Speeches by Murray.

“You have anticipated my next question, because I want to move on from the current orchestration of the contracts to talk about the future of them. Obviously, they run until 2029, but a break clause comes in in September. What is your current thinking around the break clause?”

“What work are you doing to ensure that that is done?”

“Thank you, Minister. The asylum system that we have in the UK is, clearly, terrible for local communities and terrible for asylum seekers, and I accept you inherited it, but it is also terrible for the taxpayer. The National Audit Office has estimated the 10-year asylum contract to have gone from £4 billion to £15 bill…”

“Have you done any exploratory work with local authorities or third-sector organisations? Has the Home Office asked you to do any work looking at how medium-sized sites might work in communities?”

“How advanced are those conversations?”

“Okay. Good. Thank you.”

“Yes, but it was the pandemic that triggered the move to hotels and you are still using hotels.”

“What research have you commissioned, or what research do you rely on for that argument? What is the evidence?”

“We have heard a lot about this pipeline, but—”

“It has increased by a couple of hundred?”

“How much have medium-sized sites increased, given you said it was the best way to get out of hotels?”

“Are there more?”

“My other question for you is about medium sites. When you came to us last time, you said, “The best and fastest route out of hotels is to look at medium-sized sites”, such as student accommodation or office blocks. What progress have you made on that?”

“We will have to disagree on that.”

“You are not doing it yet. It is proposed, but not actual. Meanwhile, you are staying in a system that saw your profits increase 413-fold between 2019 and 2023. Remember that you moved into hotels because there was a pandemic and that is firmly in the rear-view mirror now. Yet your company is still using hotels and a ne…”

“You are telling us you have intentions of moving into dispersal, but you are not doing it yet and—”

“That does not sound brilliant to me if you say the number is going down but it is going up.”

“It is apposite that I should intervene at this point, because I believe I might have been the author of that IPPR report from 12 years ago. One of the things about contribution is that it needs to be managed. We need to be able to check whether people are contributing, obeying the rules and interacting with the labour …”

“By definition, Oldham will be included.”

“I accept that. Oldham was already included before you came into your posts and decided to write the criteria. What is to stop Anywhere Town—another town in England and Wales that is not selected under your criteria where there have been instances of group-based abuse—coming forward and launching a judicial review again…”