Last Thursday the MP for Hove, Peter Kyle asked a very reasonable question which to be clear could be very useful in understanding how the current arrangements are working. However the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Minister for Future Borders and Immigration), Kevin Foster did not seem to feel that the request was reasonable or perhaps he was prevented from making a response by Priti Patel who is his boss in the Department or from Damian Hinds who is the Minister of State (Minister for Security and Borders). So here is the question and answer which can be seen here.

Peter Kyle: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how much her Department has spent on the use of hotels to house asylum-seeking children in Hove since January 2021.

Kevin Foster: Accommodation costs are considered to be commercially confidential, therefore the Home Office does not publish this information.

The reality is that locating children in Hotels may well be the wrong way for treating these asylum seekers and indeed if funding was available that was comparable with the funding currently being used, charities such as YMCA could potentially offer an alternative approach. We need to explore such issues and sadly the fact that the Home Office is keeping such information commercially confidential is very disturbing.