Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of contracting private providers to supply asylum accommodation on (a) standards and (b) value for money of that accommodation.

The safety and wellbeing of asylum seekers in our care is of paramount importance to the Home Office. We expect high standards from all of our providers, and we have a robust governance framework in place to manage service delivery of the Asylum Accommodation Support Contracts (AASC). Details of the AASC can be found at:

New asylum accommodation contracts awarded - GOV.UK https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-asylum-accommodation-contracts-awarded

The Home Office publishes data on asylum in the ‘Immigration System Statistics Quarterly Release’. Data on people awaiting an initial decision can be found in table Asy_D03 of the ‘asylum and resettlement detailed datasets’. Information on how to use the dataset can be found in the ‘Notes’ page of the workbooks. The Home Office also publishes data on the total number of outstanding cases in the asylum system (‘asylum work in progress’) in table ASY_03 the ‘Immigration and Protection’ part of the Migration Transparency Data collection. The latest data relates to the end of June 2023.

Accommodation costs are subject to change depending on numbers being accommodated within the asylum system. Accommodation costs are considered to be commercially confidential, therefore the Home Office does not publish this information. Total expenditure on asylum is published in the Home Office Annual Report and Accounts, available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/ho-annual-reports-and-accounts(opens in a new tab).

It would be inappropriate to comment on commercial arrangements with suppliers. All Home Office commercial contracts are designed to ensure the best value for tax payers and the Home Office closely monitors its contractors performance, including financial results. Any profits above the agreed contractual margins comes back to the Home Office.