NICOLA Sturgeon has defended Glasgow City Council and hit out at the Home Office’s “heartless” treatment of asylum seekers.
The First Minister was probed on Glasgow’s decision to extend the ban on asylum seekers coming to Glasgow due to issues around suitable housing.
However, Sturgeon pointed out that accomodation for asylum seekers is in the hands of the Home Office, which she scathingly called “punitive and heartless”. In Scotland this is outsourced to private firm Mears.
The First Minister argued that Glasgow should not be criticised for a “problem that is not of its own making”.
READ MORE: Glasgow Home Office mum and baby unit 'breaches rights of child'
The ban to stop asylum seekers coming to Scotland was put in place in July last year, but has been extended and could last for two years, it has been reported.
Glasgow is the only council in Scotland who take in asylum seekers through the UK government's dispersal scheme.
There are over 200 asylum seekers living in hotel accommodation across the city due to insufficient housing.
Scottish Labour’s Shadow Minister for Employment and Public Finance Paul Sweeney, asked the First Minister about the SNP-run council’s decision to extend the ban.
He said: “The First Minister will be aware of reports that Glasgow City council plan to extend the ban on asylum seekers coming into Glasgow as a result of the constraints of accommodation.
READ MORE: Home Office system change leaves ‘thousands of asylum seekers without support'
“We all know the inadequacies of the Home Office policy and their privatised service, but surely this is tantamount to an abdecation of responsibility by us as Scots and Glasgwegians to some of the most vulnerable people in the world and we should seek to lift that ban as quickly as possible and also explore every possible opportunity to improve quality of life for the 5000 or so asylum seekers in Glasgow, such as extending concessionary travel to them free of charge.”
The First Minister said that Glasgow should be one of the “last organisations” that deserves to be criticised for how asylum seekers are treated - under both the current SNP leadership, and previous Labour administration.
She said: “It has been one of the few areas who have welcomed asylum seekers, it has done everything to support them.
“There is an issue though about the responsibility of having asylum seekers when the Home Office and UK government are refusing to put in place adequate accomodation, and these are difficult issues but I do think the target of our criticism, and I expect Paul Sweeney and I agree more than we disagree on this issue, the target of criticism and the target for demands for change should be to the UK government, not to Glasgow City Council.
“I want to see asylum seekers welcomed here, I want to see us make sure that we have provision for asylum seekers that has dignity and support at heart, and that could not be further removed from the very punitive and heartless approach of the Home Office.
READ MORE: Asylum groups voice anger at Glasgow mother and baby facility
“I would genuinely say to Labour that we should be united on this, not seeking to blame Glasgow City Council for a problem that is not of its making.”
Concerns had been repeatedly raised over living conditions for asylum seekers in the hotels, which charities said did not meet the needs of vulnerable people - some of whom were pregnant women, children and trafficking survivors.
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