NICOLA STURGEON blasted Serco for its “inhumane” evictions policy today after the outsourcing giant announced it would resume lock changes on refugees’ doors in Glasgow.

Serco, which provides housing arrangements to around 300 people in Glasgow, first announced last July that it was issuing eviction notices to tenants whose asylum applications were unsuccessful.

A judge dismissed a legal challenge from two tenants but the policy was paused after public outcry and warnings of direct action to resist eviction attempts.

Serco subsequently lost the Home Office contract for Scotland but new operator Mears Group will not take over until September.

Glasgow MSP Sandra White raised the issue at First Minister’s Questions, with First Minister Nicola Sturgeon responding: “It is inhumane that people can be evicted from their homes by the locks being changed.”

She said the “root problem here” was the “inhumane asylum system” pursued by the Home Office.

Meanwhile Labour MSP Mark Griffin raised the plight of workers at Hairmyres Hospital in East Kilbride who are balloting for strike action after a new payroll system left them short of a week’s wages.

He said they were being paid “two weeks’ wages for three weeks’ work.”

Ms Sturgeon said Health Secretary Jeane Freeman had been in touch with the hospital and the GMB union.

But she also chastised Mr Griffin by saying the payroll fiasco was “one of the symptoms of PFI [private finance initiatives] that Labour was happy to support all those years ago and now has the nerve to stand up and complain about.”