Meeting of the Parliament 10 September 2025
I do not have time.
That decision was taken by the previous Conservative Government in the eye of the Covid storm. Now, we have to admit that it was the wrong policy, even if it was well intentioned.
We also have to recognise that things are now much worse as a result of Labour’s failure to tackle the mounting immigration crisis. Rather than stopping the boats, Keir Starmer and Labour have allowed their numbers to swell. They systematically took apart the deterrent schemes that were put in place by the previous Conservative Administration. In the year to June, Labour presided over a 17 per cent increase in asylum applications compared with the previous year. Beyond those numbers, the picture is even more alarming because of the SNP’s open door rhetoric, which is adding to the pressures.
Scots are seeing their services undermined and their life chances blighted. In 2023-24, there were 40,685 applications for homelessness and 33,619 households were assessed as homeless or threatened with homelessness in Scotland. Across the country, people will be concerned, understandably, when they see priority being given to those who are coming from overseas. Housing asylum seekers in hotels is not the solution to the problem. Tackling the causes of illegal immigration and processing those who are seeking to come to the UK at source is, in effect, the only way to fix it. As I said last week, the use of asylum hotels has changed our communities and, in their view, not for the better.
Five years after the emergency use of hotels during the pandemic, the numbers have soared. In August 2020, 188 asylum seekers were housed in hotels and bed and breakfasts in Scotland. Today, that figure stands at more than 1,500. The previous Conservative Administration committed to end the use of hotels but, sadly, the Labour Government has comprehensively failed to do so.