The Scottish Conservatives have accused the Scottish National Party of “virtue-signalling policies” that have allowed Glasgow City Council’s homeless applications to rise by more than 3,500 per cent in three years.
The discovery was made in a Freedom of Information request submitted to form the Conservatives’ housing paper, unveiled on Friday, detailing their proposal to build 80,000 homes if elected to power in May’s Holyrood elections.
In the first half of 2022, homeless applications made to Scottish councils required applicants to state a connection to the local authority but in November of the same year, the SNP government introduced the Homeless Persons (Suspension of Referrals between Local Authorities) (Scotland) Order 2022.
A total of 35 homeless applications were made from outside Scotland in 2022/2023: 22 from outside Scotland and 13 from outside the UK. But the following year, that figure increased by 3,585 per cent to 1,290, including 934 with no connection to the UK.
The trend continued in the years that followed, with the Scottish Conservatives claiming that since the Scottish Government made the changes to application rules, 76 per cent of Glasgow City Council’s 4.449 homeless applications from outside Scotland came from outside the UK.
Launching the Conservative housing paper, Scottish Conservative Shadow Housing Secretary Meghan Gallacher says she has been speaking up about illegal immigration in the Scottish Parliament on behalf of her constituents.
Touching on the FOI request, she said: “It saw a 3,500 per cent increase in the number of illegal immigrants coming to the asylum capital of the UK, Glasgow.
“That shows the true scale of many of the issues many of our communities are facing right around the country.”
Glasgow City Council homeless applications have risen by more than 3,500 per cent in three years
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She claims the removal of the “local connection policy” has allowed thousands of asylum seekers to single out Glasgow “and put strain on public services”.
“What we need to do in order to alleviate those concerns” she said, “is to reinstate the local connection to make sure that we’re looking after local people and local housing needs”.
“We also need to stop the SNP virtue signalling policies, such as the rent controls that are really damaging to our housing sector.”
The news comes nearly a year after Glasgow City Council pleaded with former Home Secretary Yvette Cooper to meet the local authority to discuss Glasgow’s buckling social cohesion reaching fever pitch, deemed as a result of an increased volume of asylum seekers thanks to its long-running “dispersal city” status.
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The Scottish National Party, led by John Swinney, have been accused of enacting ‘virtue-signalling policies’
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GETTYCurrently, Scottish Government housing rights increase the odds of temporary accommodation for individuals declaring themselves homeless.
In April 2025, it was reported 4,000 asylum seekers had flocked to Glasgow to take advantage of generous housing rules, accounting for a substantial portion of the city’s 7,000 available beds.
This led Glasgow City Council to lay out the “unprecedented pressure” on public services in Scotland’s biggest city, earning it the moniker of the UK’s asylum capital.
After the Home Secretary declined multiple requests to meet with council leaders, the city put a pause on asylum applications.
The Mears Group, which is responsible for the dispersal of asylum seekers in Scotland, was forced to disperse asylum claimants more evenly around Scotland’s local authorities.
The Housing strategy released on Friday lays out plans to build 80,000 affordable homes by 2031, going beyond housing body calls for 78,000 new homes in the next parliamentary term.
Housing Secretary Mairi McAllan said: “The Scottish Government has funded the delivery of 141,000 affordable homes since 2007.
“Our budget allocation for affordable homes next year is the single largest since our records began and is part of a record £4.9bn investment in the coming four years which will deliver tens of thousands of affordable homes.
“More Homes Scotland, our newly announced housing delivery agency will bring simplicity, scale and speed to this work – enhancing delivery and maximising savings as part of our commitment to a decade of public sector modernisation and reform.”
Scottish Conservatives hope some out-of-the-box thinking in the “Ending Scotland’s Housing Crisis” paper will give voters food for thought as the Scottish Parliamentary Election looms in May.
They seek to pilot “street voting” to give residents the right to speak up about housing developments in their communities; scrap the SNP’s ban on boilers in new homes; end to the use of migrant hotels; and reinstate the “local connection” rule in homeless applications.
Voters will give their verdict on these plans when they go to the polls on May 7.