Clause 14 - Establishment of centres
Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Bill
10:30 am
Mr Humfrey Malins (Woking, Conservative)
I beg to move amendment No. 18, in page 9, line 6, after 'of', insert 'a maximum of 250'.
Mr Alan Hurst (Braintree, Labour)
With this it will be convenient to consider the following amendments: No. 44, in page 9, line 6, after 'of', insert 'no more than 250'.
No. 19, in page 9, line 8, at end add—
'(3) Each accommodation centre shall hold a maximum of 250 people at any one time.'.
Mr Humfrey Malins (Woking, Conservative)
I begin by welcoming you to the Chair, Mr. Hurst, after our short break for the bank holiday. I also welcome my hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs. Gillan). It is important to welcome the Whip, and I make a practice of doing so. I am sure that we will be assisted by her presence.
Amendment No. 18 would limit the number of persons at an accommodation centre to 250 at any one time, and the other amendments in the group have a similar purpose. It is commonly said that small works better, and nowhere is that truer in than in a centre for the accommodation of asylum seekers. As we understand it--although this is not in the Bill--the Government propose four centres to accommodate 3,000 persons seeking asylum, with the four bases each holding 750 people. I believe that eight possible sites have been selected, and I hope that the Minister will tell us which sites are most likely to be used.
With more than 80,000 people seeking asylum per year, those 3,000 places represent a small proportion of the total. Even if the people stay in the centres for only six months—we would like to know the Minister's plans for length of stay—6,000 is still a small proportion per year. The rest will be dispersed around the country, often in unsatisfactory conditions, as has been the case hitherto. The hon. Member for Walthamstow (Mr. Gerrard) was never more right than when he said that legislation does not necessarily do the trick: it is Home Office action that causes the system to become more efficient.
Will the Minister tell us when the accommodation centres will be established? I understand that the Government have told citizens advice bureaux that it will be as soon as possible, but the pilot may not begin until the middle of 2003, and it may be 2004 or 2005 before the centres are up and running. We support the concept, but are concerned about the numbers and size.
Talking of numbers takes one's mind back to the arson and breakout at Yarl's Wood in the middle of February. When full, Yarl's Wood could take 900 persons, but only 380 people were there at the time. The Minister may say that Yarl's Wood was different from the proposed accommodation centres, because it held only those people who were being detained prior to removal. However, according to my understanding, of the 380 at Yarl's Wood, 294 were due for removal and the other 86 had current claims. They are no different from the people who will be in the accommodation centres. Undoubtedly, there will be pressures and tensions in an accommodation centre that holds as many as 750. Our amendment suggests that there should be a maximum of 250 in each centre.
The Home Secretary rightly said that we must safeguard the interests of local people. Will the Minister tell us what research the Government have done into similar centres throughout Europe? An accommodation centre or its equivalent in other European Union countries such as Denmark and the Netherlands holds fewer than 750. I understand that the Home Office considered the position in other countries when drawing up its practices and policy. The larger the number in accommodation centres, the greater the tensions are likely to be. Smaller centres in urban areas are less likely to be regarded as obtrusive to local residents, and we address that issue in later amendments.
Representatives of several organisations with experience of asylum and current detention centres say that 750 is too many to make an accommodation centre effective. My hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Tony Baldry) has expressed concerns on behalf of local residents about a proposal for an accommodation centre at Piddington—a village in a rural area near Bicester—which we will discuss later. The proposed size of the accommodation centre is one of those concerns. An accommodation centre may be placed in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Mr. Leigh), where local residents have also expressed concern about the proposed number to be accommodated.
My remarks are intended to get the debate under way. The figure of 750 is unwieldy, and is likely to create tensions in the centre and concerns in the local community. All the organisations that deal with asylum day in and day out tell the Government that that figure is too large. Although it is early days, is the Minister able to tell the Committee that the accommodation centres in the proposed pilot schemes will be much smaller than currently envisaged? The smaller the number in each centre, the more likely it is that they would be efficient, humane, decent and safe. Local residents would find smaller centres easier to cope with and to understand.
Mr Simon Hughes (North Southwark and Bermondsey, Liberal Democrat)
I support the hon. Gentleman's amendment, which is unsurprising as I tabled a similar amendment. We must get the strategic policy right before we get site specific. The Liberal Democrat party was, I believe, the only party in the previous Parliament to argue expressly for accommodation or
reception centres as a first point of contact for those seeking asylum, where their initial needs would be met and their applications processed. Such centres would also provide a range of services, which we will discuss later. As far as the Liberal Democrats are concerned, the concept is not original, and we support it in principle. We had two views about the centres: first, that people should stay in them for a limited time; and, secondly, that they should be a reasonable size. I share the hon. Gentleman's view that all the arguments stack up in favour of centres being smaller rather than larger—250 places rather than 750.
At the beginning of the year, I visited the camp at Sangatte, which holds 1,500 people. It is an enormous cavern of a place, and its size depersonalises the whole institution. A centre with 750 places would be only half that size, but even with half the number of people in Sangatte, we are still talking about a centre getting on for the size of one of our larger comprehensive schools. All the people in the centre will suddenly have been placed together. They will not know one another, and will have different cultural and language backgrounds. In a centre of that size, it is unlikely that we could give people the reception and accommodation that we should and to which they are entitled under international law.
The centres are not meant to be the equivalent of a Red Cross holding camp for people whose applications are not being processed. This is about Britain fulfilling its duty under international law to process people whose applications have been made. Whatever the outcome of an application—we all want judgments to be correct and based on the facts—we do Britain, our values and the standards of public life no good if we make these centres so big that they cannot accommodate people's needs.
There are huge numbers of asylum seekers in my constituency, and probably no surgery goes by without asylum seekers attending. Some may not have horrific stories to tell, but others do. I have had people from Kosovo. A mother was raped in front of the family, and the father is hugely traumatised and mentally ill as a result. They are trying to bring up their children here, in decent circumstances. People Sierra Leone have witnessed family members having limbs chopped off and being killed. We must ensure that people's needs can be met personally and individually, and not just as part of a processing line.
I also have three simple practical suggestions. First, the Government have identified a few sites, but there will not be many sites that can accommodate 750 people. If they are considering ex-military sites, they are usually found in the country and away from conurbations or communities. By and large, disused airfields and military accommodation are not found near communities. A smaller site, for 250 people, would not have that disadvantage, and there would be many more places where 250 people could be accommodated.
Secondly, if people are not to be locked in the centres, and if the aim is to let them have some sort of life while they are awaiting adjudication, it would be more convenient for them to use local facilities, such as the supermarket, cinema or post office. However, if people have little money and are living outside a village, a long way from a town, that will not be so easy.
The third issue, which we will all be exercised about, is the need to be careful that we do not aggravate racial and community tensions. The Government are mindful of that. My judgment--indeed, the logical conclusion--is that large holding centres for large numbers of people will be perceived by the community, rightly or wrongly, as more intimidating than a small place.
That simple argument reflects the attitudes of all people who see new communities moving into their areas. I was brought up in villages, and the infilling of two or three houses was never seen as a great problem, but when there was an application for a new estate, people would protest. Such a protest may often have been unreasonable, but people perceived a new estate as changing the character of their village.
Over the years, applications have also been made for nuclear waste dumps. Again, the community responds entirely differently to a proposal involving low-level waste and only a small processing job than it does to the building of a large reprocessing plant or nuclear reactor. We must be sensitive, because size matters, as it affects people's perceptions. Whether the length of stay is three or six months, and whether or not the families use local schools and local GPs from the start or after a while, smaller numbers must be better.
The Government made it clear that the proposal is only a trial, which is the right way to proceed, and that it will not cater for the majority of asylum seekers. It should therefore be a trial that is less likely to pose difficulties and more likely to produce alternative sites and to meet the needs of the individuals involved and those who look after them. I hope that the Government will be sympathetic to the amendment, and if they do not accept it as drafted, that they confirm that they are working towards that principle. The hon. Gentleman and I would be willing to work with the Minister to draft an acceptable proposal for smaller-scale accommodation centres to be the norm, rather than the much larger ones proposed by the Government.
Mr Neil Gerrard (Walthamstow, Labour)
I cannot support the amendment because it would require that the Bill should specify a certain number. However, I understand the points that were made, as I raised the matter myself on Second Reading. The size of a centre is critical, because from that flow issues such as the exclusion of children in the centres from mainstream education, which we will consider in this part of the Bill. A local school system will not easily be able to accommodate the significant number of children from large centres.
We must consider where people are accommodated now, and bear in mind the fact that the dispersal system is beginning to work well in some parts of the country. Asylum seekers are already placed in hostels, hotels and bed and breakfast accommodation with 50, 100 or even 200 people in one place. Should we not consider what services we can provide to those people? It was suggested that accommodation centres with 750 people would need services on site, to ensure that people have access to medical and legal advice and support. There is also a reporting requirement. Although the Bill does not mention legal advice, the Minister said that it should be available. Such services are beginning to work well in some sites in dispersal areas.
I share some of the concerns raised by the hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes) about the impact on an area of an accommodation centre for 750 people. If those centres are in rural or, at best, semi-urban areas, they will have a significant impact, whether we like it or not. We will later discuss the impact on children in the accommodation centres.
I am worried about the attitude of people when they suddenly discover that they have a centre in their area which accommodates 600 or 700 young, single men without much to do. Like it or not, that issue will arise and it needs to be faced.
Mr Simon Hughes (North Southwark and Bermondsey, Liberal Democrat)
I support what the hon. Gentleman said. In Southwark, there are 750 people in an hotel at the Elephant. It was argued that the numbers were so big that it was not possible to arrange sport or other activities for them. The centre became too big for the local authority or any provider to manage.
