Taxpayers could spend up to £11.8million housing migrants at a four-star hotel if they were to stay there for a year, an analysis has revealed. The Home Office has reserved more than 400 of the beds at the Britannia International Hotel in London’s Canary Wharf, agreeing a deal for £81 per night for each asylum seeker who stays there.
The average length of stay for migrants in hotels is understood to be between six and 12 months. This means that taxpayers could pay up to £11.8million if they were to stay for one year. The Home Office said there were currently no asylum seekers or guests resident in the hotel.
Protesters have gathered outside the accommodation in recent days after false claims spread on social media that migrants were being transferred from the Bell Hotel in Epping.
The Essex venue has been at the centre of protests over the past fortnight after the arrest of an Ethiopian man accused of sexually assaulting a schoolgirl within eight days of arriving in the UK on a small boat.
Tommy Robinson, the far-Right activist, and Lee Nallalingham, chairman of Reform in Newham and Tower Hamlets, the borough that covers Canary Wharf, were among prominent figures who spread false rumours that migrants were being transferred from the Bell Hotel to the Britannia, both of which are closed to normal guests.
A police presence of about 15 officers was seen outside the entrance to the London venue on Wednesday morning, including at least four police vans with officers also in nearby streets.
But in a statement, a spokesman for the Home Office said: “Asylum seekers are not being removed from The Bell Hotel in Epping.”
The £81 fee is below the average nightly cost for migrant hotel rooms across the UK, which stood at £118.87 in March, down from a peak of £162.16 in March 2023.
The price of housing migrants in hotels is £5.77million a day. The Home Office has had a policy of reserving empty hotel beds since 2022 in order to give the department a buffer in the event of a surge in crossings.