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Call for migrant housing rethink Call for migrant housing rethink
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The Industry Minister Margaret Hodge has said UK families should be given priority over immigrants when it comes to receiving council housing. Minister Margaret Hodge has said UK families should get priority over immigrants for council housing.
She said a "transparent" points system giving weight to length of residence, citizenship and national insurance contributions would be fairer.She said a "transparent" points system giving weight to length of residence, citizenship and national insurance contributions would be fairer.
Mrs Hodge also says she herself is an immigrant - she was born in Egypt. Mrs Hodge, who was born in Egypt, said rules should "promote tolerance rather than inviting division".
The Refugee Council condemned Mrs Hodge's comments, saying asylum seekers are not entitled to council housing. The Refugee Council said arrivals from new EU states had limited access to benefits, and condemned the comments.
Mrs Hodge, writing in the Observer, said: "So a recently arrived family with four or five children living in a damp and overcrowded flat with the children suffering from asthma will usually get priority over a family with less housing need who have lived in the area and are stuck at home with the grandparents. Industry ministry Mrs Hodge, writing in the Observer, said "difficult questions" had to be debated.
"We should look at policies where the legitimate sense of entitlement felt by the indigenous family overrides the legitimate need demonstrated by the new migrants. 'Sense of entitlement'
"We must debate these difficult questions." "We should look at policies where the legitimate sense of entitlement felt by the indigenous family overrides the legitimate need demonstrated by the new migrants," she wrote.
Need basis She added that while a "small number" of confirmed refugees had the same entitlements as British citizens, most new families were economic migrants.
Nancy Kelley, head of international and UK policy at the Refugee Council, told the paper: "The way to counter some of the views put forward by far-right parties is not to follow their lead." There are a lot of black and Asian British people who feel as strongly as some of my white families do - that there is an essential unfairness in the system Margaret Hodge
"If you choose to come to Britain, should you presume the right to access social housing?," she wrote.
Later she told the BBC's World This Weekend programme: "There are a lot of black and Asian British people who feel as strongly as some of my white families do - that there is an essential unfairness in the system.
"They feel that they've grown up in the borough, they're entitled to a home, and that entitlement - sense of entitlement - is often overridden by a real need of new immigrant families who come in, perhaps locked into private accommodation, poor accommodation, overcrowded.
"And their need will often override the entitlement that my white families feel".
'Tough issues'
She won some support from Labour Party chairwoman, and deputy leadership candidate, Hazel Blears, who agreed there was a need "to tackle these tough issues."
"You have got to look at allocations policies to show that they are fair," she told BBC One's Sunday AM programme.
The way to counter some of the views put forward by far-right parties is not to follow their lead Nancy KelleyRefugee Council
"People in this country have a real sense of fairness, they are prepared to do their bit but they want to know the system actually works for them."
But Nancy Kelley, head of international and UK policy at the Refugee Council, said: "The way to counter some of the views put forward by far-right parties is not to follow their lead."
She also pointed out that people who are confirmed as refugees in the UK are entitled to council housing but on the "same basis as a UK national, on the basis of need".She also pointed out that people who are confirmed as refugees in the UK are entitled to council housing but on the "same basis as a UK national, on the basis of need".
Speaking on BBC One's Sunday AM programme, Labour Party chairman Hazel Blears said there was a need "to tackle these tough issues." She stressed that asylum seekers were not entitled to council housing and arrivals from new EU states had restricted access to benefits.
She said: "You have got to look at allocations policies to show that they are fair. Mrs Hodge has warned before that many of her constituents in Barking, east London, were angry at the lack of housing - and that the transition of the area from a white working-class community to a multi-racial one had been "difficult".
"It is just the same as the welfare system, you have got to show that is fair as well. She was criticised for saying, before the council elections in 2006, that as many as eight of 10 white families were tempted to vote for the British National Party. The BNP went on to become the second largest party on Barking and Dagenham council.
"People in this country have a real sense of fairness they are prepared to do their bit but they want to know the system actually works for them."