Yvette Cooper

Yvette Cooper

Labour — Pontefract, Castleford and Knottingley

Speaking in the House of Commons on 2 December 2024

Debate

Migration and Border Security

Contribution

We are determined to clear the backlog so that we can end asylum hotels. In 2019, there were no asylum hotels, so it was the previous Government who increased and opened about 400 of them. There are still around 220 asylum hotels in place. We have had to deal with the shocking crashing of the asylum system. Just before the election, the previous Government effectively stopped a whole load of caseworkers from making decisions on asylum cases and pushed the backlog up—we also had to clear that over the summer. That means that we can make progress on bringing the backlog down, so that we can start to clear hotels and ensure that we save money for the taxpayer. We have already saved the taxpayer hundreds of millions of pounds this year.

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