The search for new asylum seeker housing in the north-east of England has been paused by Yvette Cooper in the wake of a migrant protest over the weekend. The Home Office said it thought it had sufficient capacity in the region, but added that it has not stopped looking for additional accomodation in other parts of the UK.
The chief executive of Newcastle’s West End Refugee Service (WERS), Andy Durma, noted that a higher proportion of asylum seekers, relative to the size of the local population, had been housed in the region because it was cheaper. This latest move from Labour follows a temporary pause in the acquisition of new asylum accommodation in County Durham in June this year.
On Saturday, anti-migrant hotel protesters assembled outside the New Bridge Hotel in Newcastle, where they were confronted by anti-racism activists.
The Tory government introduced a policy in 2022 that required all local authorities to take in asylum seekers proportional to their population size by 2029. However, more asylum seekers are currently being housed in the North East relative to its population than in any other part of the country.
As of March this year, the North East was home to 27.6 asylum seekers per 10,000 people. In comparison, the South West had just 7.2 asylum seekers per 10,000 people. While in the capital, there were 21.2 asylum seekers per 10,000 people. None of these statistics included people who arrived via the Afghan resettlement or Ukraine visa schemes.
Mr Durma claimed that asylum seekers were suffering because of the lack of facilities open to them in the region. “These are people who cannot work, who are bored,” he said.
“They are dealing with their own trauma and then cannot afford to take the bus into town to take English lessons. And then you’ve got local people seeing them walking around not doing anything.”
He added that he believed this was the “core root” behind recent protests around the UK at hotels housing asylum seekers.
