City ‘went Tonto’ to prevent eviction of asylum seekers
CITY chiefs had to ‘go Tonto’ at the Home Office to prevent hundreds of asylum seekers being ‘dumped’ on the streets of Glasgow, MPs were told.
Council leader Susan Aitken raised this year’s Serco row – when the private firm responsible for housing asylum seekers, threatened to evict around 300 from their properties – as she gave evidence to the Home Affairs committee at Westminster.
She said the firm was “going to dump them on the streets of Glasgow”.
Ms Aitken told the MPs the eviction threat episode allowed better communication and progress to be made with the Home Office.
However, she said it took a strong response from the council and others to get that progress.
She said: “We went ‘Tonto’ at them and said you’re kicking 300 people on the streets.”
She added: “Progress only came about because of that.”
Ms Aitken said the city council was blocked from bidding for the contract to provide accommo“Around dation for asylum seekers, but still picks up the bill for support services.
She said the authority needs more financial support for asylum seekers.
The council leader said the Home Office needs to understand that councils pick up the bill for asylum seekers in various ways.
She said: “For some it will impact on education or housing. For us it is our homelessness service.
10 per cent of our homeless register is asylum seekers with no recourse to public funds and who are made destitute. We use our resources to respond to that. When people are given leave to remain they are out of their Serco flat and they come on to our homeless register. The more there are the more difficult it is. We step into the breach.”
The SNP politician said there are more asylum seekers in Glasgow than any single local authority, which had made the city a better place to live.
Ms Aitken said there are around 4,000-5,000 asylum seekers in Glasgow. She also said there are 372 unaccompanied child refugees, but only 230 get Home Office funding.
Ms Aitken said: “We are very proud to have been a dispersal city. It’s become part of Glasgow’s culture and sense of ourselves. It is noticeable the inclusion of asylum seekers has had.
“It has changed Glasgow for the better. We are more culturally diverse and we very much want to continue in that vein.”