Councillors raise concern over potential rural Stirling asylum seeker relocation
Stirling Council will write to the Home Secretary to highlight the "specific risks" of relocating asylum seekers into rural communities - and claim such a move would be "harsh" for them.
Accommodating asylum seekers in Stirling's rural areas would be 'harsh' for them and have a 'major impact' on the communities themselves say SNP councillors.
Stirling Council has unanimously agreed to write to the Home Secretary to highlight 'specific risks' associated with asylum dispersal in rural or remote communities.
But the council's leader, Labour's Gerry McGarvey, says the letter will be careful to reflect a 'caring and compassionate council'.
At a full council meeting last Thursday, SNP councillor Gene Maxwell said: 'We have heard persistent rumours - more than rumours - that the Home Office is looking to increase the amount of asylum seeker dispersal across the UK - and in particular mention has been made of the intention to move people into rural areas of this constituency.
'That has a number of potential issues associated with it.
'We have had over the last several years, a very good reaction to Ukrainian and Afghani refugees coming to us - but they came with a package of support and money and a bit of wraparound to it that enabled that to work well.
'Straightforward asylum seekers come with almost no support.
'They are provided with room and board.
'We are talking about a situation where the Home Office would, through a contractor, take over hotels, put asylum seekers into these hotels on a room and board basis.
'They are given £8.86 a week as pocket money and that's about it. There's no other support.
'That's a specific action to try and limit the amount of support available to them.
'They don't get anything like the support package we give to the Ukrainians and the Afghans.
'That's harsh on the individuals themselves.
'Put them into a rural situation with limited transport and so on makes it even harder.'
However, Cllr Maxwell said it also has a 'major impact' on the hosting communities, including on rural education services, tourism and the economy.
'We are talking about areas that are heavily dependent on tourism.
'To take out a major hotel and put a lot of people into it who are not spending into the local economy, we are talking about hotel companies who are now not looking after high spending guests, they are looking after people for whom the Home Office will be paying an absolute minimum they can to provide room and board, so the staffing goes down.
'It's got a major economic impact.
'I'm simply asking here that we ask the Council Leader to contact the Home Secretary and just make sure, before the Home Office push more and more people into our rural areas in particular, when they could be especially 50 miles away from any help or support, that we ask them to take that into account because it won't just be asylum seekers themselves having issues, it will be our rural communities that have a problem.'
The motion put before full council by Cllr Maxwell stated: 'Council understands that the Home Office is seeking to develop a long-term strategy for asylum accommodation. In doing so, council expects that any model of locally-led support would require collaboration with local authorities at the earliest opportunity.
'Council instructs the Council Leader to write to the Home Secretary to convey the specific risks associated with asylum dispersal in rural or remote communities and to seek assurance that such concerns be addressed in any plans for asylum disperal in Stirling.'
Seconding the motion, fellow SNP councillor Bob Buchanan added: 'These people who are coming are vulnerable adults, usually young adults, usually young male adults, and in rural areas I personally feel they would be very susceptible to be recruited into organised crime because there's not going to be the support in the rural areas that there would be in the urban areas.'
Green councillor Alasdair Tollemache asked that the letter convey that 'Stirling is open to refugees - because we have a proud tradition in Stirling to welcome people'.
Council Leader, Labour's Gerry McGarvey, agreed to write to the Home Office, but said: 'It will be a letter that is sensitive to Stirling Council's feelings about dispersal of refugees in our constituency areas.
'I want to reassure members that the motion just been asked here will reflect a caring and compassionate council.'
Labour councillor Danny Gibson said some the language in the motion 'didn't sit comfortably with me and my colleagues' and he had been 'intrigued' to see what the SNP councillors would present to council.
But he said he would resist 'dissecting' what he had heard and added: 'We need to be very clear and very careful. This is a very delicate and very careful area to deal with and we should not do so with anything but the utmost seriousness.'
Cllr Maxwell replied: 'I can confirm that I have had conversations with relevant officers before coming up with this wording and I'm very well aware of the sensitivities of what's going on and that this does reflect that the Home Office and its contractors Mears have been tasked to find the spaces.'
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