EXCLUSIVE: Susan Aitken also came out against the SNP Government freezing the council tax next year.
Susan Aitken photographed in the Reach office speaking on Planet Holyrood. Pic by Victoria Stewart, Reach Plc Staff
The leader of Glasgow council has warned job losses and service cuts may be needed to tackle the city’s refugee homelessness crisis.
Susan Aitken also called for other Scottish councils to take more responsibility for housing asylum seekers.
She also said she is against the SNP Government freezing the council tax ahead of the Holyrood election.
The SNP-led council is facing a £66m overspend on homelessness due to a surge in refugees applying for temporary housing.
Senior council figures believe the Home Office policy of moving refugees out of asylum hotels once they have been given leave to remain in the UK is to blame.
Many of the refugees move out of the hotels with nowhere to go and end up declaring themselves homeless in Glasgow.
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Holyrood’s liberal homelessness laws also allow people from across the UK with no connection to Glasgow to apply for temporary digs in the city.
In an interview with the Record’s Planet Holyrood podcast, Aitken branded Reform UK leader Nigel Farage a “racist” who is stirring up division over asylum policy.
She also said the £66m bill will be landed on Glaswegians unless there is a Home Office rethink:
“There is no question that we would need to look quite deeply right across our services to see where we could find savings, and savings mean inevitably that we are not able to deliver as much as we could previously.”
“The other side of that, of course, is that we might have to put charges up, which we never like having to do as well.”
Asked about higher charges, job losses and service cuts, she said: “It is our fear. It is the potential we are looking at.”
Aitken criticised the governments in London and Edinburgh, but she was more scathing about the Labour administration:
“We are saying to both governments this is not sustainable. It is urgent. We need your help. We need you to step in on this.
“To the UK Government particularly, we are saying ‘you need to change your approach’. This policy is failing. It is failing the people who are made homeless. It is failing refugees.”
Susan Aitken. Pic by Victoria Stewart, Reach Plc Staff
Glasgow has for decades been a safe haven for asylum seekers, with the city looking after thousands of people fleeing persecution.
Aitken, who said asylum seekers are not to blame for the housing emergency in the city, said of whether other local authorities should be pulling their weight:
“Yes, I do think that a wee bit. I would like to see other local authorities step up more.
“I would like to see the spread of asylum seekers and then subsequently refugees across Scotland more evenly.”
Aitken, Glasgow’s longest serving council leader, also raised concerns about Holyrood legislation allowing a homeless person with no connection to the city to apply for short-term accommodation:
“Ourselves and Edinburgh argued at the time that that would have more of an effect on the more densely populated areas. And it has done.
“I’m not opposed to it, but the impact of it isn’t symmetrical across Scotland.”
Aitken said she had asked the Scottish Government to “pause” the legislation several times, but Ministers have been opposed to the move.
She instead wants extra resources from the Scottish Government: “If you can’t pause it, you need to fund it.”
Aitken said of a potential council tax freeze, which critics say starves town halls of resources: “I would rather they didn’t freeze the council tax.”
She added: “I don’t think it is helpful for local authorities now.”
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