Mr Neil Gerrard (Walthamstow, Labour)
In the light of such experiences, we should be wary about providing centres of that size.
Another consequence of large centres was pointed out to me recently by the chief executive of the Refugee Council. He referred to his previous experience of working with homeless people and explained that the larger the centre, the harder it is to manage. If we are talking about accommodation rather than detention centres, the bigger the centre, the more difficult it will be to create an open regime with a reasonably relaxed atmosphere.
We are supposed to be trialing these centres. It is pretty obvious that it is hard to find sites where local people and the local authorities will accept 750 people. If at the end of the trial we decide that accommodation centres have worked, how many centres of 750 would we need to accommodate a larger proportion of asylum seekers? If we had four they would provide 3,000 places. If they were used twice a year they could accommodate 6,000 people. If we manage to get the decision-making process speeded up and each place is used three times a year, which is unlikely, 9,000 people would go through those four centres.
I suspect that that is an exaggeration of the numbers we would get through. What do we do in three or four years' time? Will we have 10, 20, 30 centres of that size? If so, where will they be located and how will suitable sites be found? Realistically, there will be less chance of
finding suitable sites for large accommodation centres outside urban areas than for smaller centres in urban or semi-urban areas. Simple, practical problems will inevitably flow from the decision to have large centres.
Mrs Angela Watkinson (Upminster, Conservative)
I should like to speak in support of the amendment. If we are to set up these accommodation centres they must be successful, and we must get the formula right. Only a small proportion of all those seeking asylum will be able to be placed in these centres, but 250 people is a large number to a local authority if they are to be provided with the necessary support services so that they can be dealt with quickly and decisions can be made quickly. If their appeals are successful, they can then be absorbed into the local community quickly. They can find jobs and accommodation and become full members of society. If their applications are unsuccessful, they can be removed equally quickly.
Local authorities will need to be consulted fully about all the support services, particularly in the planning process before the accommodation centres are set up. The health authorities will need to be consulted about their ability to absorb numbers of people who are likely to have quite complex health needs. There will be people who are traumatised, who are injured or who have been tortured. They will have a variety of specific health needs that may not normally be presented to every health authority. It is important to ensure that all those services are available.
The larger number of people there are in any one place, the more difficult it will be to provide those comprehensive services, especially proper legal services, which are quite unlike some of the pseudo-legal services that are on offer. Some of my constituents find months down the line that they have parted with large sums of money for pseudo-legal advice that proves useless to them. Services must be of proper quality to enable people to have their asylum claims dealt with effectively.
People should be dealt with properly in small numbers so that local and health authorities can provide the comprehensive range of services that they need. They should also be dealt with quickly, so that they are not languishing in anonymous places for a long period. If necessary, they should be moved on swiftly into proper accommodation with proper job prospects in the community.
Mrs Cheryl Gillan (Chesham and Amersham, Conservative)
I want to speak briefly and expound the point of view sent to me in a briefing from the Churches Commission for Racial Justice. The Minister may be able to respond to it in her winding-up speech.
For those who are not aware of it, the Churches Commission for Racial Justice has for some time been monitoring trends in UK and European asylum policy, together with advocacy in support of good race and community relations in Britain. It is a multi-denominational body: Churches in Britain and Ireland together have made wide representations and have considerable experience on which to base their conclusions. The CCRJ has worked with the British Medical Association, the Family Welfare Association,
Oxfam, the Refugee Council, Save the Children, the Children Society and the Transport and General Workers Union. It is therefore well worth echoing its views on this group of amendments.
The CCRJ believes that we require a more imaginative and humane approach to all aspects of the asylum process, including the reception of asylum seekers. It argues that it would not start from where we are now. However, given that part 2 of the Bill is the Government's response to the problem, it argues that four conditions must be met. First, asylum seekers should spend as short a period as possible in a centre; secondly, accommodation centres should be run as little like detention centres as possible and opportunities for engagement with the local community should be created; thirdly, any children accommodated in centres should be educated at local schools with the necessary financial resources invested in the child at the school; and fourthly, accommodation centres should be constructed and designed on a human scale.
The CCRJ goes on to say that the number of people in any given accommodation centre is less important than the circumstances in which they are accommodated. It believes that units should be varied in size, accommodating families when required. The accommodation should be safe from hazard and potential attack. The building and surrounding grounds should incorporate the concept of defensible space so that people who already feel fearful can feel safe. Any children accommodated in the centres must neither be, nor feel, at risk.
All practical facilities and services, CCRJ continues, should be supplied in an accessible, friendly and efficient way, but proper provision should be made for pastoral care and chaplaincy offered by experienced people from faiths and denominations appropriate to the asylum seekers. The CCRJ is already in contact with many of those who currently provide such support for asylum seekers, and it realises from reports that it is hard to overstate the level of stress, strain and trauma that many asylum seekers experience when they arrive. Such problems arise from the cause of their departure from their homeland, and are exacerbated by their flight to this country. CCRJ believes that accommodation centres must provide an environment that eases rather than increases suffering—a point on which we can all agree.
In conclusion, CCRJ urges the Government to use the opportunity of our debate on this group of amendments to commit themselves to taking all possible measures to ensure that the new accommodation centres are small and not institutional; that they support asylum seekers and do not add to their burdens; and that local communities are helped to engage with the asylum seekers for as long as they remain in the centres.
I hope that the Minister will respond to the points made by the CCRJ, and that they add to the debate.
Mr Gregory Barker (Bexhill and Battle, Conservative)
I, too, want to pledge my wholehearted support for the amendment proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for Woking (Mr. Malins), and to voice the concerns of rural communities facing the imposition of these large centres. They arise not because many people in rural areas are unsympathetic to the plight of asylum seekers, but because their own public services are already overstretched. Support services in rural areas do not have the capacity to take on large, new populations, be they in accommodation centres or new-build housing estates.
I want to press the Minister on the planning system. Will she clarify the rules that will govern the construction of the new accommodation centres? If there are to be 750 places, that will require a huge building, more like a complex. Whether it is proposed that most asylum seekers should be housed in single living or dormitory accommodation, a large building will be required. Even if the sites are unused former airfields or military bases, a great deal of new construction will be necessary. Will the Minister explain whether local authorities will have full powers to govern the direction of the new buildings as they would normally over any proposed new construction? If so, surely smaller buildings will be easier to pass through the planning system. The problems thrown up by the construction of a 750-person site would be infinitely greater than those involved in a 250-person site. Will the Minister clarify the planning guidelines for the construction of the new centres, and bear in mind the already overstretched nature of public services for people in rural areas?
Ms Angela Eagle (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Home Office; Wallasey, Labour)
I hope I can reassure the Committee. As the hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey has emphasised, these are trials. The Bill deliberately does not prescribe a size for the accommodation centres because that would be too inflexible for the future. I will resist any amendment that would specify a number in primary legislation, because that will not give us the operational flexibility we need to develop accommodation centres in future if the trials work and we decide to go ahead with them. Numbers should not be specified in the Bill as a matter of principle.
I understand that the amendments have been tabled so that we can have a debate on size, and so that Opposition Members can explore the Government's intended scale for the accommodation centres. I welcome the fact that no hon. Member has objected in principle to the idea of accommodation centres. I note that many of the difficulties raised affecting local services and how to support people when they arrive in a new area apply particularly to accommodation centres, but also to dispersal. How should we welcome people and ensure that they feel at home? How should we deal with the effect of the arrival of large numbers of asylum seekers in areas where there may not have
previously been ethnic minorities? Those problems have been experienced, sometimes with a great deal of angst and difficulty.
Mr Parmjit Dhanda (Gloucester, Labour)
Much has been made about the numbers involved and the circumstances under which we now operate. It is worth reminding the Committee that it is not unusual for local authorities to have contracts that involve several hundred—often 500—refugees. What reception do refugees get when they end up in the poorest urban centres? [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey is looking perplexed, but such contracts are not unusual. To use his terminology, that is not a new concept.
Ms Angela Eagle (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Home Office; Wallasey, Labour)
We are trialling accommodation centres, which the Bill gives us the power to do. It also contains powers to extend accommodation centres if the trial works. Hon. Members made important points about the difficulties of dealing with a large influx of asylum seekers into a particular area. The question is whether to disperse them to a cluster area or to have an accommodation centre. There is universal support for the idea behind accommodation centres. We are trying to discover whether we can cater for the training, education and health needs of people who are awaiting a decision more efficiently, cost-effectively and humanely in an accommodation centre than under the current system of dispersal. Dispersal often leaves people in private-sector accommodation with little support nearby. They are, in effect, left to themselves in an area that they do not know and where the local people have no knowledge of them or their culture. We all know about the operational difficulties of the dispersal system.
Mr Richard Allan (Sheffield, Hallam, Liberal Democrat)
Whether one can support the Government's proposal depends on what an accommodation centre is. There is a huge spectrum. A large unit in a rural area that is cut off from all services looks like a large prison and is more like the Australian model, which is almost like a detention centre. A smaller unit with all the appropriate services could be called a reception centre. Size is a critical factor. A centre where services are available is closer to the reception-centre end of the spectrum and is acceptable. A centre that is remote, cut off and large is less acceptable.
