The dispersal policy will continue and the national asylum support system will continue

Jeff Rooker

The attacks have sparked criticism of the way asylum seekers are dispersed around the country often to deprived areas where housing is more readily available.

The attacked men were among 30,000 asylum seekers moved north in the past 18 months in order to try to reduce pressure on London and south eastern local authorities.

The policy was defended by Home Office Minister Jeff Rooker who said it had been "by and large very successful" and would therefore continue.

"The dispersal policy will continue and the national asylum support system will continue," he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

He said that asylum seekers would not be given a choice as to where they lived whilst their case was under scrutiny because "they will migrate to the south east and the London area again".

Mr Rooker defended the government

Although the government would not "deliberately aggravate" already tense situations, he pledged.

But Mr Rooker warned: "We will not pull out of areas simply because people say it's an area where there could be racists.

"Only on police advice would we not use a particular area otherwise our policies would be run by the racists in this country and we're not going to have that."

Mr Rooker said that were around 700,000 empty homes around the country mostly located in the Midlands or the north.

"There's not too many in the sunny commuter belt otherwise we would be dispersing there," he said.

Reduce numbers - Martin

Meanwhile Commons Speaker Michael Martin, whose Glasgow Springburn constituency includes the Sighthill where Mr Yildiz was killed, said the number of refugees in the area should be reduced so tensions could ease.

He told BBC Radio Scotland: "There's a lot of decent people in Sighthill, people who have made the asylum-seekers and refugees before them, over the past 15 or 16 years, welcome and the message that they have put out is 'We want to work with them'."

He said that the most important thing now was to catch the killers so it could be established whether or not the murder had been racially motivated.

A spokesman for the Conservative Party said: "Racially-motivated attacks are completely unacceptable.

"Asylum applicants should have their needs provided for properly rather than simply being left to their own devices in communities which are not fully equipped to look after them."