UK migrant capital ‘bursting at the seams’ as asylum seeker spending to triple to £15.3bn
EXCLUSIVE: The number of asylum seekers has passed the number of local homeless people in the city.
Glasgow is ‘bursting at the seams’ one local councillor has said (Image: Getty)
The UK’s migrant capital is already “bursting at the seams” and spending on accommodation for asylum seekers will soon “triple” to £15.3bn. Already facing a housing crisis, Glasgow is home to 92% of Scotland’s asylum seekers, with many locals unable to “get a home or basic support”.
Speaking exclusively to the Express, Reform UK councillor Audrey Dempsey says there is a “serious and dangerous lack of fairness, transparency and accountability”. The scale of the migrant crisis in Glasgow is unprecedented, with the city housing four times more asylum seekers than the Home Office had planned, according to evidence presented to Westminster. And it appears matters are only going to get worse for Glasgow, with asylum accommodation contracts set to triple from £4.5 billion to £15.3billion between 2019 and 2029, according to the UK Home Affairs Committee.
Glasgow is home to four times more asylum seekers than the Home Office planned (Image: Getty)
Calling this completely unacceptable, Cllr Dempsey says the UK Government and the SNP “need to answer honestly to the public, on why this money is being spent this way”.
“My view is that it is completely unacceptable that these contract costs are set to soar this much in just 10 years”, she said.
Cllr Dempey continued: “I am working continuously with families in Glasgow who cannot get a home or basic support at times, yet billions are being poured into a failing system that may well have begun with a compassionate approach, but has now just become chaotic.
“The housing emergency in this city gets worse daily, resulting in families and individuals being pushed further down the list whilst private contractors profit.
“The UK Government and the SNP administration in Glasgow need to answer honestly to the public, on why this money is being spent this way, and why our communities carry the cost of poor management and decision making.”
Positioned at the forefront of the UK’s immigration system, the number of asylum seekers is now larger than the number of native homeless people in Glasgow.
Asylum seekers are taking up 4,103 of the bed spaces from a capacity of 6,735 beds on offer under social care, according to The Glasgow Health and Social Care Partnership (HSCP).
As the number of asylum seekers in the city grows, the number of blue and white Scottish flags appearing on local streets has risen.
Rows and rows of Glasgow’s streets are lined with blue and white flags (Image: Getty)
Issuing a stark warning, Cllr Dempsey says Scotland’s second biggest city simply “cannot survive another decade” along this trajectory.
She said: “Our city is bursting at the seams.
“Services on the frontline are stretched beyond comprehension and there is a serious and dangerous lack of fairness, transparency and accountability. Glasgow cannot survive another decade of broken promises and inflated contracts.
“Honest discussions are needed now and decision makers need to go back to the drawing board.”
Last month, anti-immigration protesters clashed with anti-racist counter-protesters as tensions spiked in Glasgow.
The statue of Scottish statesman Donald Dewar, father of the Holyrood parliament, was surrounded by union flags bearing the words: “Stop the boats” and “Unite the kingdom”.
