Linton-on-Ouse: Housing asylum seekers needs to be about suitability

Housing asylum seekers must not result in asylum centres being imposed on ill-equipped villages in the name of fairness.

The idea that Linton-on-Ouse, a quiet rural village in North Yorkshire, must welcome asylum seekers is absurd when there is inadequate infrastructure to support migrants.

The Government does find itself in an invidious position. The use of migrant hotels needs to end. It has become a political hot potato that could end up leaving the Government with burnt fingers.

The public feels there is an inherent injustice in migrants being put up in hotels that a lot of ordinary people would not be able to afford a stay in. And these sites too lack the necessary infrastructure to sufficiently support asylum seekers.

Home Office minister Anna Turley defended the Government’s proposals to house asylum seekers in former military bases in the British countryside, arguing the sites would be “self-contained” and were more manageable and affordable than housing those who have arrived in the UK illegally in hotels. How that will work in practice remains to be seen but anxiety amongst communities facing the prospect of a migrant centre on their doorstep is understandable.

Shifting asylum seekers from hotels to rural villages is not going to solve the problem if migrants continue to cross the Channel illegally. The issue can no longer even be described as small boat crossings with larger vessels attempt to bring large numbers of migrants over.

It suggests that the agreement with France to stem the flow of migrants crossing the Channel is not working.

The Government must ask serious questions of our European neighbours and their willingness to engage with this problem.