An MP who accepted calls from a church minister to come and meet asylum seekers in person said the visit highlighted "how inefficient the whole system is."

Shipley MP Philip Davies spent two hours meeting asylum seekers at Great Horton church after an invitation from Councillor the Reverend Paul Flowers.

The meeting was called after Mr Davies' comments that people who were struggling to be housed were being forced to vote for the right-wing extremist British National Party because of large number of asylum seekers in the area.

Coun Rev Flowers (Lab, Great Horton) said he was "deeply impressed" that Mr Davies came in the first place and that he spent a long time listening to "difficult" and "horrendous" stories of persecution, torture, the murder of family members and flight from their homelands.

He said: "I was equally impressed that he was prepared to admit that most of those present deserved to be granted asylum. With us he was angry that the appeal process is far too lengthy, in the case of many of our congregation already taking between four and eight years to determine.

"We are glad that he came and we hope that we contributed something to his knowledge of the situation, which he can use in debates in the House of Commons."

Mr Davies said he had always accepted refugees genuinely fleeing persecution should be given refuge status.

He said: "The visit did not change my view of asylum seekers, but what it did do is highlight some people do genuinely flee persecution and we should welcome them into the country.

"And it highlighted how insufficient the whole system is."

The invitation came after the Telegraph & Argus ran a story with latest Home Office figures which revealed more asylum seekers were living in Government-funded accommodation in Yorkshire than anywhere else in the country.

The figures released by the Home Office showed nearly 7,500 asylum seekers are in the accommodation - more than a fifth of the entire number in the UK.

Of the region's 22 per cent of the asylum population living in the "dispersal accommodation" - 745 are in Bradford.

A further 240 are placed in Calderdale, 780 in Kirklees and 2,015 in Leeds.

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