Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has been accused of “rolling out the red carpet” for illegal migrants after plans for a new scheme in which landlords will house asylum seekers was revealed.
The Home Office has launched a recruitment drive for landlords to house asylum seekers following a surge in Channel migrant crossings.
Serco, one of three private contractors working for the Home Office, is offering landlords five-year guaranteed full rent deals at the taxpayer’s expense.
A website page with the heading “Calling all landlords” tells prospective clients: “We are confident that our lease provision offers an attractive and competitive proposition within the industry.”
Russell Quirk hit out at Keir Starmer for ‘rolling out the red carpet’ for illegal migrants over plans for a new landlord scheme
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This push comes after a new record for daily small boat arrivals was set earlier this monthPA
Quirk said: “If we continue to resource these thousands of people rocking up on a monthly basis, there’s even less incentive for the Government to do something about it.
“Because of this new incentive, if you’re an Albanian or a Vietnamese or an Indian that really has no right to be claiming asylum because you don’t come from a war torn country, you’re now thinking actually, the prospect of a four star hotel with maybe a bit of room service and a 40-inch flat screen telly was quite appealing – but now I can have my own house. This is fabulous.”
He fumed: “We are literally rolling out the red carpet, so this is going to cost more and more and more. What I’m calculating is this year, if they do this, it’s another £5billion over and above what taxpayers are spending already. It’s outrageous.”
Criticising the Government further, Quirk suggested that Labour are “hypocritical” for launching this scheme after “battering” landlords with the Renters Reform Bill.
Quirk told GB News that the plan is Labour ‘enabling the invasion’
GB News
Quirk concluded: “Landlords have been battered now many, many times over the last few years. Landlords are in a pretty bad place really, actually, in terms of how they’ve been railed against by successive governments.
“So this latest news that now all of a sudden the Government needs them, from having a pop at landlords consistently and continually to now all of a sudden needing them is quite ironic and pretty hypocritical of the Government, I think, given how they’ve dealt with landlords.”
A Home Office spokesman said: “These arrangements with the private rented sector have been in place for years, including under the previous Government.”
“We have a statutory duty to support destitute asylum seekers who will not be able to pay for fees such as utilities and council tax.”
The spokesman added: “We are restoring order to the asylum system and cutting costs to taxpayers by reducing the number of people we are required to accommodate. This is being achieved “through a rapid increase in asylum decision-making and the removal of more than 24,000 people with no right to be in the UK”.
