Local residents, refugee charities, the Prime Minister and I agree on this: the use of hotels to house asylum seekers needs to end as soon as possible.
Last week, I asked the government when we can expect an update on the closure of hotels being used to house asylum seekers.
The government is now making decent progress on tackling the backlog of asylum cases.Since July 2024, the number of decisions reached on asylum cases has doubled, and the removal of failed asylum seekers has increased by 30 percent. We are making more decisions, faster, and the backlog is going down as a result.
The widespread use of asylum hotels was started in 2020 by the previous Conservative Government. At the height of asylum hotel use under that government, there were over 400 hotels in operation.
That number has now almost halved to 210, and the government is aiming to close the rest of them by 2029. In response to my question, the Leader of the House has assured me that they will be closed as quickly as is practical.
The use of asylum hotels benefits nobody – other than the businesses like Clearspring who are making profits out of the system.
Residents want local hotels to be available for use, as they have been for celebrations and birthdays for decades. Local refugee charities are overwhelmed by demand for their support services.
And on the inside, asylum seekers can’t do very much other than wait for their cases to be processed while relying on less than £10 a week to live – as they are not allowed to work.
This chaos is a result of the wildly irresponsible Conservative decision to stop processing arrival claims after March 2023. The last government allowed the hotels, which were originally intended to be a stop-gap measure, to balloon into a core part of their asylum approach. It was exacerbated by the pandemic and the increase in small boats, leaving behind a broken system that made no one happy.
Now we are turning the page. There are break clauses that the government can use in 2026, and many of the contracts the Home Office holds with hotels will wrap up by 2029. I look forward to the end of using any hotels to house asylum seekers.
