‘WE CANNOT COPE WITH ANY MORE ASYLUM SEEKERS’
MAYOR ISSUES WARNING TO GOVERNMENT AS FIGURES SHOW TOWNS IN GREATER MANCHESTER ARE TAKING IN MORE PEOPLE THAN ENTIRE REGIONS IN THE SOUTH
GREATER Manchester is dramatically threatening to house no more asylum seekers – arguing the government’s system faces ‘mounting chaos.’
Mayor Andy Burnham has written to Home Secretary Sajid Javid warning of ‘catastrophic failure’ within the asylum process if the region’s creaking public services continue to support a ‘disproportionate’ number of people compared with elsewhere in the country.
As a result he is threatening to withdraw Greater Manchester entirely from the system, claiming the Home Office has shown ‘blatant disregard’ for the concerns of local leaders.
Latest figures – which mirror long-standing trends – show onein-six people seeking asylum in the UK are being placed in the conurbation, according to an analysis by the M.E.N.
At more than 1,000, Manchester houses the fifth highest number of any local authority nationally, immediately followed by Bolton, Rochdale and Wigan.
By contrast 180 areas across the country – including Theresa May’s local authority – house none at all.
The disparity is the result of a government ‘dispersal’ policy dating back to the last Labour government, one that sees few people placed in the south east due to expense, in contrast to very high numbers in a handful of other areas, particularly in the north west.
Mr Burnham’s unprecedented letter says local leaders have ‘consistently’ raised concerns about this in recent times, but that their pleas have been ignored.
He raises particular concern about the Home Office’s new asylum contract, known as Asylum Accommodation Support Transformation (AAST).
This will see a new contract replace the current asylum housing provider, Serco, next year - but Mr Burnham says local leaders have had no input into the process and argues that it will merely reinforce the current unfair system as a result.
Describing Greater Manchester’s compliance with the system as ‘voluntary,’ he writes: “Given the enormous pressures your dispersal programme is creating on the public services in this city-region and the implications arising from your AAST procurement I, and the ten council leaders, now need to give serious consideration to actively pursuing Greater Manchester’s withdrawal as a dispersal area.
“We fear that the Home Office’s approach risks the catastrophic failure of the new asylum dispersal contract due to go live next year.”
The M.E.N. reported in 2016 how very high numbers of asylum seekers were being placed without support in some of the region’s poorest communities, largely due to the availability of cheap housing. That approach dates back to Tony Blair’s government, which introduced so-called ‘dispersal’ as a way to avoid spending more on expensive accommodation in London and the south east. Local politicians have long been warning that is unfair, however, as it places unfair strain on services here – particularly in Manchester, Rochdale, Wigan, Bolton and Oldham, which have all been hit particularly hard by council cuts – and community cohesion, at a time when other areas are accommodating no asylum seekers at all. Since the M.E.N’s 2016 article, the number of people seeking asylum in the UK has risen further to more than 42,000, according to figures for March this year. One-in-six of those people – just less than 7,000 – are being housed in Greater Manchester by Home Office contractor Serco, under the current contract known as Compass. That accounts for 70 per cent of