Tom Pursglove has torn into Labour’s plans to house illegal migrants in council houses across the UK, declaring it “completely wrong”.
Speaking to GB News, the ex-Conservative Immigration Minister accused the Government of having “no political will” to control and close Britain’s borders.
In an exclusive GB News investigation, 17 local authorities expressed an interest or requested more information about participating in the £500million pilot scheme.
Barnet, Bournemouth, Christchurch & Poole, Cheltenham, East Riding of Yorkshire, East Suffolk, Folkestone & Hythe, Medway, Moray, North Devon, Oxford, the Highlands, and West Oxfordshire have all explored participation.
Reacting to GB News’s report that hundreds more illegal migrants have crossed the Channel into Britain this weekend, Mr Pursglove said: “It’s completely unsurprising, isn’t it? Because all the while that we don’t have a meaningful deterrent, people are going to keep on making these journeys.
“And all this Government has done is made a challenging problem much worse. That’s reflected in these increased arrivals, numbers, and with the weather window opening up, you will see people coming because they know that if they get to the United Kingdom, they will be able to stay here.”
He fumed: “This Government just doesn’t have the will politically to do what it takes to shut the route down once and for all and to put the criminal gangs responsible out of business.”
Responding to GB News’s investigation, which found 17 local councils expressing an interest in participating in the £500million Home Office scheme for newly revamped council homes, Mr Pursglove said the decision is “completely unpalatable”.
Tom Pursglove has torn into Labour’s plan to house illegal migrants in council housing
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GB NEWS / GETTY
He explained: “I was able to close with Robert Jenrick 190 asylum hotels, that was the right thing to do.
“And we also had a preference to move to larger sites for accommodation purposes, so things like the Bibby Stockholm, so what we were not doing was to take council housing stock out of circulation for the purposes of that accommodation.
“And what we wanted to do was pivot to large sites, and also deliver that in tandem with that meaningful deterrent with Rwanda shutting the route down once and for all. So these are political choices that this Government is making.
“If you want to fund local authorities to transfer some of their council housing stock across, that is a political choice. I think that is completely unpalatable, I think it is completely wrong.”
He stressed: “I think about communities across the country where there’s a waiting list for that accommodation from law abiding, taxpaying citizens.
“They should be the priority when it comes to that accommodation, not small boat migrants.
Small boat migrants continue to cross the Channel under Sir Keir Starmer, taking the total to 194,000 | GB NEWS
“What the Government should do instead is to where you’ve got that accommodation need, it should be focused into larger sites, should be closing hotels, but the way that you stop this is to go back to that most fundamental point, which is to deal with the law, deal with the ECHR and be able to return or relocate to a third country all of those who arrive.
“Because ultimately that would mean that you wouldn’t have any requirement for this accommodation in the first place.”
Arguing that the Government is sending the “wrong signal” to Britons in taking this approach to migrant accommodation, Mr Pursglove said: “If that policy was to go ahead, that would be where those individuals would be housed, because what they want to do is effectively close the hotels and move them into alternative forms of accommodation.
“But as I say, I think doing that into council housing is completely inappropriate.
“It is not what people expect Government to be doing, and it just sends all the wrong signals about if you make those crossings, what you can expect.”
He continued: “What you need to be doing is totally disincentivising this, not adding in additional pull factors because the criminal gangs will be saying to these people, if we can get into the UK, you’ll be able to get a council house.
Mr Pursglove told GB News that using council housing is ‘completely inappropriate’
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GB NEWS
“If you want to work, you’ll be able to work, but there’s also benefits all of these other things that you want. You have to be really clear about this and actually just the optics of it as well as the practicalities.”
Understanding the “growing sense of frustration” among Britons in regards to the migrant crisis, Mr Pursglove concluded: “There’s already a growing sense of anger and frustration in the country, quite understandably.
“The Bell Hotel is a good example of that. That was a hotel that I closed, and this Government reopened.
“But there is that palpable sense of anger about all of the optics, all of the signals, what this means for people in their day-to-day lives.
“You will have thousands of people watching this programme who are on council house waiting lists, who’ve been waiting their turn, often see in that as a stepping stone to to perhaps buying a home of their own in due course.
“They’re the people we ought to be supporting for all the right reasons, not people who’ve broken the law, come to this country illegally and who have absolutely no right to expect or to receive in practise any of this sort of support.
“And that’s why I think public opinion on this has moved enormously.”