Asylum seekers arriving in the UK are forced to live in “squalid, unsafe, slum housing conditions” and the public is largely unaware of the conditions into which “traumatised people are routinely dumped”, charities have said. Asylum seekers do not have permission to work while awaiting a decision on their claim. Under the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999 they are able to apply for accommodation and financial help from the Home Office if they have no other means of supporting themselves.
Responsibility for housing people seeking asylum in the UK was taken away from local authorities in 2012 and given to the companies Serco, G4S and Clearsprings, through contracts known as Compass. The £600m government contract to provide shelter for those seeking sanctuary in the UK goes up for tender next month.
The vast majority of asylum seekers are housed by G4S and Serco in the poorest parts of the country where housing is comparatively cheap. G4S holds Compass contracts for the north-east, Yorkshire and the Humber, the Midlands and the east of England, where 45% of the UK’s asylum seekers live. Serco holds contracts for Scotland, Northern Ireland and the north-west, where just over a third of the asylum seekers live. Clearsprings had contracts for Wales, the south-west, and London and the south-east.
Responsibility for housing people seeking asylum in the UK was taken away from local authorities in 2012 and given to the companies Serco, G4S and Clearsprings, through contracts known as Compass. The £600m government contract to provide shelter for those seeking sanctuary in the UK goes up for tender next month.
The vast majority of asylum seekers are housed by G4S and Serco in the poorest parts of the country where housing is comparatively cheap. G4S holds Compass contracts for the north-east, Yorkshire and the Humber, the Midlands and the east of England, where 45% of the UK’s asylum seekers live. Serco holds contracts for Scotland, Northern Ireland and the north-west, where just over a third of the asylum seekers live. Clearsprings had contracts for Wales, the south-west, and London and the south-east.
Maurice Wren, the chief executive of the Refugee Council, said: “All too often, people seeking asylum in the UK are forced to live in squalid, unsafe, slum housing conditions, at exorbitant cost to the public purse. Though the general public is largely unaware of the appalling conditions into which traumatised people are routinely dumped, ministers and officials are not, yet this scandal continues unchecked. The time has come to end this shameful practice and allow people seeking asylum to live in dignity.”
David Simmonds, the chair of the Local Government Association’s asylum, refugee and migration taskforce, said councils regularly complained that they had little power to tackle the “generally unacceptable” standard of accommodation for asylum seekers in their areas, because the private contractors’ contracts are with the Home Office.
“The accommodation will always be at the lowest end of the market, because to win the contract the providers bid at the lowest possible price,” he said. “But vermin infestations and damp are things that would stop a local authority from considering that accommodation for placing UK homeless families. That same minimum standard should apply consistently.”
Graham O’Neill of the Scottish Refugee Council said asylum-seeker housing was a vital public service, “housing for a group of people who really need the stability and the privacy that a safe home and a safe space can bring”. It is “publicly funded and yet local authorities and devolved governments have no ability to hold these providers to account”, he said.
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