THE Home Office failed to fund a project aimed at improving mental health amongst asylum seekers in the wake of a stabbing in a Glasgow hotel, a Holyrood committee has been told.
Asylum seeker Badreddin Abdalla Adam was shot dead by police after stabbing six people at the Park Inn in Glasgow in June 2020.
In the wake of that attack, Susanne Millar, the chair of the Scottish Asylum Dispersal Partnership Board and chief officer with Glasgow City Health and Social Care Partnership, told how plans had been drawn up for a project to improve mental health and wellbeing amongst asylum seekers who have been housed in hotels in the city.
Millar told Holyrood’s Equalities Committee that there had been a “real concern from us” that “mental health and wellbeing of the asylum population was not being well served by the accommodation and support contract” the Home Office had put in place.
She said: “We put a proposal together and tried very hard to get the Home Office to fund that. Unfortunately, we were unsuccessful in that.
“Luckily, we were successful in getting the Scottish Government to agree to fund that, so we are currently working on a pilot project funded by the Scottish Government in relation to that mental health and wellbeing element.”
But she was clear: “There wasn’t the focus on mental health and wellbeing that there required to be.”
Millar added: “I think that will probably continue to be a concern of ours, so what we have had to do is work on this pilot project, funded by the Scottish Government, and I would hope that we will be able to demonstrate that this project would support that mental health and wellbeing and therefore should become part of the contractual arrangements the Home Office has with providers.”
Speaking about the incident at the Park Inn, Millar told the committee how the Health and Social Care Partnership, together with the Scottish Refugee Council, had carried out a review of all asylum seekers who had been accommodated in the hotel.
She said that they had also helped them “during those really difficult times in terms of the move that evening of those people from Park Inn into alternative hotel accommodation”.
A Home Office spokesperson said: “The incident in Glasgow was truly horrific and our thoughts remain with those affected.
“We have since made significant changes to keep asylum seekers safe, including how we, our contractors and charities, identify vulnerable individuals and ensure they are fully supported.”
A report last month concluded that it was “absolutely necessary in the circumstances” for police to fatally shoot Adam.
Scotland’s prosecution service had investigated the use of lethal force by Police Scotland, with the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service concluding there was “no evidence of criminality on the part of any police officer involved in the incident”.
Adam was one of the hundreds of asylum seekers moved into hotels in Glasgow at the start of lockdown.
