Gavin Grey: Asylum seeker spending down, but not down enough

“It’s down, but it’s down not very much.” says UK Correspondent Gavin Grey in this morning’s immigration discussion with Ryan Bridge. 

The UK Government is spending $4.4billion on hotel bills housing migrants. Although this is down from $4.6billion the previous year, Grey says it isn’t enough. 

Money to fund this is coming from the overseas development fund, a system that Grey calls, “unsustainable.”  

Arrests for immigrants working illegally in the UK have increased, but Grey says the hotel bill continues to get longer with no end in sight.  

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
And right now Gavin Gray in the UK for US Kevin,
good morning, good evening to you. The government accused THEA
of failing to keep its election promises. This is over
the amount spent on the asylum seekers.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Yes, it's down, but it's down not very much. Ryan.
So in total, the bill being spent on hotels to
How's migrants last year was four point four billion New
Zealand dollars, down from four point six billion the year before.
It is said that there are thirty two thousand asylum
seekers in hotels in the UK. The money is coming

(00:33):
out of the overseas development budget, so money that should
be going to help the poorest people around the world
is instead being used to How's migrants who have come
to the UK. It really is unsustainable. I think plenty
of people are thinking. But here's the other thing. Because
the country's not losing any money, people are also beginning
to wonder if ministers are really serious about tackling this

(00:55):
injustice in that this money would be saving lives elsewhere
around the globe as a to comfort for those who
have come here illegally and are applying for sylum It's
a very tricky issue. No government's got a grip on it,
but this hotel bill seems to go on and on
and on.

Speaker 1 (01:10):
Meanwhile, we've got arrests up for illegal migrants.

Speaker 2 (01:15):
Yes, this the government has improved on since they came
into parent July of last year, in that they have
toughened up quite considerably the fines and penalties to employers
who do carry on employing migrants who are working here illegally. Now,
the problem is for those who are in those hotels
we just described Ryan and they are allowed to go

(01:37):
out and about and do what they want. They're given
a small amount of money each day, but they are
not allowed to work. And plenty of people think, well,
they should be allowed to work. And so we've heard
there's a fifty one percent rise on the number of
people arrested on suspicion of working illegally in the UK.
That's a significant rise, and it is said that they
have managed to thirty thousand people in total who have

(02:01):
no right to be in the UK have now been
returned to their home countries according to the Home Office.
So this is a more positive story. But then you
get down to the detail and footage showing on video
shows the moment, thirty six people were arrested on one
construction site. Nine others arrested illegally using delivery drivers. The
list goes on and on, and the question is how

(02:23):
can the government crack down further on that?

Speaker 1 (02:25):
Thank you very much, Kevin Gavin Gray are UK europe correspondent.
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