UK Parliament / Open data

Afghan Resettlement Update

I will take those questions in two broad handfuls and talk about funding first. Funding for round 2 of the local authority housing fund is coming from existing Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities underspend, and that funding is devolved and has already gone through the Barnett formula. The £35 million being put into casework teams across the country is UK-wide, and we will be deploying casework teams into hotels in Scotland to work with local authorities to ensure that we support Afghans out of those hotels and into the community.

On the issue of balance and a fair and reasonable offer, nobody in this Government wants to make any of these individuals homeless. The truth is that we will have to balance very difficult competing priorities when individuals have been in hotels for a long period and may be in school or may have specific health needs, and a suitable offer is made elsewhere in the country but they do not want to leave that location. We will do everything we can to make sure that they can stay where they have local roots and so on, but that has to be balanced off. If there is a choice between them staying in a hotel in that area and going into suitable accommodation, I am afraid the priority will be to get them into suitable accommodation.

I recognise how this is going to be slated and tailored and all of the rest of it, but the truth is that we will do everything we can to take into account all those specific circumstances. The ambition is that nobody is homeless throughout this process, but we are going to implement our commitments to the people of Afghanistan. I do not make any bones about it and say that that is an easy thing to do, but we are going to throw everything we have at it, integrate these people into UK society, turn back on the flights and make sure we see through our duties to the people of Afghanistan.

Type
Proceeding contribution
Reference
730 c846 
Session
2022-23
Chamber / Committee
House of Commons chamber
Back to top