Clause 15 - Support for destitute asylum-seeker
Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Bill
10:15 am
Ms Angela Eagle (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Home Office; Wallasey, Labour)
I could hear the harrumphing around the Room when the hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey said something nasty about the Law Society. We always bear such things in mind, but if solicitors are giving legal advice and getting public money to do so they must be quality-marked in order to gain access to that money. If the hon. Gentleman has in mind complaints concerning particular firms that he wishes to draw to our attention, we will certainly consider the matter.
All the people placed in accommodation centres will be grouped in a sensible way. It is not our intention that the trials should fail—we will try to give them the best hope of success. There might be an underlying view that life for asylum seekers in accommodation centres will be much worse than under dispersal arrangements—hence the proposals for time limits to get people out quickly and the idea that they should not stay. However, if we get this right, asylum seekers might want to stay in accommodation centres to facilitate their asylum claims. We hope that the environment will be much more supportive, with many facilities on site, and that the communities that develop will be supportive rather than isolating, as happened with some dispersal accommodation. All that remains to be seen.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 15 ordered to stand part of the Bill.