Daily Record Political Editor says the Home Offce must do more to ensure asylum seeker dispersal becomes a national reality.
Paul joined the Daily Record in 2019. He has won Political Journalist of the Year six times and been named Journalist of the Year on three occasions. If you have a story, email him at paul.hutcheon@dailyrecord.co.uk
Glasgow City Council headquarters
Glasgow has a long and proud history of reaching out to desperate asylum seekers.
The city was alone in taking part in the Home Office dispersal scheme in the early part of the century.
Council leader Susan Aitken even says the diversity in Scotland is largely down to Glasgow being a home to people fleeing persecution.
But the figures revealed by the Record show the urgent need for the Home Office, via the Mears firm, to accelerate the roll out of dispersal to other areas.
Mears will correctly point out that they are now providing accommodation to asylum seekers in 22 of 32 councils areas.
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A drill down into the figures makes this statistic seem far less impressive.
Sixteen local authority areas either house no asylum seekers or are responsible for one per 10,000 locals.
Glasgow, by contrast, houses 58 according to the same metric. Official documents from January estimate that the city houses well over 90% of all asylum seekers in Scotland.
It is not difficult to understand why Glasgow remains the location for the overwhelming majority of asylum seekers.
Mears will have an unparalleled knowledge of the housing sector in the city that is not replicated in Fife or the Highlands.
The cost of funding accommodation in Edinburgh may also be prohibitively expensive.
But Mears and the Home Office must do more to turn the dispersal scheme into a national policy.
Many councils have declared a housing emergency, but the situation in Glasgow is particularly acute.
Thousands of asylum seekers are currently being housed in Glasgow and a range of factors – including a liberal homelessness law enacted by MSPs – has created a refugee homelessness crisis.
Housing asylum seekers is complex and controversial, but Mears must ensure areas across Scotland do more to help the persecuted.
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