Local leaders demand government action to help house asylum seekers and refugees

Greater Manchester’s political leaders have called for urgent action from the government to help house asylum seekers and refugees. They have spoken of the ‘acute’ pressures local authorities are facing, blaming government policies.

And they have called out the recent ‘divisive’ rhetoric regarding immigration. In a letter to Home Secretary Suella Braverman and Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Secretary Michael Gove, they have set out specific demands.

It comes as councils prepare for the closure of hotels which have been used to accommodate Afghan refugees later this year. Residents of the four bridging hotels in the city-region have started receiving their 90-day notices to leave.

Last month, council bosses in Manchester – where three of the hotels are located – said they are ‘confident’ that suitable accommodation will be found for the 710 individuals affected by the closures. But in their letter to the government, local leaders call for the 90-day notice period to be extended.

They have also warned of an increase in homelessness among asylum seekers due to a policy change designed to serve decisions faster. Already, one in 20 homeless people in Greater Manchester become homeless after being forced to leave Home Office accommodation – double the national rate – partly due to the ‘inequitable’ dispersal of asylum seekers in the city-region, the letter says.

The letter signed by Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham, his deputy Kate Green and the 10 council leaders, including Rochdale leader Neil Emmott, also reaffirms the city-region’s ‘long-standing commitment’ to do its part to help people when they arrive. But it accuses the government of reducing its support for those who need it most.

They said: “We are proud to welcome people seeking asylum and refugees to our city region, to celebrate all of our diverse communities and to work together to ensure that they can thrive. In Greater Manchester, we will continue to do so and we condemn recent divisive rhetoric which misrepresents international obligations to people seeking asylum and mischaracterises people seeking sanctuary on our shores because of how they arrive.”

The letter then makes a series of policy recommendations which would help Greater Manchester ‘more effectively support all of our communities to live well’ and ‘fulfil our shared goal of ending rough sleeping’. This includes suspending the benefit cap for Afghan families in hotels – which is said to be creating insurmountable barriers to finding affordable accommodation for larger households – and extending the 90-day notice period served on them.

To ‘address the incoherence between commitments to end rough sleeping and current asylum and immigration policies that drive homelessness and support diverse communities to thrive in the long-term’, they recommend:

• Commission an urgent independent review of the role that asylum and immigration policies play in driving homelessness among residents of England, with a particular focus on immigration-based restrictions on public funds.
• Provide local authorities with across-Departmental and long-term funding package for non-UK national provision that can be spent flexibly, including across homelessness, ESOL, schools and integration and employment support. As a minimum, provide funding for bedspaces in asylum contingency hotels in line with what is offered for dispersed accommodation.
• End [no recourse to public funds] in order to end rough sleeping. Provide at least a minimum safety net so that all non-UK nationals facing homelessness with unknown or restricted eligibility for public funds can be accommodated and supported.
• Allow 56-day notice periods for cessations of Home Office asylum support, in line with the Homelessness Reduction Act and to facilitate homelessness prevention work.
• Restore legal aid for early legal advice to pre-Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 levels for immigration, welfare benefits and housing law.
• Allow people seeking asylum and their adult dependents to be given the right to work unconstrained by the Shortage Occupation List and from six months after their initial asylum claim or further submission, in line with the national Lift the Ban campaign.
• Step back from the Illegal Migration Bill, which in its current form promises to create further vulnerability by denying asylum-seekers and victims of Modern Slavery routes to support and protection.

And to address the severe shortage of affordable homes, which prevents people from moving on from homelessness and living well, they suggest:

• Restore [Local Housing Allowance] rates to the 30th percentile of local rents, to support residents through the cost of living crisis and to mitigate the impacts of rapid rent increases in recent years.
• Urgently increase the supply of Truly Affordable homes at net zero carbon standards, to support our Greater Manchester ambition to deliver 30,000 Truly Affordable Net Zero Homes by 2038 and tackle the housing and homelessness crisis. This is especially important in light of the devastating impacts of Right to Buy and the linked loss of social rented housing stock.

A government spokesperson said: “Our commitment to speed up asylum processing is crucial in offering protection to those who need it and reducing costs to the public purse. We want to help rebuild lives here in the UK while ensuring local councils are supported to deliver different housing needs for people in the areas that they call home.

“That is why we are giving councils across Greater Manchester more than £23m over the next two years to prevent homelessness – this can be used to work with landlords to provide temporary accommodation or find new housing. We have already delivered more than 2m homes in England since 2010 and we remain committed to building 300,000 every year through our £11.5bn investment so communities can reap the rewards of affordable, quality homes.”

Joseph Timan, Local Democracy Reporter