MINISTER ‘UNABLE’ TO SAY WHERE BELL HOTEL MIGRANTS WILL BE HOUSED

A Labour minister has said the government will continue to house migrants in the UK whilst their claims are being processed.

The Minister for School Standards also said the government would be working to remove inequalities for white working class children and those with special educational needs.

Speaking on GB News Catherine McKinnell said:

“I have very vague recollection of my GCSEs, but I know what an exciting day this is, and nerve wracking.

“What a celebration this will be for lots of young people. They should be really proud of what they’ve achieved, the resilience they’ve shown. But also for those that don’t quite get what they expect, I think schools are doing a really good job of supporting young people to find the opportunities for them, whether it’s apprenticeships, A levels, T levels, vocational qualifications.

“There are so many opportunities and we really want young people to grasp them.

“Whilst today is a day of celebration, it does also cast a really sharp light on some of the really entrenched inequalities we have in our system. You reference white working class children and also children with special educational needs and disabilities.

“We know that the system is just not getting the outcomes for them that we want to see so as a government, we’re absolutely determined to change this.

“We’re seeing green shoots of some of the changes that we’re already bringing in, whether that’s getting more teachers into the classroom, we’ve got 2300 more teachers. We know that is really important for children’s outcomes to get really high-quality teaching into the classroom, also making sure that children are in school to actually get a brilliant education.

“We’ve got 5 million more days at school for children that we’ve achieved through really targeted efforts at improving attendance. But also, we know that having free breakfast clubs gives children a much better start to the day, and we’re rolling those out across the country and making sure that children who should or on Universal Credit get access to free school meals, which we know really supports them to get into school and stay in school and enjoy the school day.

“So we recognise the challenges many families face, some of the really entrenched inequalities, but we’re determined to turn that around, because if it’s not an education system that delivers for all children, we will not rest.”

Discussing the High Court injunction in Epping, the minister said:

“I’m not able to comment on where people might be moved to or not. These are conversations that have to be had with local communities, with local authorities, with stakeholders, making sure that we have a system that delivers.

“Because that is the challenge that we have inherited as a government; an immigration system that is just completely broken. At its peak, the previous government in 2023 had 400 hotels in use in this way, at £9 million a day.

“It’s completely inappropriate. We’re determined to end the use of hotels for asylum seekers.

“There are two issues: One is finding suitable accommodation: we recognise we need to end the use of hotels, and we are working very hard to do that. We also need to process these claims, though much quicker than they have been in recent years.

“These people are sitting waiting for an immigration system that is just broken. So we’ve doubled the number of claims being processed and we are also deporting people that have no right to be here. Because until you process their claims, you cannot take that action.

“We’ve deported 35,000 people that have no right to be here. But we also need to tackle this at source. We need to smash the gangs. We need to get the powers in place to have counterterror style operations in really ending this horrific practice of such dangerous crossings across the water.

“So there are three aspects that we are working very hard as a government to resolve, and we’ll continue to do so because we need to fix this mess.”