Speeches by Norris.

“I have no timescale. I am here for as long as you want.”

“As we stand up sites, we do not always know before we go on to sites and start lifting up things what challenges that may raise, but it has previously been accommodation good enough for Afghan families in recent memory. It has also been good enough accommodation for our armed forces in recent memory. No, I am not conce…”

“Yes. That is never a fixed point, but, yes, we are working on the idea that these things obviously change, but we are in a CSR period with relative consistency on where we are, so, yes.”

“As far as we have assessed so far, that money is being used to get those sites going.”

“First of all, Mr Maguire, I did not say that I expect it to be more expensive than hotels. In fact, the experience of Wethersfield is a little less, but our assessment is the same for Wethersfield but also for Crowborough. Those are safe, legal and decent facilities that—”

“I am afraid I will have to tell you in due course, Mr Atkinson. I understand that that is the worst of all answers, but it is the truth. We would make those announcements in the usual way, but we do want to do more of this activity. I will be clear there. That is the commitment. We will leave hotels in this Parliament,…”

“That is slightly tempting me into hypothetical territory in the sense that I still think we will need the capacity in large sites for hotel exit. However, my answer to that would be yes. I do think they have intrinsic value as part of our theory of change.”

“I cannot accept that. If you want, whatever the delta—in this case, it will be up to 540—we can stand outside two or three hotels that are closing. Hotels are now half what they were at their peak under the previous Government. We can ask the public whether they think that is good or bad. It is in and of itself good th…”

“It is part of the theory of change, yes.”

“It is an avowed goal of the Home Office to reduce that supported population, particularly by the things I have said. I think large sites would still have a role to play.”

“No, we failed on Crowborough and the failure is mine. I have thought about this. I have had a long time to think about this, Mr Moore. I regret deeply that parliamentary colleagues and council leaders found out through the news rather than from me or senior officials that this was taking place. That should not happen. …”

“I would not run ahead of that process. That is the contract design we are doing at the moment. We have 97,500 today. That is a big difference there. We have just under 21,000 people in hotels. Netting one off the other would not completely get you there, so I would not quite go that far. That is the work that we are go…”

“I cannot give you a target Mr Atkinson—there is a danger of there being no way other than doing it—because there is not. There is a finite availability of these types of sites—there are not many of them around. Exiting from hotels is multifaceted and far beyond this. I hinted at the legs of that earlier to colleagues. …”

“Yes.”

“Lots. We have worked with the police throughout. You have heard about the work with the providers on how that site operates, and is done so safely. There is the work with the health services. All those people who have had a stake in it, we have done lots and lots of that.”

“We had a very long-running process in. Andrew, you might need to help me with the time and date.”

“Yes, taking lessons from the past has been part of our model. We have that stage gate process where sites go into a process, we look at them for possible suitability, we look at all aspects, whether it is planning, what is on the site or any contaminations. We go through quite a lot of that before we get to any point w…”

“My view is that those organisations have known everything they have needed to know at the times that they have needed to know them, and I note from both councils, the direct impact on themselves about what they are expected to do operationally, is very little. I do accept the secondary impacts such as freedom of inform…”

“Am I wrong? As you have heard me say to Committee members, I am reflecting very strongly in all aspects of my engagement with Crowborough, and I appreciate exactly the spirit of why you asked that question. Is it wrong?”

“Yes. There are clearly significant differences with regards to cost. Value is more than the pound per night. Value is the ability to make the things stand up safely. Value is the impact of the Royal Hotel in Hull. I think of the Cladhan Hotel in Falkirk. I think of the Cresta Court Hotel in Altrincham, near to where I …”