§ 4. Mrs. Helen Clark (Peterborough) (Lab)If he will make a statement on the role of the National Asylum Support Service in housing asylum seekers, and on the factors taken into account in making decisions. [178153]
§ The Minister for Citiizenship and Immigration (Mr. Desmond Browne)The National Asylum Support Service administers the support provided to asylum seekers. Asylum seekers requiring accommodation will normally be housed in one of the 71 dedicated dispersal areas. In deciding where to provide accommodation, NASS takes into account the availability of suitable accommodation and the offers of accommodation by private sector providers and by local authorities.
§ Mrs. ClarkI am grateful for that reply, but is the Minister aware that three weeks ago there was serious violence and unrest in Peterborough between asylum seekers and Asian residents from different Muslim communities? Does he agree that NASS's housing strategy should be extremely alert and vigilant to cohesion issues? Will he go further and guarantee that, from now on, local authorities will be partners in the development of any new strategy rather than sitting on the sideline and having to pick up the pieces afterwards?
§ Mr. BrowneI thank my hon. Friend for her question and I pay tribute to her for her consistent and consistently constructive work in Parliament to address the concerns of her constituents and the local authority in respect of problems arising from the dispersal of asylum seekers to her constituency. I think that she will be pleased to hear that my information is that, although tensions remain relatively high in the Gladstone area of Peterborough, there have been no further incidents since 505 16 May. Officials from the immigration and nationality directorate and the community cohesion unit have held discussions with council officials there in the last few weeks. It is, of course, our intention that local councils are fully engaged in discussions about dispersal to their areas.
§ Lady Hermon (North Down) (UUP)Since it is wholly inappropriate to house asylum seekers in Maghaberry prison—a high security prison—in Northern Ireland, will the Minister kindly inform the House of any recent discussions he has had with his former colleagues in the Northern Ireland Office, where he is missed, to ensure that such people have proper and adequate housing? There are only a few asylum seekers in Northern Ireland, but they should not be housed in a high security prison. What is the Minister doing to address that serious problem in Northern Ireland?
§ Mr. BrowneI am grateful to the hon. Lady for her question and for her observations about my previous post in the Northern Ireland Office—and I must say that I greatly miss it, too. [Interruption.] It is quite possible to be perfectly happy where one is and greatly miss where one was. [Interruption] I sometimes forget that some Opposition Members cannot do two things at any one time, but let us return to the question.
The hon. Lady asked a very important question about Northern Ireland and I am well aware of the concern among elected community representatives about the necessity of detaining a very small number of failed asylum seekers in Maghaberry prison prior to removal. It is a facility that we would rather not use, but in the absence of other facilities and in circumstances where it is absolutely necessary to detain persons, there is no alternative. I have had no recent discussions with my former colleagues—or, indeed, any of my colleagues—in the Northern Ireland Office on this matter, but I know that officials are in constant touch about the issues to ensure that asylum seekers who are not required to be detained in Northern Ireland are able to find appropriate accommodation.
§ Mr. John Wilkinson (Ruislip-Northwood) (Con)Will the hon. and learned Gentleman bear in mind the significance of the rising tide of unaccompanied refugee children that local authorities have to house, particularly in areas such as mine where there are ports of entry within the borough? Does he understand that in the period 1997 to 2002, the number of unaccompanied refugee children rose from 1,100 to 6,200 and that his Department, according to a written answer of Wednesday 9 June, has no data at all on the accompanied refugee children who came "sans papiers", without passports or identity documents? Will the Home Office get a grip on the situation, please, because it is extremely costly to the boroughs with ports of entry, such as my own of Hillingdon?
§ Mr. BrowneI thank the hon. Gentleman for his question and for elevating me to the position of Queen's counsel, which unfortunately I do not hold. [Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman raises a serious and important issue and while I am happy in normal circumstances to exchange banter across the Dispatch Box, that would be inappropriate in these 506 circumstances. One of the most disturbing developments in the trafficking of people has been the increase in the number of unaccompanied minors who are being trafficked. My priority is to get to the root of the problem and to prevent those young people from being brought to this country and being abandoned. To achieve that, a degree of co-operation is required from carriers. The hon. Gentleman will be aware of the report of Operation Paladin, which revealed some of the figures to which he refers and some of the answers to the problem. He rightly identifies the need to able to respond to the requirements of those young people when they arrive in the country and that the true answer to the problem is to stop them being brought here in the first place.