Asylum seekers will continue to be housed in hotels for up to four more years, the Home Office’s top civil servant has said.
Sir Matthew Rycroft, Permanent Under-Secretary of State at the Home Office, told the Commons Home Affairs Committee that his department’s “overarching aim” is to “exit” hotels by the end of the current Parliament, due in August 2029.
His statement to the Committee compares to Labour‘s pledge to end the use of hotels for asylum seekers within a year of hiring a thousand caseworkers, tasked with reducing a backlog of applications.
Sir Matthew said: “The overarching aim continues to be to exit hotels by the end of the Parliament, but… the journey is off to a good start. It is down from more than 400 to 218.”
He added the number will continue to go down, but it might also go up on some occasions because it is a statutory obligation to provide accommodation and sometimes hotels are the only possible way of doing so.
Since entering Downing Street, ministers from Sir Keir Starmer’s party have admitted ending asylum hotels will take time and vowed to stop their use “as soon as possible”.
The UK spent £3billion on hotel accommodation in the financial year 2023-24, according to a report by the National Audit Office.
Hotel use peaked at 400 under the previous government in the autumn of 2023 when 56,000 asylum seekers were housed in such accommodation.
The number fell to 213 in July last year but rose again to 220 in October 2024, according to the Telegraph. Border Security Minister, Dame Angela Eagle, acknowledged the net rise of half a dozen hotels, but said nine are due to close by March.
Spending on accommodation and support for asylum seekers has rocketed from £739million in 2019-20 to £4.7billion in 2023-24, according to the Committee.
After the General Election, the Government announced a shift away from the use of the large sites, cancelling the planned site at RAF Scampton and ending the use of the Bibby Stockholm barge for housing asylum seekers.
A Home Office source told the Telegraph the Labour Government is “getting a grip” on the “mess” it inherited, with thousands more asylum decisions made each month.
They said changes have been made to a so called “move on” period to ensure people leave hotel accommodation smoothly and removals of those who have no right to be in the UK are increasing.
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said rules should be enforced whether for foreign criminals in British jails, those who overstay their visas or failed asylum cases.
The Government source said the Home Office is working with the Ministry of Justice to accelerate the asylum appeals system to take on the asylum appeals backlog.
