Speeches by Eagle.

“I do not know whether colleagues might have more detailed information.”

“My understanding is that the forensic auditors will give us their information. We will check what they are saying, and any other questions we will put to providers and a final amount will be settled upon. I do not know whether the providers gave you the information of the moneys that they are expecting, but we cannot c…”

“This financial year.”

“We are doing the work to check that their figures are accurate. There may be less; there may be more. That is why we have appointed independent auditors to check this, so that, when the profit shares are decided and agreed upon, they are accurate. We are not taking them at their precise word in this context; we are doi…”

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

“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.”

“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…”

“I was about to comment on how much the landscape changed from when these contracts were first let out, because they did not involve hotels at all. Certainly, talking to colleagues in the Home Office after the hotels reached their peak in 2023, the Home Office was then in this kind of 10-point plan frenzy of trying to m…”

“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.”

“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.”

“Thank you very much. I am Angela Eagle. I am the Member of Parliament for Wallasey, and I am the Minister for asylum and border security.”

“I was there when this happened, but—”

“We inherited this situation as we inherited the contracts that you are looking into over a 10-year period. These contracts were let in 2019 when the context was quite different to the one that we are working in now. I do not want to speak for the people that let the contracts particularly, but we do know that the overa…”

“We are happy to do that.”