Ms Angela Eagle (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Home Office; Wallasey, Labour)
I object to the hon. Gentleman's view that we are talking about detention centres or removal centres when we talk about accommodation centres. We would call them detention centres or removal centres if that is what we intended them to be, and the people in them would be locked up. The hon. Gentleman knows from all the assurances that have been given since the statement was made and the White Paper was issued that accommodation centres do not require people to be locked in. I assumed that he agreed with the concept, as his hon. Friend the Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey said that the Liberal Democrat party supported it. I am used to shifts of opinion in the Liberal Democrat party, but we appear to have two different opinions
from the two Liberal Democrat members of the Committee. We look forward to seeing how that develops. I simply took the hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey at his word.
Mr Gwyn Prosser (Dover, Labour)
My hon. Friend may be aware of the difficulties in Dover in 1996-97. We had experience of the picture that she painted. Large numbers sought asylum in Dover, which had insufficient accommodation, and no meaningful experience of ethnic minorities. We probably had the smallest ethnic minority—0.6 per cent. of the local population—of any constituency in the country. The numbers took the community by surprise and caused apprehension, fear and tension. We all know about the incidents that occurred. We were not sure about dispersal at first, but it worked. The situation would have been unsustainable if the legislation had not provided for dispersal. Who knows where we would be today? A more structured approach that involved accommodation centres would have been of use to us.
Ms Angela Eagle (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Home Office; Wallasey, Labour)
I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Dover (Mr. Prosser). He knows from first-hand experience the difficulties and tensions that can be caused by unplanned influxes of asylum seekers. When people arrive on our shores, there will inevitably be something unplanned about what we have to deal with. We are simply trialling structures to see whether we can deal with those difficult issues.
We must recognise the difficult issues involved in race relations, such as how we deal with sudden influxes and how the existing population feel about and react to the individuals. They are common issues in dealing with asylum seekers in any system. We have great experience of how dispersal works and some of its difficulties. We also know about how necessary it was to relieve the pressure on constituencies such as Dover, as my hon. Friend just mentioned. The Bill will allow us to try a different way forward and see whether it works.
The Home Secretary said on Second Reading that he is happy to examine smaller accommodation centres as part of the trial, and we are considering how we might do that. As we have no experience of running such centres, we have no hard and fast view about different scales. We do not have endless funds and an open cheque book, so we must strike a balance between having centres that are economical enough to provide a good service and seeing what works practically. We will reach that balance by trialling the centres and ensuring that we provide services at a reasonable cost to the taxpayer. The Committee must realise that, especially as later amendments would make us provide services, which we are anxious to provide, such as one-stop shops and medical, interpretation, legal, training, education and leisure services.
Ahead of a trial, I have no idea about the answers. The Bill will give us the power to trial, and we have announced certain proposals outside the Bill because it rightly makes no particular judgments about size. To
do so would have been too constraining. The trial will allow us to find out what works, and we can proceed from that point.
Mr Simon Hughes (North Southwark and Bermondsey, Liberal Democrat)
The Minister and her officials must have thought a little about the policy because it has been on the stocks since the general election. First, what are the largest accommodation centres that she is aware of in other EU countries? Secondly, is the hon. Member for Gloucester (Mr. Dhanda) right in saying that there have been provisions for groups as large as 750 people, other than through dispersal around a city or community? If so, where in England or Wales have they been? Thirdly, the Government must have upper and lower limits, and it would help us to decide whether to force a vote if the Minister gave us parameters, even if they did not tie her down to a specific number such as 250, 500 or 750.
Ms Angela Eagle (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Home Office; Wallasey, Labour)
I suppose that everyone has done the calculation that four times 750 equals 3,000. That is one way of doing it, but we have already said that we are examining smaller centres to see whether they would work any better. If we accept the amendment of the hon. Member for Woking, we would have to have 12 sites and concomitant increases in cost. We must be able to work out the unit costs in the trial, and I hope that it will show us a clear way forward with economies of scale and minimum and maximum effective sizes. I cannot confirm anything more than that now, but the trial will be evaluated openly and we can discuss it further when we have more experience of how it works.
The hon. Gentleman asked about the largest centres in the European Union. One centre in Belgium currently has 640 expanding to 800, but the main approach in Europe is in favour of smaller sites. The accommodation centre concept, as I have outlined it, with on-site facilities, is not a common occurrence in Europe. The hostel-type accommodation in the hon. Gentleman's constituency does not contain the one-stop shop service element that we are attempting to develop with the accommodation centres in the Bill. They are not exactly comparable. As I said, we shall trial the schemes and see what practical experience teaches us before we take lasting decisions about how best to proceed.
Mr Gregory Barker (Bexhill and Battle, Conservative)
May I take the Minister up on the one-stop shop? It is important and welcome that the Government are proposing a comprehensive range of facilities for the centres—that will make for more efficient and speedier processing—but those services do not need to be offered around the clock. For example, 24-hour access to legal or welfare services is unnecessary, and clustering the camps or smaller accommodation centres around a regional core may be more effective. There is no need to offer all the services on one site.
Ms Angela Eagle (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Home Office; Wallasey, Labour)
I hope that the hon. Gentleman ceases to refer to those places as camps.
Ms Angela Eagle (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Home Office; Wallasey, Labour)
Communities will develop in those places and we shall try to facilitate improved contact management so that asylum claims can be processed faster. The Opposition Front-Bench spokesperson believes that we can get rid of asylum claims from start to finish in five weeks; he said that on Second Reading. We would all love to be able to do so, but our experience to date suggests that six months is a tough call. We are changing procedures—the Bill will streamline the appeals structures—to do the job faster. We must improve contact management, reduce decision times and use the one-stop shop concept to provide facilities in the accommodation centres with the people expecting hearings close to hand.
All that is about experimenting to achieve a faster turnaround of asylum claims without compromising on fairness or objectivity. We also want to increase the rate of return of those whose claims are refused and to establish an integration strategy for those granted asylum. In trials, we must keep a constant eye on size and establish whether economies of scale are possible. As an economist, I know that they are possible, but that at some stage they tail off and other problems arise. We shall try to establish the optimum number by trial and experimentation, but we have not yet decided on the optimum and we have no blueprint hidden away somewhere that will be whipped out and applied everywhere. If we intended to do that, we would not have instigated trials. I look forward to further debate after the trials have been evaluated and we have assessed how they work in practice.
Mr Simon Hughes (North Southwark and Bermondsey, Liberal Democrat)
I completely accept the Minister's argument, but I must press her, because someone somewhere must already have formed a view, however provisional, of the largest and smallest size necessary to deliver the requisite range of services. I do not want to tie her to a final decision, but it would help if she defined the parameters within which the arrangements are likely to be set up.
Ms Angela Eagle (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Home Office; Wallasey, Labour)
Part of the answer depends on the availability of sites at a particular time. If I gave the hon. Gentleman a figure, circumstances might conspire to make it inaccurate. I cannot do so, because we are not yet at that stage. I could say what he wants to hear, but it would not be backed up in reality. I can say only that we shall keep hon. Members informed about our thinking and our plans. We have said that we would consider reconfiguring a smaller site. When we have decided how practical that is and whether there are adequate sites that could be developed, we will let the hon. Gentleman know.
Mrs Angela Watkinson (Upminster, Conservative)
How will people become eligible for places in accommodation centres, as demand is likely greatly to outstrip availability? Will places be allocated first come, first-served or will they be given to people whose applications are most likely to succeed, who will therefore be processed more quickly?
Mr Alan Hurst (Braintree, Labour)
Order. I remind hon. Members that they should not read newspapers in Committee.
Ms Angela Eagle (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Home Office; Wallasey, Labour)
We shall publish criteria for allocation to accommodation centres. During the trials, only a small proportion of people will be involved. We want to trial accommodation centres for all types of asylum seeker; as the hon. Lady knows, 80 per cent. of asylum seekers are young single men, and the other 20 per cent. are family units of various kinds. We shall try to ensure that the trial enables us to test how services might be offered in an accommodation centre to all types of asylum seeker. We shall take operational decisions about who is eligible.
The process will be different from that at Oakington, where the cases are much simpler and an assessment can be made more easily so that they can be fast-tracked. It is different from that which applies for allocation to accommodation centres.
Ms Karen Buck (Regent's Park and Kensington North, Labour)
On a point of order, Mr. Hurst. The newspaper article that I was reading is about the Bill, and I want to refer to it later. I meant no disrespect to you or the Minister.
Ms Angela Eagle (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Home Office; Wallasey, Labour)
I look forward to the focused questions that my hon. Friend the Member for Regent's Park and Kensington, North (Ms Buck) will fire at me as a result of her research, which is always impeccable.
The proposal is flexible; it would be inflexible if a number were specified.
Mr Humfrey Malins (Woking, Conservative)
Will the Minister, first, deal with the planning applications process raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle (Mr. Barker) and, secondly, give her best guest as to when the first trial accommodation centre will open?
Ms Angela Eagle (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Home Office; Wallasey, Labour)
The planning arrangements will be made under planning circular 18/84, which the hon. Gentleman may be aware of and which allows both fast and slower track processes for the local authority. We are considering using the slower track rather than the fast. We want as much support and engagement with the matter as we can muster among local authorities and those involved in areas where accommodation centres are being sought.
Mr Gregory Barker (Bexhill and Battle, Conservative)
Are the buildings likely to be temporary or prefabricated, or will they be larger and more permanent?
Ms Angela Eagle (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Home Office; Wallasey, Labour)
There are several options. Some of the established sites are in existing buildings, which may be refurbished. Refurbishment may be a faster way of getting the first accommodation centre up and running than new build. We cannot rule out new builds; we are looking on a site-by-site basis at what would be the most effective approach. It is unlikely to be prefabs.
We are discussing planning issues. We do not want to proceed in a way that alienates local people, which inevitably means that we must go slower than we would like to. It is frustrating for those who might wish to trial the new arrangements that we cannot say
immediately when it will start. However, the current planning assumption is that it will probably be in summer 2003 rather than at the end of the year.
