Following the Park Inn incident in June, the Home Office announced an evaluation of how people in its care have experienced its support in Glasgow during COVID-19. But there also needs to be a full and independent public inquiry.
A key goal of Scottish Refugee Council is to champion the rights of refugees and advocate for fair and just policies and practice, ensuring those seeking protection have a platform to raise their own voices.
We use all opportunities available to us to do so including airing our views and experiences directly with the Home Office and other public bodies responsible for their care and welfare. How people seeking asylum have been accommodated during the pandemic in Glasgow and across the UK has been of the gravest concern to us and other organisations working with refugees and the wider public.
We have and will continue to raise these concerns directly and unambiguously to the Home Office and Mears Group, since we first learnt of these en masse moves and especially in relation to the tragic incidents at Maclays Hotel on 5 May and Park Inn Hotel on 26 June.
Following the Park Inn Hotel incident in June, the Home Office announced an evaluation of how people in its care have experienced its support in Glasgow during COVID-19. As part of this evaluation, we met with senior officials at the Home Office to share our direct experiences of supporting all those affected by the Park Inn hotel, and the wider context of the extensive and very concerning use of by the Home Office of hotels in Glasgow and across the UK. We have also met with Police Scotland and Social Work Services who are also examining how they responded to the Park Inn incident specifically.
The accommodation of people seeking asylum in hotels is of major public interest in Glasgow, Scotland and the rest of the UK so we believe that the final report produced should be published.
Ultimately, however, we continue to believe like many others that to truly understand all the issues that led to the Glasgow tragedies, that there needs to be a full and independent public inquiry.
