The city wants to pause new arrivals
Leaders at Glasgow Council has warned the city can no longer afford to take in asylum seekers.
Glasgow is the biggest dispersal centre outside London for asylum seekers but the cost of supporting them has rocketed from an estimated £26.5 million in 2024/25 to a projected £79m in 2027/28.
Officials have said they want to pause new arrivals to the city, leading to criticism from the Scottish Refugee Council.
Sabir Zazai, the chief executive of the Scottish Refugee Council said: “We believe that any decision by Glasgow to pause receiving people seeking asylum in the city would do more harm than good, and potentially lead to a rise in people sleeping on the streets.
“We don’t know how long a ‘pause’ Glasgow is seeking or what conditions the council would need to see met in order to restart welcoming people. There is currently no clarity around what the benefits of a decision like this would be.”
Despite UK Government plans to have asylum seekers spread more evenly across the country, it has emerged that of 360 British regions, one in six were not housing any asylum seekers as of the end of last year.
With 67 asylum seekers per 10,000 people in the city, Glasgow is the UK’s biggest city for asylum seekers outside of London per head.
Glasgow City Integration Joint Board states that homelessness services are coming under pressure owing to “a significant increase in positive leave-to-remain decisions for asylum seekers”.
Increased demand “as a result of the streamlined asylum process” means “it is likely that the council will be unable to offer temporary accommodation on first request for all households.”
Allan Casey, Glasgow City Council's convenor for homelessness, said: "Glasgow has repeatedly stressed to UK ministers that their batch processing of asylum decisions is putting our housing supply and homelessness services under immense strain. We’ve made clear that unless they financially support the impact of their changes then we would soon reach crisis point.
“During the time when we’ve made these appeals, the numbers of refugees presenting in Glasgow has continued to rise while no support from UK ministers has materialised. Indeed, while we’ve made repeated efforts to engage positively with the relevant UK Government ministers, they have refused to meet with us."
He said the problems the city faced were not "caused by refugees" but by UK Government policy, adding: "The reality is that the unsupported rise in demand is placing our systems under unprecedented pressure.
"This situation cannot continue, not least for those seeking accommodation in Glasgow, wherever they may come from. If UK Government ministers want Glasgow to continue being the exemplar in cohesion and integration which we’re proud to be then they need to step up and better support us.
"Our support to refugees and asylum seekers remains steadfast.”