I hope, with those reassurances, that the hon. Gentleman will withdraw his amendment. Putting a number in the Bill is too inflexible for operational need and for matching sites to what we are trying to do. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will be reassured by some of the detail that I have given the Committee about how we intend to proceed.
Mr Humfrey Malins (Woking, Conservative)
I am only slightly reassured. The immigration and nationality directorate said on its website that the Government plan to set up four accommodation centres which will provide 3,000 places. We have to work on the basis that that was the Government's proposal. The Minister has heard Opposition Members and her hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow express serious reservations about the proposed size of the centres. Those reservations are amply backed up in an urgent letter to the Home Secretary on 3 May jointly signed by, among others, the Immigration Advisory Service, Amnesty International, the Immigration Law Practitioners Association, the National Association of Citizens Advice Bureau, the Law Society, the Commission for Racial Equality, Shelter, the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants, the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture and the Electronic Immigration Network. The Minister knows that there are strong and well-argued feelings about the matter. Although the Bill cannot specify a maximum number, it is vital that these accommodation centres are sufficiently small to be efficient and humane for those on site and to alleviate the concerns of local residents.
Ms Angela Eagle (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Home Office; Wallasey, Labour)
Does the hon. Gentleman also recognise that there is a balance to be struck between efficient use of public funds and economies of scale so that we provide good services for centres of an appropriate size. Although we do not know what size is appropriate before the trials, we will have to strike a balance. Deciding on an arbitrary figure, such as 250, assumes a response to the trials and evidence that we do not have.
Mr Humfrey Malins (Woking, Conservative)
I understand that point only too well: 250 is an arbitrary figure, but it enables the debate to get under way. The Minister is aware now, if she was not already, of the strong feeling of the professionals and the entire Opposition that those centres should be small. I am encouraged by the Minister's statement that the Home Secretary is quite happy to consider a smaller size. That is an important concession. The tone of the Minister's response was helpful. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Mr Humfrey Malins (Woking, Conservative)
I beg to move amendment No. 126, in page 9, line 6, after 'persons', insert
'in locations suitable to the cultural and other needs of those to be accommodated.'.
Mr Alan Hurst (Braintree, Labour)
With this it will be convenient to take the following amendments: No. 125, in page 9, line 6, after 'Part', insert 'in urban areas'.
No. 127, in page 9, line 8, at end add—
'(3) Prior to providing an accommodation centre, the Home Secretary shall consult formally with, and receive representations orally or in writing from the relevant local authorities, health authorities, and police authority.'.
No. 128, in page 9, line 8, at end add—
'(4) Where a local authority objects in writing to the provision of an accommodation centre within its area, the Secretary of State shall hold a public inquiry.'.
No. 168, in page 9, line 8, at end add—
'(3) No accommodation centre shall be established unless the Secretary of State is satisfied that it provides adequate accommodation and facilities with especial reference to:
(a) location
(b) provision of separate accommodation for each household or person
(c) the health and safety of residents and staff
(d) the availability of appropriate support and advice services in the locality.
(4) In determining that an accommodation centre provides adequate accommodation and facilities the Secretary of State shall consult with and have regard to the views of
(a) the local authority of the area
(b) the health authorities for the area
(c) the Legal Services Commission
(d) the police authority
(e) relevant professional bodies.'.
Mr Humfrey Malins (Woking, Conservative)
We have dealt at some length with the size of the proposed accommodation centres, and we now move to a series of amendments that deal with location and other ancillary matters.
Mr Alan Hurst (Braintree, Labour)
Order. I remind hon. Members that I showed a degree of liberalism on the last debate, which incorporated location as well as size. I am sure that hon. Members will bear that in mind when they address the Committee in this debate.
Mr Humfrey Malins (Woking, Conservative)
Thank you, Mr. Hurst. I certainly will.
At the beginning of this debate on location, I ask the Minister to specify whether the eight sites set out by the immigration and nationality directorate in its briefing of 27 February are still proposed.
Mr Humfrey Malins (Woking, Conservative)
I am most grateful. The Secretary of State said that those sites could be suitable. The majority are in rural areas. The IND website told us that an accommodation centre would not be a risk to local residents. It contrasted accommodation centres with removal centres such as Yarl's Wood, describing Yarl's Wood as secure, which it was not, and adding that it is a place where we detain failed asylum seekers before deporting them. I have already made it clear to the Minister that Yarl's Wood had 85 current appellants at the time of the break-out and fire. She will correct me if I am wrong, but an accommodation centre could have up to 750 current appellants.
Location is important. Many argue—including the various groups I mentioned that wrote to the Home Secretary—that an urban area would be more suitable to both those in the accommodation centre and local
residents. Will the Minister consider the position of my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury? The proposed accommodation centre on former Ministry of Defence land at Bicester severely troubles his constituents and he rightly raises their concerns. It particularly troubles the residents of the small village to which I referred earlier, Piddington, to whom the idea of housing asylum seekers in rural communities is absolute folly. One has asked—many would think the same—whether the asylum seekers would be happier near their own ethnic groups in urban areas where there are better amenities. The villagers remain frustrated because the Home Office has told them little about the proposals.
Most of the eight proposed sites are in rural or semi-rural locations where asylum seekers would face difficulty in accessing local services and pursuing purposeful activity off-site.
Ms Karen Buck (Regent's Park and Kensington North, Labour)
I have some sympathy with the hon. Gentleman's point, but will he accept for the record that at least 75 per cent. of asylum seekers and refugee communities in this country are settled in London, and the majority are settled in urban areas? That context must be taken into account when discussing dispersal.
Mr Humfrey Malins (Woking, Conservative)
The hon. Lady is right. A large percentage of asylum seekers are in the south-east and London. The dispersal policy of the past two years has sent asylum seekers throughout the United Kingdom, predominantly to urban areas. It would be in the interest of asylum seekers in accommodation centres if they were to be placed in urban areas close to the communities with which they would feel most familiar and happy. After all, asylum seekers in accommodation centres will be free during the day to exercise purposeful activity, to make visits and so on. It would be much easier for them to have a proper life during the process of the asylum application if they were close to communities with which they felt familiar and happy.
A number of organisations, including the Refugee Children's Consortium, have expressed great regret that some of the proposed locations are in isolated areas, where it will be difficult for families to make cultural links and participate in normal community life. Similarly, the Commission for Racial Equality believes that accommodation should be near towns and cities, and integrated with local communities. Integration is fairly crucial to preventing segregation, which would be detrimental to race relations and impede possible resettlement. If an accommodation centre is sited in a remote area, the asylum seekers placed there will be very isolated.
Amendment No. 127 is about consultation. Many believe that consultation on the proposals has so far been rather inadequate, which is why I believe that the Bill should include a requirement for formal and comprehensive consultations with various bodies. Local authorities can advise on local facilities and local reactions, and can do much to calm any concerned residents. The role of a local councillor, for example, can be critical in that context.
Health authorities are also relevant. They could give advice and deal with issues such as the medical facilities that they could provide on site if that were requested; how medical facilities would be funded; what, if any, local medical personnel would be needed; what role, if any, the local primary care trust might have in the operation of the facilities; and the availability of specialist services in the locality. The police could have a real input on local security issues, especially following the Yarl's Wood incident.
Amendment No. 128 would require a public inquiry to be held if a local authority objected to an accommodation centre. I have referred to the concerns of villagers in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury. He has made the good argument that, if a local authority opposes an accommodation centre, the Secretary of State should exercise his discretion under circular 18/84 to hold a non-statutory public inquiry in which the views of local services and community representatives can be heard.
Currently, people feel strongly that Ministers are talking about consultation with local providers that may amount to no more than written representations. That would be wholly unacceptable. My hon. Friend knows that there would be incredible resentment in his area if the Department steamrollered through a proposal to build on Government land without the fullest possible consultation.
The amendments are designed to tell the Government that the best place to locate an accommodation centre is in an urban area, near existing communities and organisations that can give those in the centre advice and help. The area should have good transport and other facilities to ensure that the idea of purposeful activity for a resident of a centre really means something. There should also be outside support, particularly medical support.
In short, the centres should not be located in rural communities. Apart from being detrimental to the interests of asylum seekers, it could cause concern and fear among local residents. That view is strongly supported by all those organisations that work in the field of asylum on behalf of asylum seekers. If the Minister is not content with the amendments, she will be flying in the face of arguments that have been advanced by all those professionals. I very much hope that she will take the spirit of the amendments on board, and assure the Committee that she will act in accordance with it.
Mr Simon Hughes (North Southwark and Bermondsey, Liberal Democrat)
I, too, shall speak to amendments Nos. 126 and 127, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr. Allan) and I are co-signatories. Amendment No. 168 stands in our names alone. We do not support the Conservatives' amendments Nos. 125 or 128. I will not add to the general points made by the hon. Member for Woking on amendments Nos. 126 and 127. It is more important to think of locations that are
''suitable to the cultural and other needs of those to be accommodated''
—to use the words in amendment No. 126—than to make a clinical distinction between what is urban, suburban and rural. As my hon. Friend said, a perfectly good site might technically be in a rural area, but lie within a two-stop bus ride from a city with a multi-ethnic, multiracial community. Proximity, accessibility and links to an appropriate community are important. As the hon. Member for Regent's Park and Kensington, North said, asylum seekers who have recently arrived in this country are placed predominantly in urban communities, mainly in London but not always, whether they are being dispersed or have come from elsewhere. I suspect that not one village in England or Wales has significant numbers--say, 25 per cent.--of asylum seekers or recent immigrants, let alone more. Towns and other larger conglomerations are the more frequent locations.
