Yvette Cooper

Yvette Cooper

Labour — Pontefract, Castleford and Knottingley

Speaking in the House of Commons on 1 September 2025

Debate

Borders and Asylum

Contribution

I look forward to reading the Home Affairs Committee’s report and I thank my hon. Friend for his work on the Committee. We have already been working to get better value from the contracts that we inherited, which is one reason that we have saved nearly £1 billion on asylum accommodation costs since the election. He is right to point out that the previous Government completely lost control of the system in 2022. There was a total lack of planning or any grip on the situation, as well as chaos around management that was incredibly costly. The sudden surge of asylum hotels opening all over the country, with poor contracts that provided poor value for money, was bad for the taxpayer and damaging to having an effective system across the country. We cannot go back to that kind of chaos.

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