![\"Paul](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/0_paulhutcheon.jpg\")
<\/p>\nDaily Record Political Editor says the Home Offce must do more to ensure asylum seeker dispersal becomes a national reality.<\/p>\n
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 <\/p>\n
![\"Glasgow](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/2343646.jpg\")
Glasgow City Council headquarters<\/p>\n
Glasgow has a long and proud history of reaching out to desperate asylum seekers<\/a>.<\/p>\n The city was alone in taking part in the Home Office dispersal scheme in the early part of the century<\/a>.<\/p>\n Council leader Susan Aitken even says the diversity in Scotland is largely down to Glasgow being a home to people fleeing persecution<\/a>.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n Mears will correctly point out that they are now providing accommodation to asylum seekers in 22 of 32 councils areas.<\/p>\n READ MORE: Lib Dems propose ‘exclusion zones’ banning criminals from certain areas after release<\/a>READ MORE: Glasgow council leader urges fat cat bosses to return \u00a31m of golden goodbyes<\/a><\/p>\n A drill down into the figures makes this statistic seem far less impressive.<\/p>\n Sixteen local authority areas either house no asylum seekers or are responsible for one per 10,000 locals.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n It is not difficult to understand why Glasgow remains the location for the overwhelming majority of asylum seekers.<\/p>\n Mears will have an unparalleled knowledge of the housing sector in the city that is not replicated in Fife or the Highlands.<\/p>\n The cost of funding accommodation in Edinburgh may also be prohibitively expensive.<\/p>\n But Mears and the Home Office must do more to turn the dispersal scheme into a national policy.<\/p>\n Many councils have declared a housing emergency, but the situation in Glasgow is particularly acute.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n Housing asylum seekers is complex and controversial, but Mears must ensure areas across Scotland do more to help the persecuted.<\/p>\n