Scotland's largest city seeks to pull plug on refugees in costs row (2025)

The UK's immigration system is being plunged into uncertainty as Scotland's biggest city has sought to pull the plug on the acceptance of asylum seekers oversoaring taxpayer costs.

The Herald can reveal that taxpayer costs of dealing with refugees areset to treble in three years in Glasgow, which is the number oneUK hotspot for acceptance of asylum seekers causedin the main by a north-south divide in the law over how they are treated.

UK ministers have been urged to step in with financial support to deal with "unprecedented" numbers of refugee households seeking asylum in Scotland from elsewhere in the UK because it is easier by law to get homelessness assistance north of the border.

It has led to costs to the council tax payer snowballing and Glasgow City Council stating thatit will "require to pause" its part in the UK asylum seeker dispersal programme with no additional financial support forthcoming from the UK Government.

Despite several approaches for help, Glasgow City Council says it has not even had a response to its most recent letter asking for an urgent meeting. It says it has been trying to ask the Home Office for a pause in dispersal, so that they can work through a backlog of cases.

Differences in the treatment of refugees between Scotland and England has been blamed for "unprecedented" numbers of refugee households seeking asylum north of the border from elsewhere in the UK to seek homelessness assistance.

In June 2023, the UK Government announced a streamlined asylum dispersal process to address a significant backlog of asylum decisions and reduce the numbers of applicants and this has been seen to impact significantly on homelessness services.

It can be revealed that costs in the Glasgow area alone is snowballing from an estimated £26.5m in 2024/25 to a projected £79m in 2027/28.

The dispersal process that moves destitute asylum seekers to specified local authority areas across the UK was designed to reduce the over reliance on a small number of local authorities who were accommodating a disproportionately high number asylum seekers in their area.

But the Herald can reveal that of 360 regions of the UK accounted for by the Home Office, some one in six at the end of 2024 were not housing any asylum seekers.

The UK Government says it is "committed" to engaging with the Scottish Government on the issue.

READ MORE:

  • Scotland's Housing Emergency – find all articles in series here
  • Ministers warned £9bn needed for new homes to end housing emergency
  • CIH Scotland: Housing emergency needs political action not words
  • Social Bite: Call for action to fix 'broken' temporary homes provision
  • Ministers under fire for 'removal' of fund to help end homelessness and child poverty
  • Scotland's Housing Emergency: why it was time to act
  • Herald campaign 'forces' ScotGov u-turn in housing emergency

However, Glasgow City Council has warned: “If financial support is not forthcoming, we will require a pause to the dispersal programme so that we can ensure that there is the available property to appropriately house those who are already in the city.”

New Home Office evidence shows that at the end of last year, 109,965 asylum seekers were receiving housing support in the UK.

Glasgow was the UK local authority with the most housed asylum seekers with over 4,193, or around 67 per 10,000 residents. Across the UK there are typically just 16 asylum seekers per 10,000 of population.

Some 70% of the 6,057 asylum seekers being housed in Scotland are being supported in the nation's biggest city, with 30% running across 21 of the 31 remaining Scots local authorities.

Scotland's largest city seeks to pull plug on refugees in costs row (1)People with a placard welcoming refugees during a Stand Up To Racism protest in George Square in March, 2023

UK ministers have been warned by the Glasgow City Health and Social Care Partnership (GCHSCP) - which administers social care, addiction, homelessness support, child protection and criminal justice services - that the plan to disperse asylum seekers across all local authorities in Scotland, with a specific focus on rural authorities, has been "very slow".

After Glasgow, Aberdeen City is the Scottish looking after the most asylum seekers with 352, (16 per 10,000 of population), while Aberdeenshire is home to 272. The City of Edinburgh is housing just 173, or around three per 10,000 residents.

The councils that are not taking any asylum seekers are Argyll and Bute, East Dunbartonshire, East Lothian, East Renfrewshire, Highland, Midlothian, Moray, Na h-Eileanan Siar (Western Isles), Orkney and Shetland.

One refugee rights worker told the Herald: "If Glasgow stopped taking asylum seekers I think it would send the system into meltdown. It is clear that theHome Office has been over-reliant on Glasgow and it is only fair that the city gets the financial support it needs for its great work in welcoming asylum seekers."

A study by GCHSCPwarns that there were "unprecedented numbers" of refugees travelling to Glasgow from outwith the city, from mainly Belfast, Manchester and London, with 650 recorded in January2024 alone.

Refugees make up around 41% of Glasgow homelessness applications - who have a right to at the very least makeshift emergency accommodation - with councils becoming increasingly reliant on hotels and bed and breakfasts.

Meanwhile the number of homelessness applications in Glasgow who have been granted refugee status or the leave to remain in the country has doubled in a year from 1384 in 2022/23 to 2,709 in 2023/24

The Scottish Refugee Council has said that the abolition of the 'priority need' test for homeless householdsin Scotland in2012 has led to people from other parts of the UK travelling north to access homelessness services.

It means that all unintentionally homeless households in Scotland are now entitled to settled accommodation, regardless of their circumstances.

The policy was implemented to ensure that everyone who becomes homeless through no fault of their own has the right to housing support.

