Speeches by Murray.

“That Clearsprings Ready Homes is part of.”

“You do not know. Okay. One final point is that the money that the Home Office gives to your organisations actually qualifies as overseas development assistance. It is money the British taxpayer has given to send to the poorest people in the world. Does it cause you any ethical dilemma that this money is going into your…”

“That is hard to understand but thank you anyway.”

“Just clarify what a strategic service is again.”

“Can I just draw everyone’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests and the support that my office receives from the Refugee and Migration Partnership? Thank you, Chair, for keeping us correct. The statistics tell us that in 2020 the average cost was £17,000 per asylum seeker per year to th…”

“When discussing the asylum accommodation system, the Prime Minister called it “Eye-wateringly expensive,” and the Home Secretary called it an “Appalling waste of taxpayers’ money.” The previous Prime Minister called it “Unacceptable,” and the Leader of the Opposition said, “The whole system is broken.” Those four peopl…”

“I think you are saying that from your perspective the system works pretty well, but you can understand why politicians think otherwise. Do you two agree with that analysis? Do you think the system’s working relatively well from your perspective?”

“Very briefly, Mr Lakey, while we are on profits, the founder of Clearsprings recently entered the Sunday Times rich list because the profits from his fortune increased by 35%, which is an analogous number to the increase we have seen in asylum contracts. Are those two facts related?”

“It is ready to invest, but do you actually reinvest it? Has that happened so far?”

“How much?”

“I will stay on the question of KPIs. It has been quite interesting to hear you say, Ms Sturt, that the performance has been outstandingly good but that does not bear any parallel with the reports that are out there. We hear about uninhabitable properties, one in 50 being deemed unsafe, suicide attempts, and real safegu…”

“Sorry, we do not have much time, so if you could stick to that question I asked: how often are you penalised for missing your KPIs?”

“The figure that I have heard is 3% of the time. Is that correct? That was in the National Audit Office report.”

“Okay. Does that make sense to you all?”

“Mr Lakey, this is for you and Clearsprings: 15% of your properties are deemed uninhabitable and one in 50 is deemed unsafe. Just to come back to your earlier point, in response to the Member for Clapham you said the reason you had the highest numbers was because you had the highest volume, but that is not true. That is…”

“Would 3% sound appropriate?”

“Okay, so how much does that penalisation amount to? What is the number the Home Office gets back in response?”

“Okay, and for the other ones?”

“According to the National Audit Office it adds up to £4 million. Does that sound right across the three of you?”

“So, out of profits of £383 million in a total revenue system of £7 billion, for all the failures you are responsible for you have been fined £4 million. If, as is currently projected over the rest of this contract, the costs of this overall to the taxpayer were to double to £15 billion on current trends, you can expect…”