Yesterday Andy Burnham suggested that more asylum seekers would need to be housed in more affluent areas in future. Unsurprisingly, this has not gone down well at the Daily Mail.
In an interview on BBC Breakfast this morning, Anna Turley, the immigration minister, said that areas like Blackpool (where the Grand Metropole Hotel was until very recently being used to house asylum seekers – see 9.24am) have already taken their “fair share” of migrants.
Backing up the point Burnham made yesterday, she said:
double quotation markI think this is about fairness, and we won’t be asking anyone to take more than they can.
It’s about their fair share, and we have to look across the country at what is appropriate for areas to take, what is the infrastructure, what is manageable with the local community. So this is about fairness.
She also defended the government’s intention to switch from using hotels for asylum seekers to putting them on industrial sites or former military bases instead. She said:
double quotation markThe priority for us now is making sure that we look after asylum seekers in a secure place, in a place that is much more appropriate and where we limit the impact on local communities.