Vital questions about broken asylum system dismissed by Home Office

UK ministers are ignoring the lies and neglect which haunt their treatment of refugees, writes Martyn Mclaughlin

It did not require a public health emergency to highlight the Home Office’s fundamentally broken system of asylum dispersal, but the tragic events in Glasgow last week have raised some familiar questions and nonexistent answers around the issue.

Addressing the Commons on Monday evening in response to an urgent question from the SNP’S Alison Thewliss, Chris Philp, the Immigration Compliance Minister, refused to accept there was any need for an independent inquiry into asylum accommodation, amid growing concerns over the process which saw 321 people moved from initial accommodation in serviced flats across Glasgow into city centre hotels.

Mr Philp has been in his post for less than a year, and it is difficult to know whether his obstinacy is the result of negligence or fecklessness. Either way, it should require only a cursory overview of the evidence before him to realise that there are serious questions yet to be answered by Mears Group and its chief operating officer, John Taylor.

Last month, the company provided written evidence to the Home Affairs Committee which stressed that prior to moving asylum seekers into hotel accommodation, it had carried out risk assessments to determine who it was appropriate to move. “Children, pregnant women, and all service users with documented health conditions that are Covid-19 vulnerabilities, were not moved into hotels,” the document added.

It sounds like a commendable and conscientious response to a rapidly evolving public health emergency. The one glaring problem, however, is that it is not true. More than that, Ms Thewliss observed, it was a lie. Unaccompanied minors, families with children, and expectant mothers were all moved into hotel accommodation, and there were no formal assessments of the individual vulnerabilities or those relocated at short notice.

One can only assume that Mr Philp has been fast-tracked through a Home Office masterclass in providing evasive answers, given he chose to simply ignore such substantive concerns, and the not immaterial fact that MPS were misled. He would be best advised dropping the bullish tone and looking into the small print of the Asylum Accommodation and Support Contract (AASC) between his government department and Mears Group.

The 117-page statement of requirements which accompanies the contract stipulates that in order to relocate asylum seekers, the firm has to submit a relocation request to the Home Office, which has to confirm the proposed move before it can go ahead.

Ordinarily, Mears is also required to give people at least seven days’ notice of any planned relocation. Even in times of “exceptional circumstances” – specified in the contract as a time when a property has become unsafe, or when people are subject to health and safety concerns or harassment – Mears can sanction the move. But it is required to notify the Home Office of the steps it has taken within one working day.

“Should a service user be identified as vulnerable or at risk, the provider must specify how the accommodation proposal is adapted to their specific needs,” the document adds.

Given the testimony of asylum seekers who have expressed fears at their inability to socially distance and maintain hygiene standards in

hotel settings, it seems inconceivable that there has not been at least one breach of the requirements set out in black and white in its contract with the Home Office.

Sabir Zazai, the chief executive of the Scottish Refugee Council, has rightly pointed out that there is simply no excuse for no assessments being carried out, even at a time of crisis. Not only can asylum seekers face a disproportionate risk of Covid-19 on account of their ethnicity; they are also more likely to suffer poor mental health, including higher rates of depression, PTSD and other anxiety disorders.

As pointed out by the award-winning journalist Karin Goodwin, who has worked tirelessly to highlight the plight of people fleeing their homelands in search of a safe new life here in Scotland, a demographic which has already undergone severe trauma found itself trapped and powerless at the behest of the Home Office’s decision-making processes. “The denial of their human rights is a structural denial of agency,” she explained. The key word here is structural. The recklessness and neglect are systemic, and the blame for that lies squarely with the Home Office. Mears has said the advent of Covid-19 effectively made it impossible to secure other dispersal accommodation because the lockdown mothballed the lettings and property market.

That may be the case, but concerns about housing standards – not least the slum conditions of some temporary accommodation – have been highlighted for years under the old Compass contracts.

At every point, the Home Office refused to address these concerns in any meaningful way, and the promises made last year about a joint partnership for national oversight of asylum dispersal now ring hollow.

Plans are still being laid for the formation of a tripartite partnership board, chaired by Glasgow City Council, which will grant the local authority greater oversight of the workings of the Home Office and its contractors. That is long-overdue progress, but in light of how Mears has conducted itself in recent weeks – and what it has told MPS – it is hard to see how it goes far enough. The company’s contract with the Home Office in Scotland alone is worth £514m, and it is not due to expire until 2029.

Any major changes to the way it operates will be difficult to enforce, and the system many charities who work with asylum seekers in the city would like to see brought in – a fully integrated public service, run by the council – is some way off.

Even so, the Home Office has the power to take action against its contractors for persistent failures, recover costs, and ask that a remedial plan is implemented. However, demanding accountability is not so much a matter of contractual obligation as it is political will.

The refusal by Mr Philp to engage with any of the serious questions surrounding Mears would suggest that he has already made his mind up.