Contribution
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Murrison. I commend the 1,600 Hartlepool constituents who signed the two petitions that we are debating.
Asylum accommodation is an issue that stirs emotions, and for very good reason. Too often, legitimate concerns are dismissed as being racist or right-wing, and nothing could be further from the truth. Let me be clear: there are indeed those who would seek to sow division and want to weaponise the issue to incite hatred and further their political careers, but for the vast majority of people, being worried about a broken system is not racist or right-wing; they are simply common-sense concerns. People are concerned about their communities, housing, public services and the fairness that underpins our country. Those concerns deserve to be heard and treated with respect.
When I was first elected, my constituency had one of the region’s highest rates of dispersed asylum accommodation. Hartlepool has never had a hotel used for asylum, but we do have housing bought up by the Home Office contractor Mears concentrated in our town centre. Homes that could have gone to local families are instead taken for temporary placements. The system that we inherited of outsourcing to private companies more interested in profits than in people hardwired unfairness into the asylum process. I make this plea to the Minister: please do not renew those contracts, which targeted deprived communities because of their housing costs.
Let me also be clear that we must always play our part. A decent, confident country will always look to help the vulnerable. It is worth noting that, in 2024, the UK had fewer asylum applications than Germany, France, Italy or Spain. But fairness matters, and the fact that there are 46 asylum seekers for every 10,000 people in Hartlepool, compared with just nine per 10,000 in neighbouring County Durham, is simply not fair. Our town has seen major services leave over the past decade. Our A&E closed in 2011 under the Tories. Our custody suite closed in 2019 under the Tories. Our council services were slashed and our schools were underfunded by the Tories, yet we have borne a disproportionate share of responsibility for asylum—thanks to the Tories.
I took this issue directly to Mears and the Home Office last March. I argued that our town could no longer be expected to take the burden of unfairness that this system had produced, and they agreed. They confirmed that no new properties will be procured in Hartlepool for the asylum process and that existing ones will gradually close. We have already seen a drop of 5%. Sending vulnerable people to a place where NHS dental appointments are as rare as unicorns helps no one—not the asylum seeker and not those needing those already stretched services.
The system can work, and one example where the results are extraordinary is the Salaam community centre in Hartlepool, led by the magnificent Nancy Pout. It supports asylum seekers to become integrated into our town. I have personally witnessed the compassion and decency at the heart of that organisation, with asylum seekers volunteering to give back to our community. When riots led by thugs and criminals attacking local businesses and destroying Hartlepool property took place last year, it was the Salaam centre and its army of volunteers that took to the streets the next morning to clean up the mess. Its volunteers and staff come together time and again to work as an integrated community, celebrating our achievements.
The message is simple: we cannot impose further pressure on deprived communities that are already struggling. Let us also be honest that those posing as asylum seekers for economic gain damage trust and make life harder for genuine refugees. That must also be addressed. If they have no right to be here, they must be removed. But this debate should not be about being for or against asylum; it should be about fairness—fairness for those seeking refuge and fairness for the communities asked to do their bit to host them.