Thank you, Mr Hollobone. It is important that we approach this debate in the spirit not of posturing but of seeking to find solutions to this difficult problem. Obviously, the enduring solution is to reduce the number of unnecessary and dangerous crossing across the channel all together. That is the purpose of the Illegal Migration Bill. If we cannot do that, or until we do it, as soon as a young person arrives in this country we have to treat them with the greatest decency, respect and compassion, and the way to do that is to get those young people into local authority care as quickly as possible.
Given the numbers of people crossing the channel at the moment, it is not possible to do that instantaneously. On a single day last autumn, 1,000 people arrived at Western Jet Foil. The UK had literally saved their lives. We then had to feed, clothe and water them, and do security and health checks on them—all, incidentally, in 24 hours. To the point from the shadow spokesman, the hon. Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock), that is why I changed the law to 96 hours. I will never compromise on security checks when people arrive in this country. It is not possible to security check 1,000 people in 24 hours, and I wanted to make sure that the police and our counter-terrorism officers have the powers they need. Ensuring those young people leave Western Jet Foil and go as quickly as possible to good quality local authority care has to be the mission of us all. That means supporting local authorities in every single part of the United Kingdom to step up and play their part.
The Home Office is doing this in a number of ways. We have provided financial incentives; I created a further financial incentive—a pilot of £15,000 per young person to encourage local authorities to take those individuals as swiftly as possible on the national transfer scheme. That has had success. Today there are no unaccompanied young people in hotels whatsoever. There may well be more young people in the future if more small boats cross in the months ahead. We need to encourage more local authorities to take part in that scheme.
I completely appreciate the points that have been made by a number of hon. Members that there are huge capacity constraints within local authorities and local authority care homes, and that there is a desperate shortage of foster carers. Those are issues that we should all be united in trying to tackle. The Home Office, in the short period when we house people in an emergency situation in hotels, will always do so decently and will always ensure that those hotels are as well run as possible, but we have to get people out of hotels and into local authority care as quickly as possible.