Speeches by Murray.

“What is a bridging programme?”

“The problem is, why has that work not already been done? This is not a partisan issue.”

“Are you sure that you will be able to do it quickly enough that you will have options, first when the break clause comes but even beyond that, at the end horizon of these contracts? One of the problems identified in the National Audit Office reports on these contracts was that there was little competition for them in t…”

“Thank you. I have one final question. I would like to draw the Committee’s attention to my entry in the Register of Interests and declare the support my office received from RAMP. I should have done so at the beginning; forgive me, Chair. Before we move on from the question about large sites and the lessons learned fro…”

“I understand that, but I am thinking about the dynamics baked into these contracts. It seems to me that you have an incentive to say to these providers, because of cost more than anything, “We do not want you to use hotels”, but their revenue goes up when you use hotels, so they do not have a financial incentive. They …”

“That is positive to hear. That goes again to the structure of these contracts. If the money that had been spent over the last six years on these contracts had been invested in any kind of capital project or in any kind of local development, we would have something to show for it, but it has all gone on hotels and there…”

“We talked about the system that we have set up over the last five years, but let us focus a little bit on the future of the asylum accommodation system. The Government have been clear that you want to end the use of asylum hotels. First, asylum fluctuates. Sometimes there are increases and sometimes there are not. It i…”

“If we had literally anything to show for it. Sticking on that point about contracts, people’s frustrations with these contracts are enormous. First, there is nothing to show for them. Secondly, we had riots in the summer targeting some of this accommodation. Also, the profits that these companies have made are huge. On…”

“I want to come in on some of your points there, Mr Ridley, because what you are saying is very interesting. I do accept the Home Office was going through challenging situations at the time, but these contracts were huge even from the very beginning. There was always going to be massive amounts of public money going int…”

“Do you not think that in something as volatile as asylum, it is not a good idea for the Home Office to wait for things to stabilise before working out whether it is spending public money on something efficiently? Is that not a learning for the civil service here?”

“That is very Delphic, Minister. The structure of the contracts is the issue I am trying to drive at here, and what the Home Office’s long-term thinking will be on this. The Home Office told the Public Accounts Committee in 2020 that it would need five years of planning time to radically change the asylum accommodation …”

“No matter what your view is of the asylum system overall, from one perspective to another, there are undeniably very vulnerable people in this system. That is what “refugee” means. So, what are the responsibilities of the Home Office in safeguarding these people in its accommodation?”

“When the providers appeared before us, they told us that safeguarding is not one of their key performance indicators with you in how you manage that contract, so are there any consequences for providers if they do not comply with safeguarding duties?”

“Do you think you make enough use of the data that that safeguarding hub generates? When we spoke to asylum seekers in accommodation and when you listen to some of the third sector reports, there are really serious safeguarding concerns out there. Are you sure that the Home Office is actually doing enough to address the…”

“We touched on the issue of age dispute and age assessment earlier, but these contractors are not statutory services. They do not have the kind of professional qualifications that child protection authorities would have. How confident are you that they are responding appropriately when an age dispute arises?”

“My final question is: given the significantly higher mortality and complaint rates in Clearsprings-run accommodation, what investigations have you undertaken to understand why that is, and what action do you propose to take?”

“There is some international evidence, particularly on the west coast of the United States, where there can be quite big impacts on local communities where safe consumption takes place. I am thinking particularly of San Francisco. Do you look into that evidence and does that inform your view on safe consumption in the U…”

“Cabinet Secretary, obviously this is a pilot and it is very localised at the moment. It will need to be evaluated in the round once it comes to the end, but one challenge that we have in Scotland is the extremely high number of drug deaths. 1,172 people died last year, and every single one was a tragedy. If the pilot i…”

“We had a discussion with the Cabinet Secretary from Scotland earlier, where we talked about safe consumption as a pathway to recovery, as a step that people need to take before they can begin their rehabilitation. Do you have a view on whether safe consumption can be a step on a pathway to rehabilitation?”

“Do you think that the international evidence around safe consumption rooms is evolving, or do you see it as remaining quite static in different jurisdictions where it is evaluated?”