Kemi Badenoch has been branded a “hypocrite” for calling for Conservative councils to challenge the use of hotels to accommodate asylum seekers in their local areas.
The Tory leader said in a letter on Wednesday that she was encouraging councils to take the same steps as Epping Forest District Council “if your legal advice supports it”.
But the move has been criticised as “desperate and hypocritical nonsense”, given the Conservative’s own record with asylum hotels.
At the peak of their use in the summer of 2023 under the Conservative government, there were more than 400 asylum hotels in use.
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.
The Essex council secured a temporary injunction from the High Court on Tuesday, blocking the use of Epping’s Bell Hotel as accommodation for asylum seekers on planning grounds.
Speaking on Thursday, shadow home secretary Chris Philp said there “should not have been 56,000 people in hotels” under the Conservatives, but echoed Ms Badenoch’s call for councils to take legal action.
Mr Philp said: “Kemi’s letter yesterday [Wednesday] said she would support and encourage Conservative councils to follow what Conservative-led Epping started in fighting the use of asylum hotels, where there is a legal basis to challenge them.
“What the Epping case has demonstrated is at least some of these asylum hotels the government are using aren’t being done so in accordance with the law. We’re encouraging and supporting conservative councils to do what Epping has done in standing up for their local communities.”
Mr Philp said he had written to the home secretary, Yvette Cooper, to ask that people being moved out of the Bell Hotel are not sent to another hotel.
School standards minister Cat McKinnell said she would not be able to comment on the specifics on where people being housed in hotels would be moved to.
The government is facing the prospect that more councils across the country could also launch legal action to restrict the use of the hotels.
These include Labour-run Tamworth and Wirral councils, Tory-run Broxbourne and East Lindsey councils and Reform’s Staffordshire and West Northamptonshire councils.
When asked whether she would support Labour-run councils in doing so, Ms McKinnell said it “wasn’t her place” to comment on what “would be a legal process” and said: “I think it’s important the government works really closely with local authorities to manage these circumstances within local communities.
“We recognise the legitimate concerns and the efforts that local authorities are making to make sure the situation under their locality is appropriate.”
A Labour spokesperson said Ms 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 Bell Hotel in Epping has previously been used as asylum accommodation briefly in 2020 and then between 2022 and 2024.
According to Home Office figures published on Thursday, the number of asylum seekers in hotels has dropped slightly from 32,345 in March this year, to 32,059 in June.
However, figures from the last 12 months during Labour’s first year in power show that the figure has increased from 29,585 – a rise of 8 per cent.
