The Good Morning Britain host was not convinced by one guests proposed solution to the asylum hotels issue
Good Morning Britain‘s Richard Madeley clashed with the Chief Executive of the Refugee Council Enver Solomon as the latter offered a soloution to the current issues surrounding asylum seekers being housed in hotels around the country. After offering what he deemed a solution to the issue Richard and co-host Kate Garraway both cut across him asking how it would work. “You haven’t said where they go,” Richard observed. “Let’s say…they’re all closed in the next six months, that’s thousands of asylum seekers. Can you just tell us exactly where they would be housed?” Richard demanded.
Enver responded: “Well, we’re talking about approximately 30,000 people who are in hotels. They could be housed in a number of different ways. Firstly, let’s remember that they would have the opportunity to work – stand alone on their own two feet. They could find their own housing. Many people who come here from places like Afghanistan and Sudan, they have family connections. They have connections in the diaspora community.
In the UK, there’s a big Afghan community, there’s a big Syrian community, and they will find ways to stay with friends, people they know in their communities, until they can get work, stand on their own two feet and get their own private rental accommodation.”
The clash came as the Government is appealing a ruling that blocked asylum seekers from being housed in an Essex hotel.
Enver had put forward a solution he claimed would clear the hotels of asylum seekers within six months.
“Hotels are about waste of taxpayers money, costing million pounds a day,”he acknowledged. “They create great tensionsin communities.
Richard Madeley and Enver Solomon clashed about immigration on Good Morning Britain (Image: ITV)
“There is quite a simple solution. We aren’t in business as usual. We need to think differently. And we’re putting forward a proposal.
“(This is) a one off scheme (for) those refugees who…come from countries like war torn Sudan, Afghanistan, where the Taliban chases down its opponents.
“If the government put in place rigorous, really tough security checks and then granted these people permission to stay for a limited period of time, it could be subject to review, say after 18 months, then they could be moved out of hotels overnight.
“They could be moved out of their other accommodation the asylum system, and essentially that will create enough headroom for all hotels to be closed, and you could do it on a phased process over the next six months,” he claimed.
