Kemi Badenoch has called for more Conservative councils to launch legal challenges over asylum hotels as the Government faces a potential revolt from its own local authorities.
In a letter to Tory councils, Mrs Badenoch said she was “encouraging” them to “take the same steps” as Epping Council “if your legal advice supports it”.
Labour dismissed her letter as “desperate and hypocritical nonsense”, but several of its own local authorities have already suggested they too, could mount legal action against asylum hotels in their areas.
Epping secured a temporary injunction from the High Court on Tuesday, blocking the use of the Essex town’s Bell Hotel as accommodation for asylum seekers on planning grounds.
The decision has prompted councils controlled by Labour, the Conservatives and Reform UK to investigate whether they could pursue a similar course of action.
These include Labour-run Tamworth and Wirral councils, Tory-run Broxbourne and East Lindsey councils and Reform’s Staffordshire and West Northamptonshire councils.
Patrick Harley, the leader of Conservative-run Dudley Council, told the Daily Mail it was looking at taking legal action, a verdict echoed by Richard Biggs, the Tory leader of Reigate and Banstead Council.
But Labour’s Newcastle City Council and Brighton and Hove City Council have both ruled out legal action.
Tuesday’s High Court decision has also caused a potential headache for the Home Office, which has a legal duty to house destitute asylum seekers while their claims are being dealt with.
If planning laws prevent the Government from using hotels, ministers will face a scramble to find alternative accommodation, potentially in the private rented sector.
In her letter, Mrs Badenoch praised Epping Council’s legal challenge and told Tory councils she would “back you to take similar action to protect your community”.
But she added that the situation would “depend on individual circumstances of the case” and suggested Tory councils could pursue “other planning enforcement options”.
She also accused Labour of “trying to ram through such asylum hotels without consultation and proper process”, saying the Government had reopened the Bell Hotel as asylum accommodation after the Conservatives had closed it.
The hotel had previously been used as asylum accommodation briefly in 2020 and then between 2022 and 2024 under the previous Conservative government.
Shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick echoed the Opposition leader’s views, saying the country is “in a mess”.
He told the Daily Express: “Every patriotic council, whether Conservative, Reform, whatever, should follow Epping’s lead and seek an injunction”.
A Labour spokesperson said Mrs Badenoch’s letter was a “pathetic stunt” and “desperate and hypocritical nonsense from the architects of the broken asylum system”, saying there were now “20,000 fewer asylum seekers in hotels than at their peak under the Tories”.
The letter comes ahead of the publication on Thursday of figures showing how many asylum seekers were being temporarily housed in hotels at the end of June this year.
Home Office figures from the previous quarter show there were 32,345 asylum seekers being housed temporarily in UK hotels at the end of March.
This was down 15% from the end of December, when the total was 38,079, and 6% lower than the 34,530 at the same point a year earlier.
Figures on those staying in hotels date back to December 2022 and showed numbers hit a peak at the end of September 2023, when there were 56,042 asylum seekers in hotels.
Data is not released on the number of hotels in use, but it is thought there were more than 400 asylum hotels open in summer 2023.
Labour has said this has since been reduced to fewer than 210.
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