Build council homes for all

Eira Hadfield-Jones, Rhondda Cynon Taff Socialist Party

To the apparent shock of Labour ministers, the privatisation of accommodation for asylum seekers has allowed the companies involved to make massive profits! Yearly profits for Clearsprings, Serco, and Mears (the three housing providers) have all been rising, with Clearsprings alone seeing a massive 60% increase. One Labour minister commented: “[The companies] made way more than was originally envisaged”. Despite claims of a “profit-sharing agreement” with the UK Government (with exact margins not being disclosed publicly), a freedom of information request found that no money has been paid back between 2019-22.

Of course, this news is of no surprise – the simple fact is that privatising a service means stripping quality in the pursuit of profits, and asylum seekers have long been forced to live in inadequate housing, with pests and rampant mould. In light of issues such as these, Labour is now voicing interest in activating a pre-existing break clause in the asylum accommodation and support contracts in 2026, and passing the responsibility of asylum housing to local councils in a bid to find savings of at least £2 billion.

Labour’s proposal to move asylum accommodation responsibility back to local councils is welcome, with the possibility to limit homelessness and allow asylum seekers to establish themselves in a community, knowing they won’t eventually be moved elsewhere. The current asylum accommodation system is built on a complex network of ‘initial accommodation’ in hotels and long-term ‘dispersal accommodation’. This dispersal accommodation is withdrawn 28 days after an acceptance, leaving asylum seekers who can’t find council housing within this timeframe homeless. With a recent rise of 350% of homelessness for asylum seekers, the chaos of this system is impossible to overstate. Labour has doubled this 28 days to 56 temporarily, but this does nothing to address massive shortages in council housing.

However, placing the burden onto local government won’t solve the crisis. Councils are faced with a £4.3 billion funding deficit next year, and Labour’s budget has failed to rectify this. Multiple councils have now declared themselves effectively bankrupt, and vital services are being cut. Labour’s pledge to build “up to 5000 additional affordable homes” is equally unacceptable, failing to meet even current demand. Socialist Party members have been organising and taking part in campaigns demanding an end to privatisation and cuts. Wait times for and conditions within council housing are at a crisis level, and a massive expansion of council home building and renovations is desperately needed.

At the same time, any rhetoric that paints the needs of asylum seekers as being separate to anyone else’s must be rejected. There is incredible wealth in society but it’s in the wrong hands. There are more empty homes than there are homeless people! Leaving councils and services without enough money to operate allows the capitalist system to divide the working class and keep us in competition. A massive expansion to council housing isn’t just a solution for the asylum system – it is a change that would benefit everyone.