OTLEY’S MP is calling for action to tackle unsafe and vermin-ridden asylum seeker accommodation.

Alex Sobel (Lab, Leeds North West) spoke out about the poor condition of housing in the Leeds area during a Parliamentary debate on Asylum Accommodation Contracts.

MPs heard how people who are seeking refugee status are routinely placed in ‘unsafe and unsuitable’ accommodation - with cockroaches, rats and damp named as some of the main problems.

In the UK private security firms are responsible for providing the majority of asylum housing, with G4S the main provider in Leeds.

But Mr Sobel said some companies were operating ‘like vultures’ and often failing to address serious issues months after being alerted.

The Government outsources the work and is weeks away from signing new contracts.

Addressing the House of Commons, Mr Sobel described visiting a mother and baby asylum facility in his constituency.

He said: “The first thing that struck me was the stickiness underfoot and the smell of urine. That was the result of an earlier rat infestation, which was reported to G4S and ignored.

“Although the local church stepped in and blocked the rats’ entrance to the bedroom, the carpet remained coated in rat urine.

“A toddler crawling over the carpet had a skin infection. Her mother told me: ‘there is nowhere else for her to go’.

“That was not strictly true. Her baby could have crawled in the hallway where a missing baby gate left a steep set of stairs exposed - something of which G4S had been informed months before.

“Or perhaps the child could crawl around the kitchen, where rat poison was left on the floor and mould covered every wall.”

Mr Sobel and other MPs are calling for independent oversight of the asylum accommodation contracts..

Labour MP for Stockton North, Alex Cunningham, said: “This is a tremendous opportunity...to ensure service providers are delivering what they are supposed to and treating asylum seekers with the dignity and respect we would expect for our own families.”