But in England, the priority need test remains. To be assessed as having priority need, individuals must demonstrate that they are at a significantly greater risk of harm than most people if they are homeless, such as due to vulnerability, health conditions, or disabilities.

The refugee council has warned that "differential Scottish policy", along with the scrapping of a 'local connection' test for homelessness in 2022, has "led to unprecedented pressure on Glasgow's housing stock".

The grouphas told minsters that the city needs urgent financial assistance to deal with the crisis.

It is projected that the cost of asylum-related expenses for 2024/25 in the Glasgow City area alone is at £26.5m.

But the GHSCP's decision-making Glasgow Integration Joint Board's latest financial outlook says that the full year implications of Home Office asylum-seeking decision in 2025/26 is set to rise to £45m.

And it warns that if demand continues at the same levels it is forecast to increase to £62m and £79m in 2026/27 and 2027/28 , "reflective of demand being higher than capacity within the city to offer permanent housing".

The outlook estimates a funding shortfall of £118m over the next three financial years which rises to £259m if the costs of asylum are included in 2026/27 and 2027/28.

It has calculated that the true cost of providing temporary accommodation is £30,000 for a refugee but it only gets £750 from the UK Government, leaving the local authority to fund the difference.

No additional funding to deal with asylum cases has been provided from the UK government to support the households.

In a new analysis, it warns that the "scale of the financial challenge in future years is such that a more fundamental review of service provision is required so that decisions can be taken on what the future shape of service provision looks like. "

UK reunification visas are being granted to single refugees to enable families to be reunited and many bring multiple family members. This accounted for 67 households

This pathway is also not funded by either the UK Government or the Scottish Government.

The refugee council has told ministers: "Glasgow City Council and GCHSCP have not received funding from the UK Government towards the cost of providing temporary accommodation and mitigating the housing/homelessness, health and social operational costs that have been a result of the accelerated decision making."

It said "significant financial investment" was needed adding that the level of expenditure on dealing with asylum application was "unsustainable".

"Glasgow City Council requires urgent engagement with the Home Office to discuss financial assistance," the review said.

It echoed the city council warning that if financial support was not forthcoming there would be a "pause" to its part in the asylum dispersal programme.

On March, 2024, across Scotland some 16,330 households were trapped in temporary housing, with 3,727 in Glasgow, for an average of 226 days and the refugee council says that this is often in "substandard conditions far from their support networks".

Scotland's largest city seeks to pull plug on refugees in costs row (2)UK immigration in 'chaos' as Scotland seeks to pull plug on asylum seekers (Image: Getty Images) It also accused the previous UK government of being "explicit in seeking to create a hostile environment for people seeking asylum which "helped to manufacture the perception of a refugee crisis" while seeking to "water down the UK's commitments to humanitarian protection".

The review states: "The UK’s asylum system has not fundamentally changed in decades. A patchwork of legislation from consecutive governments has failed the individuals and communities engaging with the system. People seeking protection have been demonised and used to further anti-immigration political agendas.

"It’s time for a new, principles based approach.

It said the UK should follow in line with the Scots Refugee Integration Strategy introduced last year aimed at helping refugees settle into their new communities.

And it says that the "founding principle" of the UK asylum system should be changed to "integration from the day of arrival, rather than integration from the point of refugee status granted".

According to a March evaluation sent to ministers by the GCHSCP, the current Home Office contract with Mears Group to accommodate asylum seekers in Scotland, has resulted in the use of of 4,103 bed spaces from a capacity of 6,735 available in Glasgow alone.

This was despite the Home Office national plan advising that Glasgow should have 1,278 bedspaces used. It says this demand plan was cut by the Home Office to just 993 as of December 1, 2024.

It said that despite the plan to disperse asylum seekers across a wider area, individuals and households migrate to Glasgow because of the "attraction of work, acute health services and asylum communities which have been long established".

A UK government spokesman said: “Despite inheriting huge pressures on the asylum system, we are working to make sure individuals have the support they need following an asylum decision to help local authorities better plan their assistance with homelessness.

“We are working right across the UK to give councils as much notice as possible of newly recognised refugees, have doubled the move on period to 56 days and have mobilised liaison officers to support asylum seekers in Glasgow City Council area.”

The spokesman added: "There is a clear need for a smooth transition between asylum accommodation and other accommodation for asylum seekers granted leave to remain, which is why we are working to identify and implement efficiencies to support this process and mitigate the risk of homelessness.

"Support for newly-recognised refugees is available through Migrant Help and their partners, which includes advice on how to access Universal Credit, the labour market and where to get assistance with housing."

Scotland's largest city seeks to pull plug on refugees in costs row (2025)
Top Articles
Latest Posts
Recommended Articles
Article information

Author: Duncan Muller

Last Updated:

Views: 5635

Rating: 4.9 / 5 (59 voted)

Reviews: 90% of readers found this page helpful

Author information

Name: Duncan Muller

Birthday: 1997-01-13

Address: Apt. 505 914 Phillip Crossroad, O'Konborough, NV 62411

Phone: +8555305800947

Job: Construction Agent

Hobby: Shopping, Table tennis, Snowboarding, Rafting, Motor sports, Homebrewing, Taxidermy

Introduction: My name is Duncan Muller, I am a enchanting, good, gentle, modern, tasty, nice, elegant person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.