Sir Keir Starmer’s council has offered free haircuts to asylum seekers, it has emerged. Chris Philp MP has written in the Daily Telegraph. You can read it here. The text is set out below.
Camden council, which covers the Prime Minister’s constituency of Holborn and St Pancras, offered £58,000 to 12 organisations as part of its borough of sanctuary programme.
This included a £3,000 grant to a salon to offer “free hairdressing for refugees and asylum seekers”, according to the council website.
Responding to the revelation, Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary, accused Camden of being “a sanctuary for waste and gesture politics”.
“It tells you everything about Labour’s warped priorities – the residents who play by the rules are treated as an afterthought, while those with no right to be here are given fringe benefits at the taxpayer’s expense,” he said.
“Labour likes to call Camden a borough of sanctuary. In reality, it’s a sanctuary for waste and gesture politics, and local families are the ones paying the price.”
The local authority gave £50,000 in awards in June to organisations which included case work support for homeless asylum seekers and language classes. Other initiatives given taxpayer cash included a hairdresser and football coaching for young refugees and asylum seekers.
Labour authority’s ‘showboating support for migrants’
Cllr Richard Olszewski, the Labour leader of Camden council, said: “Camden is proud to be a borough of sanctuary. We are a place of welcome for refugees and asylum seekers, who are a valued part of our community.
“They are our fellow human beings and deserve to be treated humanely and compassionately. It is quite right to provide them with practical support to help them build new lives in Britain.”
The council announced the borough of sanctuary grants programme in June.
It said the aim of the grants was “to connect refugee communities, especially those who are recent arrivals, with community resources and with opportunities to grow and thrive”.
“Projects include a language exchange programme, football sessions for young people from Ukraine and Afghanistan, and a community connectors initiative to enable people with lived experience to co-design a programme of activities,” it added.
The money given to the local initiatives supporting refugees and asylum seekers comes from a central government fund set up in 2022-23.
Camden Clinical Commissioning Group, a local NHS organisation, is responsible for administering the money, with the council deciding which initiatives should get the funds.
Camden council raised its council tax by 4.99 per cent last year, arguing that its budget was “under significant pressure and we are having to make some tough decisions to balance the books”.
Ewan Cameron, of the Hampstead and Highgate Conservative Association, said: “Every day, Camden residents face injustice. The injustice that some people can choose to live off benefits rather than seek employment.
“The injustice that we can’t access local services due to overwhelming demand. The injustice that much of the crime in Camden goes unpunished.
“Meanwhile, our Labour-led council remains fixated on showboating their support for minorities, as opposed to doing the hard work that would actually improve the lives of Camden residents.”
