Labour will make every UK borough take ‘fair share’ of migrants, says Rayner

Every borough in the UK will be required to take their “fair share” of asylum seekers under a Labour government, Angela Rayner has pledged.

The party’s deputy leader and shadow levelling up secretary said successful asylum seekers would be eligible for places in the 1.5 million new social housing and homes that Labour planned to build “right across the country”.

Labour has pledged to clear the 35,000 migrants currently being housed in hotels in a year.

The Tories claimed that this could mean 1,300 new asylum seekers being housed in every local authority if the number of illegal migrants entering the UK were to continue at current levels over the next parliament.

Labour, however, disputed the claims, saying it planned to fast-track asylum cases to clear the backlog and set up a new enforcement and returns unit to deport those who were found to have no right to remain in the UK.

The comments come as a new analysis by The Telegraph showed that there were almost nine times as many asylum seekers housed in local council accommodation in Labour areas compared to Conservative areas - at 44,748 to 5,098 respectively.

There were four times as many asylum seekers staying in hotels in Labour-controlled councils as in Tory areas and six times as many as those in Liberal Democrat areas.

There were 5,435 asylum seekers housed in hotels in councils where the Tories currently had outright control or the mayor was Conservative. The comparable figure for Labour was 20,401 with the Lib Dems at 3,227. The rest, 4,814, were in councils where no single party had overall control.

Some 90,000 asylum seekers are currently “in limbo” barred by the Government’s current legislation from claiming asylum and instead earmarked for deportation to Rwanda.

Labour has pledged to scrap the Rwanda scheme from day one, which means the 90,000 will be treated as asylum seekers and allowed to apply for the right to remain in the UK.

Speaking on BBC Radio Merseyside, Ms Rayner said: “Every borough has an obligation to take on their fair share of asylum seekers, but not everyone in hotels that are currently in hotels will be given a right to remain in the UK.

“Some of them shouldn’t be in the UK, but they’re in the UK and they’re costing taxpayers lots of money because we are not treating people fairly and dealing with the backlog.

“That’s what Labour’s going to do, and that will cost us a lot less if we process people fairly, humanely, and those that have a right to be here are treated with the respect and dignity that the British people would expect us to. For people who are genuinely seeking asylum, those that shouldn’t be here will be removed.”

Ms Rayner said asylum seekers would add to housing demand. “When people have been processed, they either have a right to be here and therefore we need to have the housing supply, which is what the Tories have failed to deliver on. That’s why we’re going to build the 1.5 million homes we need across the UK,” she said.

The Government has pushed for a full asylum dispersal system where the responsibility is more widely shared and in 2023 offered councils grants of up to £3,500 for each extra space they created. However, the Telegraph data shows the distribution concentrated in a limited number of about a quarter of council areas.

The Tories claimed that with Ms Rayner stating that migrants would be housed “right across the country”, this could mean 1,300 new illegal migrants in each area, based on an assumption that some 425,000 illegal migrants would arrive over the next Parliament.

They claimed it could rise by nearly 125,000 if Labour entered a “fair share” agreement with the EU to take thousands of new migrants as part of a returns deal. Labour has denied it would such an agreement, and accused the Tories of “lies” over it.

Tom Pursglove, immigration minister, said: “This latest admission confirms that Labour stands for nothing but unlimited and uncontrolled illegal migration. With Labour giving preferential treatment to illegal migrants and asylum seekers for hundreds of thousands of homes across the country, it is clear that they’d rather roll out the red carpet than stop the boats.”