The numbers will be more balanced if the accommodation centre is on the edge of a town or city. By definition, the number of people in such a centre is small compared with that in a town or city. It would help those who read the record of our debates if the Minister were to mention the eight sites in her concluding remarks. The sites have been publicised, but have not been discussed so far in the debate. Whatever the locations, how do the Government intend to ensure that accommodation centres are safe and that the people in them are protected, which is what the Churches Commission for Racial Justice supports, as the hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham said? People should feel secure, wherever they are.
I shall be blunt: racists up and down the land are willing to act on their racism individually or in groups. We must therefore ensure that the debate is balanced in communities where accommodation centres are sited. Racists are able to put their arguments well in newspapers and on the radio, and it is important that there should be no NIMBYish opposition to foreigners, strangers and others whom they believe will not stay long but are unacceptable. I am not suggesting that the Minister or the Government are unaware of that.
Statutory authorities should be formally consulted on the processes of democracy. That is why amendment No. 127 is reasonable. It is no good for the Government to plant such centres on areas without formally asking for and taking into account the views of the local authority, local quasi-democratic authorities, the police, the health authority and non-governmental organisations with experience. If such bodies are consulted, a public inquiry would be unnecessary, if not unhelpful. Such an inquiry would cause delay and increase local tension.
Inquiries about electoral boundaries are the same: no one is allowed to say that they object to a proposed boundary because it disadvantages them, so they invent six other reasons to do with history, geography and everything else. People may not be prepared to say that they do not want black or Asian people or people from Kosovo living near them, so they will invent six other reasons and spin out the debate at great expense
and to no great community advantage. If we are talking about a few centres around the country, I am happy that the debate will be public as long as the Government consult formally and properly, publish the responses and take them into account. If the parish, town, district or county council or unitary authority, together with the police and health authorities, cannot adequately represent the views of the local community, I do not know who can.
My hon. Friend and I do not support amendment No. 125 because we agree that one cannot ring fence an urban area and say that nothing outside it--not even two inches--would be an appropriate location.
Amendment No. 168 is an important probing amendment, and the hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham referred to its provisions. It proposes that no accommodation centre should be established unless the Secretary of State is satisfied that it provides adequate accommodation and facilities, and unless proper consultation has taken place. It is easy to envisage the centres as institutional, dormitory places like army camps. That is a danger, and we must afford individuals and families the dignity they need, even in the trials. Eight males between 18 and 30 may arrive from Albania or 12 from Afghanistan, and they may be happy to share accommodation. However, it would not be appropriate for families with children to share accommodation and have to battle to get to the shower or to the washing or baby-changing facilities. We must provide adequate accommodation that we would expect any other family in a community to be provided.
My hon. Friend and I have compared notes on the Sheffield and London experience. Institutional accommodation is much more likely to induce resistance, objection and a potentially disorderly community. I have not visited Yarl's Wood and do not know the circumstances that led up to the difficulties there, but putting large numbers of people together in an institutional environment allows discontent to fester. In respect of management and decency, I hope that the Minister can assure the Committee about the provisions in amendment No. 168, particularly paragraph (3)(b), which concerns the provision of separate accommodation for each household or person.
Ms Angela Eagle (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Home Office; Wallasey, Labour)
Two amendments in the group take two different approaches. We all realise how difficult and emotive the arrival of asylum seekers can be in a local area, whether at an accommodation centre, in cluster areas or through dispersal. All decent and reasonable politicians must try to calm people's fears rather than make them worse. We must ensure that reason rather than blind emotion is the order of the day. It is also up to the Government to be as reassuring as possible when handling such difficult matters.
In my experience, there is always worry, and sometimes hysteria and deliberate racism, when large groups of asylum seekers arrive through the dispersal
system or, as my hon. Friend the Member for Dover knows, at the port of entry, or when accommodation centre sites are announced. We must work together to ensure that this country handles the issues in a way that is most likely to diffuse racial tension and reassure communities that have both legitimate and illegitimate fears. I am pleased that that has been the tone of our debate in Committee and on Second Reading.
It is difficult to reflect on that position and then to listen to the argument of the hon. Member for Woking that these people should be based elsewhere rather than in the rural areas, and that in no circumstances could any rural area help to accommodate asylum seekers while their claims are being dealt with. It smacks too much of a ''not in my backyard'' attitude. Services in London and other inner-city areas are already hard pressed, but the hon. Gentleman argues that they should always accept the burden and no other solutions can be tried in any circumstances.
Mr Humfrey Malins (Woking, Conservative)
It is not a question of ''not in my backyard''. Will the Minister explain why many of the professional organisations to which I referred earlier signed the joint letter to the Home Secretary? Why have they reached that conclusion about the siting of various accommodation centres?
Ms Angela Eagle (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Home Office; Wallasey, Labour)
The NGOs have the great luxury of being able to be against everything. They do not have to take decisions about numbers. In certain circumstances, decisions that are unpalatable to some groups have to be taken. The hon. Gentleman will recall debates about dispersal, which many opposed. It is easy to be against potential solutions to the problem, but that does not help either the Government or suffering local communities to reach a solution. We need an open and transparent debate about how best to deal with the problem.
Last summer dispersal was appalling. It was not working; it was awful; it should never have taken place. My hon. Friend's constituency of Dover and other parts of south-eastern Kent desperately needed relief from the sheer numbers. Yet we now hear that dispersal is working well. Different solutions are possible, and we need to assess them in order to provide the best possible system for hearing asylum seekers' claims as quickly and effectively as possible. We also need to distribute more fairly across the country the extra costs, social problems and other consequences arising from asylum seekers landing on our shores. It is inappropriate to pass an amendment that would ban us wholesale from considering rural areas as part of the solution. We must be flexible and sensible. We cannot accept the inflexibility that the amendment embodies.
Mr Richard Allan (Sheffield, Hallam, Liberal Democrat)
We have already explained that we do not support a rigid distinction between urban and rural, but will the Minister listen seriously to the concerns expressed about the social isolation of asylum seekers? She referred to the previous problems with dispersal. Experience has shown that many of the criticisms that
the NGOs made of the previous legislation were well-founded. Neither system has been perfect, but I hope that the Minister will at least listen to this informed criticism.
Ms Angela Eagle (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Home Office; Wallasey, Labour)
I always listen to informed criticism and I am a great admirer of NGOs, but Ministers have to take decisions. It is right for NGOs to have opinions on everything, but sometimes decisions have to be taken. We should recognise that it is possible to be as socially isolated in a tenement block in Glasgow as in a rural area.
Mr Humfrey Malins (Woking, Conservative)
The Minister is obviously right on that last point. She claims to be a great admirer of NGOs, yet a few moments ago she rubbished them. Does she accept the thrust of their argument—I accept that our wording in the amendment may be inappropriate—that it would be in the best interests of asylum seekers generally if accommodation centres were based in urban areas with all their available facilities? Does she accept the power of that argument?
Ms Angela Eagle (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Home Office; Wallasey, Labour)
I do not accept the power of that argument. If I did, we would not have the sites on the list. The argument has still to be proved, one way or the other. The trials will give us a view on the matter. That is why we are not taking dogmatic, peremptory decisions about where the accommodation centres should be. There may be a profusion of different provisions in time if accommodation centres work. I am not saying that accommodation centres will always be in rural areas and nowhere else. We have a lot of experience of trying to deal with dispersal in urban areas, and we want to trial accommodation centres in rural areas to see what that teaches us about what we can provide. An amendment that would preclude such trials or which would preclude certain areas is not acceptable.
Mr Simon Hughes (North Southwark and Bermondsey, Liberal Democrat)
Does not the experience of the dispersal policy show that the secret of success is collaboration and agreement with local authorities? My noble Friend Lord Greaves said in a debate in the House of Lords that at the beginning the policy was not working, but once people started to work together it was much more likely to succeed.
Ms Angela Eagle (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Home Office; Wallasey, Labour)
Yes, I am always in favour of agreement and co-operation, because they lead to better outcomes than imposition. However, there must be a recognition of joint responsibility. Sometimes local authorities think that opposition will make the problem go away and someone else will have the burden. People in local authorities and at national level must recognise their responsibility to look after asylum seekers appropriately and effectively, and in a way that causes the least trouble for authorities that are under a great deal of pressure. The hon. Gentleman, who represents a London constituency, knows that we all have to work together to achieve that. At present, not everybody wishes to work with us to that end.
Ms Karen Buck (Regent's Park and Kensington North, Labour)
Will my hon. Friend join me in paying tribute to the work done by London local authorities and others? With the right Government support, local authorities are perfectly capable of providing the package of services necessary and of accommodating, as London does, the overwhelming majority of asylum seekers and refugees.
Ms Angela Eagle (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Home Office; Wallasey, Labour)
They are doing a good job, but we do not see why the burden should always fall on particular areas because of their geographical location. The authority may contain a port such as Dover, which is used for clandestine entry, or be in one of the most exciting multicultural cities in the world where large numbers of people would want to live if they had the choice.
Mr Humfrey Malins (Woking, Conservative)
Having told us that the first trial accommodation centre should be up and running by the middle of 2003, will the Minister outline exactly the proposed consultation process to be undertaken before that date with the local authorities that are near the proposed site?
