MSPs have called for action to be taken to help men living in "Dickensian squalor" in a homeless hostel which is given hundreds of thousands of pounds of taxpayers' money.

The Bellgrove Hotel, in Gallowgate, Glasgow, rakes in around £1.5 million a year in public cash. However, John Mason, Shettleston MSP, led a debate in the Scottish Parliament where he told members that prisons have far better conditions than the Bellgrove, which is home to around 140 men.

One measure could be to allow conditions to be placed on housing benefit payments to force the owners to improve conditions or face closure.

Housing Minister Margaret Burgess said the Scottish Government was working with Glasgow City Council to achieve solutions, but as the funding was from the Department of Work and Pension and the hotel is a private enterprise, there was little either could do at the moment.

Mr Mason said: "It has conditions that, generously, could be considered unsuitable, and less generously, grim, Dickensian, like a Soviet gulag or similar such descriptions."

The SNP politician said the council had closed large hostels down and found residents accommodation with housing providers and support services.

But he added: "Despite all the progress, the Bellgrove Hotel continues. That is largely because it is in private hands and not subject to the same regulation as other organisations by, for example, the Care Inspectorate, the Scottish Housing Regulator or other regulators.

"I visited the Bellgrove some time ago. When I visited Shotts prison and Low Moss prison recently, I found conditions in both prisons to be much better, with en suite facilities. That is something to which residents of the Bellgrove can only aspire."

Anne McTaggart, Glasgow Labour MSP, said new regulations had to be drawn up to incorporate the Bellgrove.

She said: "It is a place that epitomises deprivation and squalor. In every sense, it is a modern-day poorhouse.

"What is worse is that while these horrid conditions are left unchanged, those who are responsible for them are swindling the taxpayer out of £1.5m every year through the housing benefits that are given to people in need to find lodgings."

Sandra White, Kelvin SNP MSP, said: "I cannot for the life of me understand how a hotel can be classed as an HMO (House in Multiple Occupancy) and how it can get housing benefit.

"It costs £800 a month to stay somewhere that nobody else would stay in. In my area of Glasgow Kelvin, £800 a month would get someone a very good flat or other accommodation."

Ms Burgess said: "I met the leader of Glasgow City Council on the issue earlier in the year. We agreed that any long-term solution could be arrived at only by partnership working between us. That has led to continuing contact to identify potential models and, indeed, any financial implications for providing alternative accommodation and services for the residents of the Bellgrove Hotel."