Speeches by Eagle.

“I assure the hon. Member that we take action against those who break the rules by working illegally. Raids and arrests for illegal working are up 50% in the last year; civil penalties in the last quarter were at their highest rate since 2016; and we are taking action to close the gig economy loophole through the Border…”

“By speeding up the asylum process, so that people are not trapped in asylum hotels by huge backlogs, and by increasing decision making by 116%, following the 70% fall that we saw in the three months before the last election, we will get the system moving again.”

“We are as anxious as my hon. Friend to end the use of asylum hotels, but the backlogs we inherited from the Conservatives and the time it was taking—decision making collapsed by 70% in the last three months of that Government—have made it harder to empty hotels than we thought it would be at the beginning. However, we …”

“By March this year, 15% fewer people were in hotel accommodation than at the end of 2024. We are saving money on the chaos that we inherited from the Conservatives, and we have announced that we will end the use of hotels by the end of this Parliament.”

“The Home Office is not buying hotels. As for the hon. Gentleman’s constituency, there are currently 61 service users housed in his area, which is less than 15% of the quota, and there are zero hotels.”

“At the peak under the previous Government, there were 400 hotels in use across the country, at a cost of £9 million a day. Thousands of asylum seekers were left in limbo in those hotels as decision making collapsed. That was the chaos that this Government inherited a year ago, but we have taken action to restore order.…”

“I see it regularly.”

“I tend to get a report on that weekly.”

“Inspections have doubled as well. There is much more focus on these day-to-day elements of running contracts.”

“No, not in public, I am afraid, at the moment. Sorry to be so opaque.”

“Colleagues might want to talk about how the performance data works at the moment. My general way of working on this, which is not through contracting systems—that is more technical—is to try to do it in a more open, different, locally focused way than the way we have introduced. I do not know whether colleagues might w…”

“Non-performance-related issues.”

“There are many ways of dealing with a backlog, and starting at the bottom and working back is not always the most efficient one.”

“This is the second audit, Mr Davies, of these contracts. There was one in 2021, I understand.”

“It will go back to where it belongs, and they will decide what to do with it.”

“No.”

“It would be the vast majority.”

“That is very much my view. Trying to have an asset at the end of this that could be used for temporary accommodation if such needs arise again would be a better use of public money.”

“Yes.”

“Let me have a look at the specific parliamentary question you asked and write to you about the context and tell you what we can provide you with.”