Councillors have agreed to push the Government for greater transparency over asylum HMOs in Leicestershire amid concerns that people "have no power" over them.

Leicestershire County Council met to discuss a motion from Reform UK councillor Martin England on HMOs used for asylum accommodation.

During the meeting, Cllr England claimed that migrants "are behaving very badly" and the Government was "housing them in communities instead".

He added: "Residents in Leicestershire have contacted myself and other councillors to express concerns about illegal, undocumented people arriving in Leicestershire and the effect they will have on communities.

"People are finding out they are turning up next door or in their street in the form of HMOs."

Lib Dem county councillor Cllr Stuart Bray, who seconded the motion, said the issue was "causing a great deal of concern" within Hinckley.

He added: "There are many in the right-wing press and those with social media algorithms who are seeking to drive division who want us to forget these are human beings whose lives we will never understand.

"My constituents are compassionate people. They want a system that is fair and transparent.

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"Of course, there are people who will try it on. This is why we need an asylum system that works efficiently to make sure people who have no right to be here are deported quickly.

"It isn't immigrants that have caused these problems, it's the failure of successive governments that have caused these problems".

Cllr Bray added that the Government was "creating a vacuum" of information, leading to "inflammatory" posts and speculation on social media.

Reform UK councillor Adam Tilbury also told the council that "residents have no power in resisting them" and hit out at the private company Serco, which manages HMOs on behalf of the Government.

He added: "Despite all our efforts to contact Serco, all we received was a holding generic email and nothing else. No callbacks, email. They seem to be a completely faceless corporation with little accountability, which is an affront, really, considering taxpayers' money is housing many of the occupants."

However, Green Party councillor Naomi Bottomley told the council that it was "dangerous" to "conflate all HMOs with asylum accommodation".

She added: "We've seen on the news what happens when we do that. We are putting people's lives at risk.

"HMOs are used by students and young professionals who can't afford to rent by themselves. It is not exclusively asylum seeker accommodation.

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"I think this motion conflates the two".

Labour county councillor Jewel Miah told the full council meeting that HMOs were a "district matter" and that asylum accommodation in his district had "no major issues" despite one hotel closing down after a reduction in the number of people "coming over by boats".

He told the council meeting: "The need for hotel accommodation has gone down.

"One hotel has closed down and had about 200 people. That's about 50 houses if they were four-bedroom HMOs.

"The logic says if they aren't to be housed in hotels … then we do have to house them somewhere. They are human beings, we are human beings, and we are honourable people and the right people, and we want to house them somewhere.

"So we have to house them".

Conservative councillor Craig Smith also told the full council that he was "fundamentally against HMOs", labelled them as "bedsits" and agreed that "illegal immigrants… were taking a lot of space within HMOs".

He added: "I've seen it a lot in my division. It does make it an issue for local people. People do not like change.

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"These people are illegal. They are not residents of the United Kingdom. They have no sovereign claim to the United Kingdom.

"Asylum seekers are very different … they are people under persecution. These people haven't been persecuted in eight countries or more to get to the United Kingdom.

"They are economic migrants, and there is a big difference there".

The motion was voted 45 in favour and two against. The vote means that Leicestershire County Council will write to Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood asking for greater transparency regarding asylum accommodation in Leicestershire, as well as seeking more information.