Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the effectiveness of the Compass contracts for housing asylum seekers.

The Home Office is committed to ensuring that destitute asylum seekers are accommodated in safe, secure and suitable accommodation whilst their claims are considered.

We remain in daily contact with our providers and have worked closely with them to develop improvements to the service over the lifetime of the contract and as part of the recent contract extension. The Department will continue to monitor the providers closely to ensure that they comply with the requirements of the contract and work closely with non-Government Organisations and service users to respond to feedback and continue to improve the system.

We have started putting in place new arrangements for when these contracts expire in 2019. This work is at an early stage and we are engaging with a range of stakeholders to consider options for the future arrangements.