Member

I am concerned about people being accommodated in hotels, and there are impacts on local communities, but I stress that those hotels are inappropriate accommodation for asylum seekers—they are inadequate accommodation that is not providing for them appropriately. What we should do is welcome the vast majority of these people, who will be recognised as refugees, providing a mechanism whereby their applications are processed far faster so that they do not have to stay there. Indeed, I presented a proposal yesterday from the Refugee Council on how to ensure that we would not need hotels in about a year. Better still, my honourable friend in the other place, the MP for Bristol Central, pointed out that, if we allowed asylum seekers to work, we would also not need the hotels. This group of amendments is entirely inappropriate and wrong, as I hope we will hear from other sides of the Committee as well.