Government must stop making Crawley council tax payers pay for their incompetent asylum policy

When the Government decided to use hotels in Crawley as asylum hotels they did so without listening to the local authority, moving hundreds of people into one of the parts of the country where housing is most expensive and in shortest supply.

Now, as they close the hotels, they are again failing to consider the physical impact, evicting those with leave to remain without a plan for dispersal. The result is that under housing law, Crawley Borough Council–which already has the second biggest temporary housing challenge in the country–is legally required to take on these new housing costs, when the volumes of housing needed simply doesn’t exist.

Things can’t go on like this. We need a complete overhaul of our asylum system, one which recognises our international obligations while maintaining control of our borders, and works in partnership with local communities rather than against them. The Government could start by redirecting the hundreds of millions of pounds currently being wasted on schemes like Rwanda which simply do not work and instead using it to crack down on smuggling gangs and rebuilding relationships with France to restore effective policing of the French coast.