Allowing a ban on housing asylum seekers at a protest-hit hotel risks more disorder and could have a “serious impact” on the UK’s ability to house migrants, the Home Office has claimed.
The government has applied to be allowed to appeal an interim High Court injunction which stops asylum seekers being housed at The Bell Hotel in Epping, Essex. Epping Forest District Council won the temporary ban after a series of violent anti-migrant protests resulted in multiple arrests and saw several police officers injured.
The hotel owners, Somani Hotels Ltd, and the Home Office were at the Court of Appeal on Thursday seeking permission to overturn the ban, which threatens to throw the government’s asylum policy into chaos if more councils seek similar vetoes.
In documents submitted to court, the home secretary Yvette Cooper said that the injunction “essentially incentivises” other councils who wish to close down migrant hotels in their areas to seek legal action and argued that “the available asylum estate is subject to incredibly high levels of demand”.
Becca Jones, director of asylum support at the Home Office, said the loss of the bed spaces in The Bell Hotel would be “significant” amid rising small boat crossings and limited available accommodation. She said that the Home Office would “face considerable difficulties in re-accommodating them [asylum seekers] appropriately”.
Lawyers for Ms Cooper also said that allowing Epping council’s injunction “creates a chaotic and disorderly approach”.
“The granting of an interim injunction in the present case runs the risk of acting as an impetus for further protests, some of which may be disorderly, around other asylum accommodation,” the Home Office told the court.
Sir Keir Starmer is under pressure to move faster to close hotels after figures revealed that the number of asylum seekers housed in the accommodation rose by eight per cent in the past year.
Responding to the High Court’s order last week, deputy leader of Reform UK, Richard Tice, urged local residents around the country to protest at hotels housing migrants to force their removal.
Shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick also hailed the ruling, saying: “What a result for the people of Epping. What now? More peaceful protests. More injunctions... Starmer will only respond to pressure.”
In his ruling, Mr Justice Eyre had agreed with the council’s argument that The Bell is no longer a hotel, and as such it “no longer provides a resource for dining, receptions, functions and the like”. He found that there was a case to argue that there had been a breach of planning control.
Edward Brown KC, for the Home Office, told Court of Appeal judges on Thursday that Mr Justice Eyre’s decision “substantially interferes” with the “national public interest... which is to ensure that vulnerable individuals, namely asylum seekers, are accommodated”.
Mr Brown said that the home secretary has a duty to provide accommodation for asylum seekers, who would be “potentially destitute” without the use of hotels.
In written arguments, the Home Office said that the “fact of criminal wrongdoing (and local concerns arising from criminal wrongdoing) is not a sufficient reason to require the immediate closure of asylum accommodation infrastructure housing many other individuals”.
In further submissions, Piers Riley-Smith, for Somani Hotels, said the Court of Appeal should “exercise its discretion” and quash the injunction made last week.
He said the “extremely high-profile nature of the issue” created a “risk of a precedent being set as a number of other local authorities are reported to be considering similar injunctions to address the use of hotels for asylum seekers”.
Philip Coppel KC, for Epping Forest District Council, said in written submissions that it was “surprising” that the Home Office did not act sooner in the legal battle. Mr Coppel said that the home secretary’s case “is based on generalised assertions” about the difficulties of finding new accommodation to house asylum seekers.
The appeal by the hotel owners and the Home Office come in the same week as a resident at the hotel, Hadush Gerberslasie Kebatu, has been on trial accused of sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl last month.
Mr Kebatu told a court on Wednesday that he did not attempt to kiss the girl because he is “not a wild animal”. He told Colchester Magistrates’ Court that he only said “hello” to the schoolgirl and her friends in Epping and nothing more because he was “worried about my asylum case”.
He said he had only been living in the hotel for around a week before his arrest after travelling through Sudan, Libya, Italy and France in order to get to the UK.
Another man who was living at the site, Syrian national Mohammed Sharwarq, has separately been charged with seven offences.
Twenty-eight people have been arrested in relation to disorder at The Bell hotel, and 16 of them have been charged.
The latest Home Office data, published last week, shows there were 32,059 asylum seekers in UK hotels at the end of June.
This was up from 29,585 at the same point a year earlier, when the Conservatives were still in power, but down slightly on the 32,345 figure at the end of March.
Immigration minister Seema Malhotra on Thursday dismissed Reform UK’s plans to deport some 600,000 migrants if they took power, saying they were “gimmicks” that have “unravelled on basic facts and figures”.
Councils across the country have said that they are watching the Epping case to see if they would be able to follow in their footsteps. Labour has vowed to end reliance on hotels by 2029, but a string of anti-migrant protests across the country has put pressure on ministers to act faster.
The protests at The Bell hotel were triggered in July after Mr Kebatu was charged with sexual assault. Hundreds of anti- and pro-immigration protesters have since been demonstrating at the site, with far-right activists also turning up to exploit the situation.
The site became a “feeding ground for unrest”, according to the council, who alleged that the hotel was “a danger to school-age students about to start the new school year, a valid source of anxiety for their parents and teachers, and a disfigurement of the local environment”.
The High Court injunction if not overturned will stop 138 asylum seekers housed at The Bell Hotel from living there beyond 12 September.
The Court of Appeal is expected to issue its judgement in the appeal case at 2pm on Friday.
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