Conservative and Reform-run councils are preparing to fight Andy Burnham in the courts, should he push ahead with plans to place more asylum seekers in middle-class neighbourhoods.
The Telegraph reports that Number 10 intends to press on with the policy, despite internal warnings that it will drive up costs to the taxpayer. Burnham argued this week that better-off areas need to “play their part,” saying that poorer communities have already shouldered enough of the burden.
A Reform spokesman branded the plan an “insult to taxpayers,” and said Reform-controlled councils would push back using every tool available, including judicial reviews, HMO directions, and planning law. The Conservatives, meanwhile, say they are weighing up their own options to shield their council areas from the policy, with deputy chairman Matt Vickers accusing Labour of trying to “spread the illegal migration problem across the country” rather than tackling Channel crossings at source.
Together, Reform and the Conservatives run more than 86 local authorities, giving the two parties considerable scope to tie the plan up in legal challenges lasting months, or even years.
The financial stakes are significant. Telegraph analysis suggests that dispersing asylum seekers more evenly by population could add 6.4 per cent to costs, while distributing them according to each area’s wealth, the most far-reaching version of Burnham’s approach, could push costs up by nearly 17 per cent. That’s largely because such a formula would roughly double the number of asylum seekers sent to London and the South East, where rents run highest.
Individual MPs are also lining up in opposition. Broxbourne’s Lewis Cocking, whose constituency currently hosts no asylum seekers, said no community should be forced to take in people who arrived in the country illegally, and called instead for detention and deportation.
A government spokesman defended the broader strategy, pointing to a 35 per cent drop in the number of asylum seekers housed in hotels over the past year, and a 63 per cent fall since the 2023 peak, alongside an overall £1 billion reduction in asylum costs since the last election.
Image: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