Ms Angela Eagle (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Home Office; Wallasey, Labour)
I will go through that process in a moment, but I want to make another important general point, which relates to the welcome comments made by the hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey about needing to ensure that the occupants of accommodation centres are safe and secure. We must recognise that there are racists in the land and, as the hon. Gentleman said, the balance of the debate needs to be non-NIMBY. It should also be non-hysterical and responsible. I noticed with satisfaction the comment made by the hon. Member for Woking about the crucial role of local councillors in reassuring local people.
I ask the hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey to note a Liberal Democrat leaflet that was distributed in Speke Garston during the local elections. It featured pictures of Yarl's Wood going up in flames and was headed, ''Labour's prison camp for Speke Garston.'' Frank Roderick, a local councillor, referred to the plans and the people who might go into what is a detention centre rather than an accommodation centre. He said that Labour was considering foisting on the area not genuine asylum seekers or legitimate immigrants, but
''illegal immigrants and asylum seekers whose applications have been rejected,''
''instead of being immediately deported . . . are being herded into prison camps such as the one Labour is proposing for us.''
I hope that the hon. Gentleman will take the opportunity to condemn such irresponsible behaviour, which whips up hatred against all black people, but particularly against asylum seekers and immigrants, whether illegal or otherwise.
Mr Simon Hughes (North Southwark and Bermondsey, Liberal Democrat)
The Minister will guess that my response will always be to condemn such leaflets, wherever they come from. My 20 years in the House have shown me that they come from all three parties at
different times. I have not seen that leaflet. I do not know that issue. I will happily look at it and take up the matter.
Ms Angela Eagle (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Home Office; Wallasey, Labour)
I thank the hon. Gentleman. All political parties, especially in the current environment, deal with those important issues responsibly. They arouse a lot of emotion, and if that emotion is not dealt with responsibly it can lead to extremely dangerous situations and enable more extreme and violent parties to gain a foothold. It is interesting to note that on every site there has been BNP activity.
The sites under consideration are: MOD Pershore in Worcestershire, RAF Hemswell in Lincolnshire, Sully hospital in Cardiff, Hooton Park at Ellesmere Port, MOD land in Bicester, Oxfordshire, Air West in Edinburgh, which was formerly RAF Turnhouse, RAF Newton in Nottinghamshire and Killinghome power station in Grimsby. We hope to confirm shortly those that are likely to be suitable. My noble Friend Lord Rooker will make an announcement when he is ready.
Mr Simon Hughes (North Southwark and Bermondsey, Liberal Democrat)
I am grateful to the Minister. Are the Government taking initiatives to ensure that all the political parties in each of those areas are engaged, not just those in control of the local authorities? Getting early agreement, which is supportive and ensures that there are no adverse comments, is by far the best way to proceed.
Ms Angela Eagle (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Home Office; Wallasey, Labour)
That is a sensible suggestion. If we can explore that together, it would be useful for us to do so.
I have dealt with the amendment on rural areas, so I shall now deal with the other amendments. We have made it clear that we intend to provide accommodation centres in non-urban areas because of the pressure that has built up on local services in urban areas. That is also why we have developed the idea of providing a wide range of facilities and services on site, which will minimise the impact on local services in the areas around accommodation centres. Cultural and other needs will be met through the provision of facilities for education, health care, purposeful activities, interpretation and religious observance. We want viable communities to be able to develop within the centres. There is no reason to establish centres close to existing areas of dispersal because the needs can be met on site. That is not to suggest that there will be no interaction between the accommodation centres and the local populations. We would certainly want to encourage links between them while minimising the effects on local services.
The amendments that would require consultation with local authorities, health authorities and police authorities and the holding of public inquiries are unnecessary, because by virtue of circular 18/84, which has already been mentioned in our deliberations, Departments are required to submit planning notifications. When the local community objects, the appeal is heard by a planning inspector and is a public
inquiry. Representations are taken from interested parties, which can include residents associations and members of the public.
We are also discussing the issues with relevant local authorities, and we are holding regular meeting with the Department of Health to sort out the implications for health authorities. We have arranged meetings with the police forces in the areas of the potential sites to take full account of policing issues, and public meetings will be held in those areas where planning notifications are submitted. There is no added value in providing for formal consultation, because that extends delay, confusion and uncertainty. That is the point that the hon. Gentleman was making.
Mr Simon Hughes (North Southwark and Bermondsey, Liberal Democrat)
Which of the sites provisionally identified would require planning applications? Some may already have planning permission for residential use.
Ms Angela Eagle (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Home Office; Wallasey, Labour)
I do not have that information in my head, but I shall endeavour to provide it to the hon. Gentleman in due course.
Mr Humfrey Malins (Woking, Conservative)
Will the Minister also identify today which of the proposed eight sites the Department has been in correspondence with? The relevant local Members of Parliament should be informed.
Ms Angela Eagle (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Home Office; Wallasey, Labour)
I understand that they were informed ahead of time. I have certainly answered a flurry of parliamentary questions on the subject. It is our intention to work closely with local Members of Parliament, not to spring sudden surprises on elected Members. In response to the question asked by the hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey, all the sites will require an application for planning consent. None of the procedures will be wriggled out of through technicalities.
With those reassurances, I hope that the hon. Gentleman will withdraw the amendment.
Mr Humfrey Malins (Woking, Conservative)
This has been a helpful debate and I am grateful to the Minister for her responses. She will be aware of our remaining concerns about location, but I can tell from how she speaks to the Committee—and my hon. Friends would agree—that she is a listening Minister. She has not shut her mind to any constructive suggestions. I therefore beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Mr Simon Hughes (North Southwark and Bermondsey, Liberal Democrat)
I beg to move amendment No. 167, in page 9, line 6, at end insert
'provided such premises are publicly owned and that their management and employees are directly employed by the Home Office or relevant local authority.'.
Mr Alan Hurst (Braintree, Labour)
With this we may take the following:
Amendment No. 170, in page 9, line 6, at end insert—
'(1A) These arrangements must only be made with contractors who can prove that neither they nor any agent or employee has a record of criminal conviction for offences of violence, neglect or abuse of any child or have been held to have failed to repair
property under their control, participated in harassment of tenants or licensees or to have acted in breach of the Race Relations Act 1976.'.
Amendment No. 141, in clause 24, page 12, line 18, at end insert
'and a copy of whose contract of employment has been laid before the House of Commons'.
Amendment No. 181, in page 12, line 18, at end insert—
'(2) No person shall be a manager of a centre if he or an employee of his is or has been
(a) convicted of any offence of violence
(b) convicted of any offences against children
(c) the subject of an entry in the Child Protection Register
(d) convicted of any offences involving financial impropriety
(e) found guilty of any act of race of sex discrimination
(f) convicted of any offences of harassment.
(3) The Secretary of State shall make regulations to give effect to subsection (2).'.
Amendment No. 182, in page 12, line 18, at end insert—
'(2) In making such an agreement with a manager of an accommodation centre, the Secretary of State shall ensure that all relevant documentation and information is available to residents in the locality, their representatives and the public on request.
(3) ''Relevant documentation and information'' in subsection (2) includes (but is not confined to)
(a) information about the terms and price of the contract agreed
(b) information about the monitoring and reporting arrangements agreed
(c) information about the standards of service agreed
(d) documentation of all the above.'.
Clause 24 stand part.
Mr Simon Hughes (North Southwark and Bermondsey, Liberal Democrat)
The key issue in the amendment is that accommodation centres should be publicly owned, and that their management and employees should be employed directly by the Home Office or the relevant local authority. Put boldly, my hon. Friend and I strongly believe that, whatever we think of the Prison Service—the Home Office south of the border and the joint Labour-Liberal Democrat Administration north of the border have accepted that some prisons should be in the private sector—it is wrong at this stage of policy to allow the private sector to run, manage or have employees in these institutions, especially after the unhappy experience of Yarl's Wood.
Many arguments support that position. First, confusion arose in Yarl's Wood about who exactly was responsible and who should have managed the situation when the fire broke out. Further confusion arose about insurance, with some companies saying that they were unable to insure the centre. An insurance difficulty is one reason why Yarl's Wood has not continued even in partial operation. Practical problems were evident, but hugely important policy issues arise, too.
For this most delicate of operations—I choose my words advisedly—direct public accountability is vital. I mean direct accountability, not contracted out, hived off or at arm's length. In my experience, once a service begins to be privatised, it is never as easy to have public accountability. That applies to local government and public authorities.
One example is my local authority. When under outgoing Labour control, it privatised the housing benefit service to CSL, a company that other hon. Members will know through their authorities. Like other elected Members, I was told that I had to deal with the CSL management. However, that meant that there was no public accountability, so I refused. I said that I would deal with the director of finance. The local authority appointed him, and he must take responsibility for the level of complaints and be accountable to the Member of Parliament. It is not for some private company based outside the borough to be responsible.
On this issue and at this time, it is very important that the service is a public service—managed in the public sector and kept in the public sector. That would ensure that the public had confidence in it. Not only my party believes that: I am sure that many colleagues agree, certainly on the Labour Benches. The Churches have made it clear that they share that view, and I believe that it is the overriding view of people in Bedfordshire in the light of the experience at Yarl's Wood. It is a strongly held view, and I give notice that unless the Minister is willing to give adequate assurances, we intend to force a vote.
Amendment No. 170 suggests an alternative, but it is a far less satisfactory option. However, if the Minister moved so far as to accept it, that would be progress. The amendment states:
''These arrangements must only be made with contractors who can prove that neither they nor any agent or employee has a record of criminal conviction for offences of violence, neglect or abuse of any child or have been held to have failed to repair property under their control, participated in harassment of tenants or licencees or to have acted in breach of the Race Relations Act 1976.''
The amendment would ensure that contractors, and their agents and employees, were reputable and had no history in their organisation of anything that smacked of inappropriate racial behaviour.
