1. Will the First Minister outline the process by which sites are selected to temporarily accommodate refugees waiting for their asylum cases to be heard? OQ55568

Llywydd, the Welsh Government has no responsibility for the process to which the Member refers. The present Home Office makes such selections without reference to local or devolved democratic authorities. 

Thank you for that, First Minister. We all know that the flow of people seeking asylum is building, and I understand that the Home Office, whilst facing a deluge, needed to act quickly. But, in my view, mistakes have been made, and communication from the Home Office was very late in the day and very poor. I've put my concerns in a very detailed letter to the Home Secretary and to members of the Home Office. I am concerned that west Wales is not well suited to be a reception centre for asylum seekers to be processed, simply because we no longer, or we do not at the moment, have the infrastructure, capacity and capability to process people in a way that it is fitting, dignified and respectful to them. And we are wanting that support. I've asked the Home Office for money for additional human resource, and I wonder, First Minister, what the Welsh Government may be able to do.

Unfortunately, we saw some shocking scenes last night at Penally camp of elements coming in from away—not Pembrokeshire people; Pembrokeshire people are warm and welcoming, and we want to do our best by these people, who've already been through a really traumatic time. But if you look at the video, which you can find on the The Pembrokeshire Herald website, absolutely shocking scenes occurred, with people bussed in from outside with very unpleasant political agendas. First Minister, what are you able to do as a Welsh Government to either help put pressure on the Home Office to give the financial and human resources that our local services need to provide the right support for these people, and to aid our police—our hard-pressed local policing units—to ensure that disorder does not break out and people are not threatened, no matter which side of that camp they're in?

Well, Llywydd, I thank Angela Burns for those important questions. I share many of her concerns. A military camp is not a suitable place to house people who have fled from conflict and war in other parts of the world. I wrote to the Home Secretary on Friday of last week. I received a reply on Monday, so it was a very swift reply. It wasn't from the Home Secretary though; it was from a junior Minister in the department. In my letter, I asked very specifically for a two-week delay in the plan to house asylum seekers in Penally, in order that proper planning and proper services could be put in place. And I don't think anybody could argue that that has been done in a satisfactory way. Unfortunately, the reply declined that request. I asked in my letter to the Home Secretary for specific assurances that funding would be provided to the local authority and to the local health board. We're talking about relatively small, rural authorities who have no capacity to deal, from their own resources, with the demands that will now be placed upon them. Here was the reply:

'The Home Office will not provide additional funding in connection with any of the accommodation that is provided for asylum seekers'.

So, an utter blanket refusal to provide any additional funds, either for Pembrokeshire County Council or for Hywel Dda University Health Board. And the letter went on to say that work on an agreed communications plan is in progress. Well, really, that is nonsensical, isn't it? 'Communications plan is in progress', when there are hundreds of people protesting already in Tenby over the weekend, and the ugly scenes that the Member referred to yesterday. The Home Office did not put out a single line to reassure the local population, to explain why they are doing what they are doing.

Now, I want to endorse very much what Angela Burns said—Wales is a nation of sanctuary. When there are people who, through no decision of their own, arrive in Wales, then we want to make sure that they are well looked after and welcomed. The way in which the Home Office has gone about its decision in relation to Penally makes all of that far more difficult than it needed to have been. And while we will take part in any of the conversations and any of the groups that are set up to try to improve the position, the general approach needs rapidly to improve in order to avoid a repetition of the scenes that we saw last night, and to make sure that the people who will be housed in that camp are able to be properly looked after, and the concerns—the legitimate concerns—of that local community that deserve to be properly addressed, can be communicated to them, and to draw them into the process rather than them simply being spectators of it.

Can I begin by thanking the First Minister, in his response to Angela Burns, for reiterating the point that Wales is a nation of sanctuary and we want to make people welcome and we want to make sure that they receive the support that they need?

I was, Llywydd, shocked by what the First Minister has said about the Home Office's response, and it is quite unusual for me to be shocked by the way this Westminster Government conducts itself. But this is particularly serious. These are very vulnerable people who have seen and been through horrible experiences, and the fact that they then find themselves at the receiving end of unpleasant behaviour when they get here is heartbreaking. I would agree with Angela Burns, and as the First Minister has already said—those people causing trouble in Penally last night were not typical of the Pembrokeshire community. Much more typical of the Pembrokeshire community were the people celebrating and welcoming asylum seekers on the beach at Tenby at the weekend, and it was very good to see them there.

I fully appreciate that it is not the First Minister's responsibility to make provision for our new neighbours in Penally, but I'm sure that he will agree with me, and he has said himself, that there will be pressures on local services. In the face of what appears to be a completely obdurate position from the UK Government on this, is there anything further that the Welsh Government can do to discuss with local service providers what additional support they may need, fully accepting that it should be the Home Office's job to provide it? But if that isn't possible, will the First Minister be able to work with local services to try and allay some of the fears and concerns that local people may have about pressures on services, and to make sure that these asylum seekers are welcome here in our country?

Llywydd, I thank Helen Mary Jones for those points. Yes, of course, the Welsh Government will work alongside the local authority, the local health board, and the local police service in the difficult job they now need to do. And where we're able to mobilise assistance on their behalf, where we're able to make cases on their behalf, then of course we will be very keen to do that. Our understanding of the Home Office's plan is that the people who will be housed at the camp will, in time, be dispersed to the four main dispersal areas across Wales—that they will live in Cardiff, Newport, Swansea and Wrexham. So, our wish to welcome them to Wales is a long-term commitment to those people's welfare and well-being, and we want to make sure that that can be properly discharged. I think one of the most disturbing features of the whole episode is the way the Home Office's handling of it has led to Tenby becoming a target for hard-right extremist groups from right across the United Kingdom who've heard about this and who think that this is a cause that they can latch on to and exploit. Those people are not welcome in Wales, and I hope that we will soon be in a position to make sure that the police take the action that is necessary to make sure that they cannot inflame local sentiments and that they understand that their presence in Wales is not one that is welcome by us. 

Neil Hamilton. You're mute, Neil Hamilton; you're muted. 

Diolch, Llywydd. Isn't the truth of the matter that none of the people who are going to be housed at Penally is likely to be qualified for asylum in this country, because they've come from a safe country, in France, because they've all, as I understand it, arrived on small boats on the shores of Kent? Eighty one per cent of those who have arrived in 2020 on the shores of Kent have been said, by the Home Office, to have no credible claim to asylum, although only 2 per cent have actually been removed. So, isn't the cause of the problem that we've got today, first of all, incompetence on the part of the British Government, because they've completely lost control of our borders, but, secondly, irresponsibility on the part of the Welsh Government for its piece of virtue signalling in calling Wales a 'nation of sanctuary'? Because, ultimately, if race relations are to be preserved in this country, it's got to be on the basis of managed and controlled migration and genuine asylum claims, and not bogus ones. 

Well, Llywydd, we hear echoes of the Member's long history in support of apartheid South Africa in the remarks he's made this afternoon. To describe Wales's ambition to be a nation of sanctuary as irresponsible simply beggars belief. I'm shocked to hear it even from him, and he has no knowledge whatsoever of where people who will be housed at this camp are coming from—none of us do. Almost all of them are yet to arrive. So, as ever, it is his bogus claims, his attempt to exploit a situation to peddle a line that he finds politically convenient that we've heard this afternoon. It's disgraceful.