Councillors have committed their authority to becoming a Council of Sanctuary, vowing to treat migrants with “dignity and respect”.

Starting debate on her successful motion, which commits Calderdale Council to become part of the City of Sanctuary local authority network, Coun Jenny Lynn slammed the Conservative Government’s Nationality and Borders Act and proposed Illegal Migration  Bill, which she alleged is “even less humane”.

Coun Lynn (Lab, Park) said: “This resolution is asking all of us in this chamber to stand up for our Calderdale values of dignity and respect for all, and to reject the divisive rhetoric  that tries to demonise people who come seeking a place of safety and a new life here in Calderdale.

“We know that we are all the richer because over the years people from right across the world have made their home in Calderdale and contributed so much to the economic, social and cultural life of our borough.”

Coun Lynn, Cabinet member for Public Services and Communities, said around 700 people seeking asylum were living in Calderdale in what the Government calls “dispersed accommodation”.

They received £45 a week to pay for everything including food, phone calls and bus fares – £7 a day – she said, while Coun Dot Foster (Lab, Sowerby Bridge) said those accommodated in hotels received just £8.24 weekly.

Coun Lynn said: “Yet the Government keeps them waiting, in limbo, for months and often years and refuses to allow them to take on paid work to do jobs that are needed, to pay taxes into the system – how crazy is that?”

Councillors Diana Tremayne (Lab, Todmorden), Abigail Carr (Lib Dem, Warley) and Ann Kingstone (Lab, Skircoat) all said those seeking asylum have stories to tell and should be listened to.

“We have a lot of rhetoric in the national press – we hear the slogans and we don’t find out about the real people,” said Coun Tremayne.

Coun Regan Dickenson (Con, Rastrick) said his mother was German and he was very liberal on immigration.

However, things had to be balanced – it struck him as perverse that food was rotting in the fields but there were issues with an approach to recruiting doctors into the NHS from third countries, he said.

The country had a long history of welcoming political refugees and people seeking shelter from persecution and failure to support those who served and assisted British forces in Afghanistan stuck in his craw, said Coun Dickenson.

But he felt some parts of Coun Lynn’s motion were problematic – it said “no migrant should be considered illegal” but it was wrong that Albanians were coming across on boats “to an uncertain future and the hands of gangs, exploitation and trafficking” from a country regarded as one safe for freedom of expression and from where potentially they could have arrived with visas, said Coun Dickenson.

Along with other Conservative councillors he abstained in the vote, with the motion supported by Labour, Liberal Democrat and Green councillors when the motion was put to a meeting of the full Calderdale Council.

Coun Paul Bellenger (Lib Dem, Greetland and Stainland) said he supported the motion 100 per cent and saw asylum seekers in his ward.

“They are just existing in these hotels – nothing is happening to them, they are not getting the support, they are not able to integrate into the community – and it’s not fair, it’s actually sad to see that.

“I use the words refugees and asylum seekers loosely because at the end of the day they are human beings, they are people just like you and me, fleeing from a war-torn country – we would just do the same,” he said.

Coun Sarah Courtney (Lab, Calder) spoke movingly about grandparents from Prague and Ireland and the contributions they had made to society.

In the late 1930s her grandfather insisted the family move to London from Prague, then in the Sudetenland, because they were Jewish – other family members did not believe things would get so bad as they did and they perished in concentration camps.

People were not always fleeing war but sometimes social pressures, said Coun Courtney – if her Irish grandparents had not moved to London her grandmother would have been put into one of the infamous Magdelene Laundries or other homes for unmarried pregnant women and her father would have been taken away and adopted, she said.