Amendment No. 181 would ensure that the management was equally reputable, and that no one in the management had a relevant conviction involving children, violence, financial impropriety, race or sex discrimination, or harassment. It would also ensure that regulations were made appropriately.
Finally, amendment No. 141, which was tabled by the hon. Member for Woking, and the Liberal Democrats' amendment No. 182, concern the same issue. Our amendment would ensure that all relevant documentation and information was available to
''residents . . . representatives and the public on request.''
One problem, about which the hon. Member for North-East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt) was concerned, was that not all the information relating to the Yarl's Wood incident was made available.
There are also important issues about reporting, about the review and about standards of service. If the public's concerns and fears, whether justified or unjustified, are to be allayed, they need to know that there is proper management. The sequential amendments to which I have referred are designed to show whether the Government can put that in place in any event. Whether there was a public sector or private sector manager, we would want conditions to be built
in. The Government might say that they will do that by regulation, which would be fine, but we must have guarantees.
Whoever takes responsibility for large numbers of people who have come here from countries far less affluent than ours to seek our help and support after experiencing trauma and difficulty, it is very important that they are given the best possible support. I hope that we still have sufficient confidence in our public services to believe that that should be a public service function. If that is not a public service function, I do not know what is.
Mr Parmjit Dhanda (Gloucester, Labour)
The hon. Gentleman has referred to problems that we have had in the past, including at Yarl's Wood. Just out of curiosity, has he any inkling of the difference in costs between the public sector or a public-private partnership providing the service?
Mr Simon Hughes (North Southwark and Bermondsey, Liberal Democrat)
I refer the hon. Gentleman to the Minister's earlier remarks. As these ventures are new, there is no logical reason why there should be a difference or why the public sector should cost more. If the public sector is to be responsible for all the accommodation centres, there must be an efficiency cost benefit from using the same strategic—not local—management for all the sectors. If different contractors are to carry out different operations, that will add management costs, which will be forced back on to Government. The Minister rightfully talked about scale, cost benefit and efficiency. Those factors will determine the relative costs.
I do not know the difference in costs with regard to accommodation centres. Someone may have carried out an evaluation on the continent. I have talked through the issue in detail with people in Finland, where I went about a year ago. Accommodation centres there are run entirely by the public sector. It is not contemplated that they should be in the private sector. I am not aware of them being privatised anywhere else or of similar organisations in Europe—although I may be corrected.
We start with a principle. If there were an overwhelming argument that a reputable contractor could build accommodation centres better and more cheaply in a second phase after the trial, that would be reasonable. This is a new venture. There are already enough difficulties with the proposal we have discussed. If the accommodation centres are to be in the private sector there will be the added difficulty of lack of accountability. If the public are to have confidence, they must know that Ministers, or a Government agency, and elected local councillors are responsible and will not say, ''Nothing to do with us, guv, we just signed the contract''. It is important that we hold to that principle. I hope that the Minister can assure us that all the accommodation centres trials for the entire period under this legislation will be carried out in the public sector.
Mr Humfrey Malins (Woking, Conservative)
I shall be brief. My probing amendment No. 141 asks the Minister whether the contract for the centre manager will be available for public scrutiny, as I believe it should be. On the clause stand part, will the Minister give us some idea of the ratio of staff on-site to numbers at the proposed centres? Does she have any idea of the likely weekly cost of housing someone in an accommodation centre, given that the available figure for Oakington, for example, is £1,600 per week?
Mr Gregory Barker (Bexhill and Battle, Conservative)
Will the Minister confirm who will be responsible for policing the accommodation centres? The maintenance of proper order is important. There will be a lot of vulnerable people, particularly if the centres are to house 750; that is a lot of people susceptible to crime. We know that there are criminals along with genuine asylum seekers, particularly among young men seeking to come here. The places of origin of most of these people are often rife with organised crime. One or two bad apples trying to assert their hegemony over people in accommodation centres can create an unpleasant and disturbing environment for those living there. Who will be responsible for policing and listening carefully to what is going on in the centres to ensure that no attempt is made to create gangs, or to pressure residents in the centres to obey anyone other than the British authorities?
When asylum seekers have been dispersed, on numerous occasions young men in particular have engaged in gang warfare or other small acts of rivalry that have given rise to violence and other criminal activity. Will the Minister assure the Committee that those factors will be properly monitored?
Ms Angela Eagle (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Home Office; Wallasey, Labour)
The amendments raise various issues, and I shall try to answer specific questions on the clause stand part debate as well.
I am not sure whether the hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey wants to legislate for all accommodation centres or just the four trial centres, but his amendment would mean that all accommodation centres, now and for ever more, would have to be in the public sector. I assume that that is his intention, but the Bill carries an important flexibility that allows us to run the centres by contracting them out—to which he objects—in the public or voluntary sectors, or even using a mix of the different types. The Bill uses a menu, which we can mix and match for the provision of accommodation centres, and I want to keep it that way while we trial various centres.
The hon. Gentleman was right about the virtues that he attributed to the public sector, and I share his commitment to them, particularly accountability. However, I am not as pessimistic about using contracted-out services appropriately to deliver a particular service. I do not want to accept amendment No. 167, which would completely rule out the possibility of anyone other than the Home Office or a relevant local authority running the accommodation centres.
The status quo in the Bill will allow the Home Office or a local authority to run an accommodation centre. It will also allow for some or all of the services to be
contracted out, and I would prefer to keep it that way so that we can be flexible across the piece. In the light of the Yarl's Wood incident, questions have surfaced about public and private ownership and management of such organisations, and it would be wrong to pre-empt what may emerge from the report into what happened at Yarl's Wood. It is important to remember that we are trying a new concept of accommodation centres, which will be different from removal centres. Some hon. Members said that they will not be that different, but we will have failed if we create an accommodation centre that is indistinguishable from a removal centre. It is not our intention to conflate the two concepts. There may be lessons to learn from the Yarl's Wood inquiries, which is why the Bill has the flexibilities that I mentioned.
On amendment No. 170 and the running of the centres, it is of course essential to prevent inappropriate people from attaining positions of influence or authority. That is vital for the welfare for all residents and staff, as well as for the integrity of what we are trying to achieve. We have the same aim. Any contract with the private sector will be able to specify relevant legislation that must be adhered to—the Race Relations Act 1976, for example—to ensure that we prevent unsuitable people from working with children or gaining positions as members of staff. That is implicit for public sector institutions, and there is cover if private, contracted-out services are used.
The Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000 outlawed race discrimination by both private and public sector bodies. It also extended anti-discrimination methods so that race discrimination and victimisation is now outlawed in all public functions, with limited exceptions for this building, immigration laws and national security. None of those will be applicable in the instances we are debating. As the hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey may know from that Bill's Standing Committee, that also covers public-private contracting.
The 2000 Act covers all employers, who must not discriminate on racial grounds against people seeking work. The Act covers all aspects of employment including recruitment, selection, promotion, training and pay. Legislation covering sexual offences against children applies regardless of where the child is located, so it applies in an accommodation centre. In addition, the offence of abuse of trust, introduced in the Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act 2000, made it an offence for a person over the age of 18, involved in a position of trust or authority over a child, to engage in any sexual activity with them.
Any employer whose work involves training, caring for or sole charge of children may request an enhanced disclosure from the Criminal Records Bureau for any person requesting employment in their area. The disclosure will include all previous convictions, including spent convictions, and any local intelligence on the individual. That will be one of several factors influencing the decision to offer employment. Furthermore, the Criminal Justice and Court Services Act 2000 enables a judge to impose a disqualification
order as part of a sentence for a person convicted of an offence against a child and sentenced to more than 12 months imprisonment. That makes it an offence for a relevant offender to apply for work with children in the future or for an employer knowingly to employ them whilst they are subject to the order.
The safeguards apply across the board, and equally to accommodation centres. It is not necessary for the Bill to state that other legislative requirements need to be met. They are implicit whether the provision is public, private, mixed or voluntary.
Amendments Nos. 141 and 182 refer to the detailed contractual arrangements between an accommodation centre provider and the Secretary of State. They are commercially confidential and cannot be disclosed as a document of public record. It is envisaged that the manager of a centre may in some circumstances be a member of staff of a private sector or non-governmental organisation contracted to operate an accommodation centre. Alternatively, the centre manager may be a civil servant. The Bill is drafted to give us that flexibility because we want day-to-day decisions and regulation of the regime to be undertaken locally.
Mr Richard Allan (Sheffield, Hallam, Liberal Democrat)
In the light of the Minister's comments about contracts being experimental, are the Government contemplating private finance initiative-type contracts for building the centres? That would tie them into a longer-term contract, typically 20-plus years. Are they considering only short-term contracts for the centres, which would exclude any proposal in which the private sector paid the building costs? I want to know about the potential involvement of the private sector in the provision of services.
Ms Angela Eagle (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Home Office; Wallasey, Labour)
The Bill allows us to offer accommodation centres in the future if they work. In theory, it gives us the power after a trial to decide on a more long-term, design-build and operate arrangement and about contracting-out. It would be odd to enter any long-term contract at the trial stage. The contracts that we are considering for the accommodation centres in the trial are, for obvious reasons, not PFI, but design-build and operate or design and build contracts.
Mr Richard Allan (Sheffield, Hallam, Liberal Democrat)
Under the model that the Minister describes, the fabric of the centre would be owned entirely by the public sector. The private sector would be paid only for the design and building work. It is as if I had commissioned a house for myself, which I would own at the end of the process.
