BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, podcasts.

Hello, I'm Susan Hume and this is the yesterday in Parliament podcast.

On Tuesday, the 25th of March, MPs were worried about asylum seekers and how to accommodate them.

The government has, in effect, sacked one of the biggest providers of hotel accommodation for asylum seekers. The Home Office said it had identified concerns with the performance of Stay Belvedere hotels. The Home Office Minister Dame Angelie Eagle was asked to make a common statement about it. But a bit like the head of Year 9 at Morning Assembly addressing the poor behaviour in the lunch queue yesterday,

she gave no interesting details of what the misdemeanour entailed, save that it fell short of expectations.

The Home Office progresses matters relating to these contracts with its providers in commercial

confidentiality, and I won't give a running commentary.

The Conservative Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp had demanded the Minister, as in commercial confidentiality, and I won't give a running commentary.

The Conservative Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp had demanded the ministerial statement,

but he didn't seem at all bothered by the lack of new information.

In fact, he seemed more keen to talk about the Labour government's success rate on asylum claims.

Last summer, the government was elected on a promise to end the use of asylum hotels.

Well, it's now been nine months. Let's see how they're getting on.

The use of asylum hotels has gone up, in fact, by 8,000 since the general election.

Hasn't gone down, it's gone up. He said the hotel bill for asylum seekers was now around £2 billion a year.

Angela Eagle felt Chris Phelp, himself a former Home Office minister, didn't have a leg to stand on.

Well, I'm not going to take any lessons from a minister who, in his last three months as immigration minister,

saw nearly 10,000 people cross the channel in small boats

and is complaining at half of that level that's happened in the last three months.

From his seat, Chris Philp kept bellowing that it was now worse until he was shushed by the speaker.

But he and others were also intrigued by weekend

reports suggesting ministers were thinking of sending failed asylum seekers to the Balkans.

...