we begin to exit those hotels and move asylum seekers to better accommodation, which would be simple and decent but not luxurious, and that we never find ourselves again in the position of using three and four-star hotels, stately homes and so, on for this purpose—