British PM Rishi Sunak moves to curb migration, citing strain on UK services
- New measures, including deploying barges and unused army bases to house asylum seekers, are aimed at making the UK less attractive to migrants
- Ministers are concerned a record 606,000 more people moved to Britain than departed last year despite a promise to reduce immigration
Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick said the government will deploy barges and unused army bases to house people seeking asylum and tell young men four people will have to share one room.
The Labour opposition has promised to cut immigration levels and says the Conservatives are to blame for letting numbers get out of control. The issue has added to friction with business lobby groups, which are urging a relaxing of the rules to allow in workers needed to fill vacant jobs and alleviate upwards pressures on wages.
“We want businesses to be in the first instance investing in British workers and technology and automation that drives productivity, not just reaching for the easy lever of foreign labour,” Jenrick told the BBC.
Jenrick said the asylum system needs “fundamental” reform because it is “riddled with abuse,” notably the government paying too much money to hotel operators for housing people.
“That will create the deterrent we desperately need,” Jenrick said. “It will break the business model of the people smuggling gangs, and it will stop the system from coming under intolerable pressure like it is today.”
Jenrick said it’s reasonable to ask asylum seekers to share rooms, brushing aside concerns of a group that refused to enter a hotel in Pimlico, where the Home Office had asked them to sleep “four people per room.”
The leader of Westminster City Council expressed “deep concern” that some 40 refugees were placed in the borough last week “without appropriate accommodation or support available,” the Press Association reported.
He said the government wants to reduce the cost to taxpayers of housing asylum seekers, saying that putting them in hotels drains “valuable assets for the local business community.”