Ms Angela Eagle (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Home Office; Wallasey, Labour)
The Bill does not exclude future PFI contracts, but we are not entering any for the trial period. Therefore, in the short term, there will be no PFIs. If we get through a successful trial and wish to expand the accommodation centre estate, we may consider another way of doing so. However, it is not sensible to enter a 25-year PFI-type contract when we are only at the trial stage.
On the matters raised on clause stand part, we are thinking of a ratio of between 200 and 300 staff to a 750-bed centre. We do not know the weekly running
costs yet; that is partly what the trial is about. We are not expecting them to be as expensive as Oakington, but time will tell.
The hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle gave the impression that he believes that asylum seekers are more likely to be criminals or to engage in criminal activity than anyone else of their age in this country. I do not agree.
Mr Gregory Barker (Bexhill and Battle, Conservative)
My key point was that there is evidence that asylum seekers are more vulnerable to crime and to coercion because of the nature of their stay in Britain.
Ms Angela Eagle (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Home Office; Wallasey, Labour)
The hon. Gentleman went on about the association between asylum seekers and crime, criminality and gang warfare. I wanted to put on record that there is no propensity for asylum seekers to be any more criminal than the indigenous population of any country. We all know from crime statistics that young men are more likely to be involved in such activity than any other section of the population. There may be a propensity to the extent that 80 per cent. of asylum seekers are single young men, but criminality is not associated with their being asylum seekers.
Accommodation centres are meant to be communities where people can live freely and have access to on-site facilities such as leisure, training, education and health. We also envisage accommodation centre residents becoming involved in voluntary activity off site. It is not in our interests for accommodation centres to be run along gang lines or dominated by particular groups. The staff will be trained appropriately to deal with such behaviour and to nip it in the bud. It would be in our power to move someone elsewhere if they were excessively disruptive, or to make them subject to criminal charges depending on what they were doing, although that would be a matter for the police. They might be subject to detention in certain circumstances. The safety and happiness of those in accommodation centres will always be a priority for the staff and the management. Liaison with the local police is important for that reason, so that there will be a continuing watch. I hope that that reassures the hon. Gentleman, and that hon. Members will withdraw their amendments.
Mr Simon Hughes (North Southwark and Bermondsey, Liberal Democrat)
In my experience, asylum seekers do not cause more trouble or commit more offences, and are no more prone to engage in criminal activity. We must be careful when we discuss such issues. I shall be blunt: there is no logic, history or evidence to suggest that asylum seekers commit or are liable to commit more offences, or that they are more likely to be less law-abiding than any other group in the community.
There are significant numbers of asylum seekers in my constituency, and have been for some years. The police have been good enough to go to community meetings with me to make that point to members of the community who sometimes complain that groups of
young men are hanging around committing offences. At one community meeting, a senior police officer said that if 700 18 to 30-year-old single male police officers with no money were put into a run-down hotel for months with nothing to do, it is likely that there would be much more disorder and criminality than with asylum seekers. I hope that the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle will revise whatever thought processes led him to his view.
It is true that asylum seekers are more frequently the victims of crime. They have had little money and support, and it is amazing that they are not more prone to seek resources illegally.
I agree with a point made by the hon. Member for Walthamstow in a debate on Kosovan refugees. If we had a policy that used asylum seekers' abilities earlier and more readily, they would jump at the chance. Most asylum seekers spend idle time only because they are not allowed to do anything. My hon. Friends and I have long argued that we need to give people early opportunities for training and work—irrespective of whether or not they go back to their own countries—so that they can contribute to the community. They are often more keen to do so, and work harder and for longer hours than many people born here who are much less willing to make a contribution to society.
Mr Gregory Barker (Bexhill and Battle, Conservative)
May I rebut totally the hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey's suggestion that I made some sort of blunt, even quasi-racist point? That is not the case. I was pointing out that a number of these people, because of the way in which they enter the country, have come into contact with the criminal underworld at some point. They are smuggled into the country, often by gangs mounting illegal operations. It is vital that they are freed from that connection at the earliest opportunity. They risk being coerced into doing things against their will. It is to protect the vulnerable, displaced and weak that we need to ensure special policing requirements for these areas, so that they do not fall prey to the unsavoury elements of society that may have brought them into the country.
Mr Simon Hughes (North Southwark and Bermondsey, Liberal Democrat)
The hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle provided helpful clarification. My experience is that most traffickers dump asylum seekers on the other side of the channel and leave them to make the last stretch of the journey on their own—having taken $10,000 from them, as I was told at Sangatte. People in this country have recourse to criminality, but that is no more the case with asylum seekers than with others. People involved in sex trafficking or trafficking of workers for sexual exploitation are not necessarily asylum seekers; some may come here legitimately. I do not mean to misunderstand the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle and I hope he does not misunderstand me. I want to place on the record that there is no evidence to suggest that asylum seekers are more likely to be criminals or commit more offences than any other group. The Minister is right to say that age and other relevant profiles are more common factors.
I shall read Hansard and reflect on the Minister's comments as to whether other legislation covers the points raised by amendments Nos. 170 and 181. I am a veteran of the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000, which was a great advance and covered many issues. I shall look at it in detail.
I shall also reflect on the response to the hon. Member for Woking on amendment No. 141 and to our amendment No. 182 on contracts. I expected the Minister to say that the matter was confidential and that the Government would not reveal the information. I am not sure that we are satisfied with her response, but I shall not pursue the matter now.
We are in a new age of new Labour. Everything is up for grabs. It is not clear what, if anything, new Labour believes should remain in the public sector. It is having an internal debate, as are we, not least this very day. However, we take as a presumption that some matters should remain in the public sector; and this is one of them. I have a moral and ethical concern about and objection to the idea that people should profit from housing and managing asylum seekers. It raises an ethical question. I am uncomfortable about profit-making from other jobs in society. It is true to say that I am on the left wing of my party.
Mr Simon Hughes (North Southwark and Bermondsey, Liberal Democrat)
No, but some in my party would take a more free-market view. For as long as we have accommodation centres—certainly for the trial period, but in our view for the provision in the legislation—they should remain in the public sector. We should not give private sector companies the opportunity to profit from this activity. The Minister offered a theoretical concession, and there might be a meeting of minds if she accepted that services should be provided only by not-for-profit organisations. That may be a way forward, but understandably I am not hearing more about that yet.
I am sure that deep down the Minister, like many other colleagues on the Labour Benches, shares my view. I do not know at what point in government everyone is required to sign up to the mixed economy for everything, with the private sector doing everything traditionally done by the public sector. My hon. Friend and I are clear. For accountability and other reasons, we want these services and the people employed in them to be kept in the public sector.
Question put, That the amendment be made:—
The Committee divided: Ayes 2, Noes 10.
Division number 3 - 2 yes, 10 no
Voting yes: Richard Allan, Simon Hughes
Voting no: Karen Buck, Parmjit Dhanda, Angela Eagle, Mike Gapes, Neil Gerrard, Mark Lazarowicz, Anne McGuire, Gwyn Prosser, Terry Rooney, Rosie Winterton
Mr Humfrey Malins (Woking, Conservative)
We have had a long and wide-ranging debate about accommodation centres. My hon. Friends and I have expressed serious concerns about their proposed size and location, despite the fact that we support them in principle and wish them well. I hope that the Minister has taken our comments on board.
Mention has been made of Yarl's Wood. Perhaps I can be forgiven for asking the Minister to give us an idea of when the insurance will be sorted out with the underwriters. When will the remaining half be filled up with detainees and over what period? What plans are there for rebuilding the half that was destroyed, and what is the time scale for that? We need to know when it will become operational again. We would appreciate any help on that and on the likely publication date of the report that the Government commissioned into the Yarl's Wood affair.
Mr Simon Hughes (North Southwark and Bermondsey, Liberal Democrat)
I shall be equally brief. I reiterate the question about the report. That is of interest to all of us. Our view is that relatively small accommodation centres would be a good idea, but that big and inappropriately located centres would be a bad idea. That is exactly the policy that is not evidenced by the Bill, but by thinking and practice. My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hallam, who led on the previous Bill, and I have had unhappy experiences of the legislation and of the management of this issue. We will therefore happily talk to the hon. Member for Woking and his colleagues and the Ministers to try to reach a consensus. If we can reach a consensus in Committee and with non-governmental and other organisations about the right locations on the basis of the information provided by the Minister's officials, the centres are more likely to be successful. Otherwise, the locations are likely to be considered inappropriate, as were aspects of the previous Bill.
It is reasonable to trial proposals, but we must trial them carefully with the broadest possible consensus in Parliament and local government. We should not believe that it will be easy to achieve such agreement, but it is worth trying. We support the concept behind the clause and will not vote against it, provided that it is sensitively worked through with the maximum collaboration.
Ms Angela Eagle (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Home Office; Wallasey, Labour)
I understand that the police are still investigating the incident at Yarl's Wood. It is important to put the report in the public domain, and to learn lessons from it as quickly as possible. We shall publish it as soon as we can, but I cannot give the hon. Member for Woking a date yet. That is not very satisfactory, but I cannot tell him what it is not possible to establish at the moment.
The hon. Gentleman knows as well as we do that the insurance for and the rebuilding of the remaining part of the site are subject to legal action. That makes it
almost impossible for me to say anything other than that we are vigorously pursuing our contractual rights and that we look forward to the legal system dealing with the insurance claims as quickly as possible to end the uncertainty.
I agree with the hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey that it will be easier to develop the systems in the clause coherently and safely if we can achieve consensus in such an emotive area and calm fears that often get out of proportion. I hope that we can do that, however difficult it might be.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 14 ordered to stand part of the Bill.