Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps his Department has taken to ensure that asylum seekers are not made homeless if new asylum accommodation and support contracts are not in place before the expiry of the current contracts.

The government will place the Entitlement to support under the forthcoming Asylum Accommodation and Support Contracts(AASC) will be based on the same principles as COMPASS: this means that all ‘eligible Service Users’ in receipt of support at the point of transition will become the responsibility of the AASC Provider; including those who have received a positive or negative asylum decision and who have not yet reached the end of the 28 and 21 day notice period.

We are confident that there will be contracts in place, and we have a comprehensive transition plan. A contingency plan has also been designed, if needed, to ensure that service users will not be affected.