A homelessness crisis has sparked a major row over who is responsible for Glasgow shouldering the cost of housing far more refugees than other council areas.
The SNP’s record in charge of Scotland’s largest local authority has been branded “reprehensibly bad” by a senior UK Government figure.
And the source claimed John Swinney’s Government had to “own the responsibility for their policy failures” after Scotland’s more generous homelessness laws were blamed for attracting claimants from elsewhere in the UK.
It comes as Glasgow City Council struggles to afford the spiralling cost of providing temporary accommodation for people travelling to the area to legally declare themselves homeless.
The Nationalists have run a minority administration from George Square since 2017 and have faced a barrage of complaints over the condition of the city centre, despite a number of high-profile public investment projects in that time.
But the on-going homelessness crisis in Glasgow has now sparked a major political row over who is to blame for the city shouldering the costs of housing a disportioncate number of refugees compared to other local authorities.
The Record has revealed how former asylum seekers, who have been granted the right to remain in the UK, now make up 41 per cent of the council’s homelessness applications.
Stephen Flynn, the SNP leader at Westminster, previously accused the UK Home Office of “letting Glasgow down” by relying too much on the city to house asylum seekers without adequate funding in place.
Susan Aitken, the SNP leader of Glasgow City Council, has also warned the local authority may be forced to cut jobs to pay for a £66m overspend on emergency accommodation unless there is a Home Office rethink.
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But that argument was shot down by a senior UK Government figure. Asked about the homelessness crisis, the source said: “Housing is the responsibility of the Scottish Government. And presently we have a situation where more than 10,000 kids across Scotland have no where to call home.
“I think the record of Glasgow City Council under the SNP is reprehensibly bad, and they own the responsibility for their policy failures.
“And I think it ill beholds the leader of the council to be seeking to attribute responsibility for the policy failures of the Scottish Government and Glasgow City Council, by seeking to blame others.”
Glasgow 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.
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.
Susan Aitken, Glasgow City Council leader, said: “This is breathtaking hypocrisy from this anonymous Labour Government source. We’ve always been open about the scale of Glasgow’s complex and overlapping challenges – and that the solutions require the input of all tiers of government.
“Yet attacking Scotland and Glasgow for child homelessness when there are much higher rates in Labour-run English cities, or that the UK Government’s failure to support refugees or reverse the Tories’ punitive austerity agenda is having a massive impact on homelessness, is Trumpian levels of dishonesty and disinformation.
“While Glasgow gets on with building more social houses than Liverpool and Manchester combined, and supporting colleagues within the Scottish Government in the implementation of the groundbreaking Scottish Child Payment, we’ll leave it to the cowards in Labour to get on with anonymous attacks. They haven’t much more to offer.”
Mairi McAllan, the Scottish Government Housing Secretary, said: “Asylum policy and the use of hotels is squarely the responsibility of the UK Labour Government. It is their policy and their responsibility – not the Scottish Government, nor the SNP.
“However I am concerned that complete mismanagement of the asylum system by successive UK Governments is creating serious pressures for local authorities, especially Glasgow.
“The UK Government must urgently provide the financial assistance necessary to enable local authorities to provide safety and sanctuary for newly recognised refugees and support integration from day one of arrival.
“Despite our repeated calls on the UK Government to engage with us on these issues, they refused to attend the roundtable with Glasgow City Council earlier this year and have not responded to calls for an urgent meeting. I have written to the Secretary of State for the Home Office to make clear that this must be a priority.”
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