Ministers will ramp up the closure of migrant hotels in Spring as part of plans to reduce pressure on the asylum system.
Home secretary Shabana Mahmood announced sweeping immigration reforms at the end of last year, which included making refugee status temporary and scrapping the right to family reunion. The Labour government has pledged to end the use of costly asylum hotels by 2029, however, the number of asylum seekers housed in the controversial accommodation has risen year-on-year.
The Home Office is now expected to ramp up the closure of hotels in Spring this year, under plans first reported by The I paper.
This will be facilitated by moving migrants waiting on asylum claim decisions into different forms of accommodation. Ministers have pledged to open army barracks to house asylum seekers and suggested that pop-up buildings could be used to create space. More homes of multiple occupation could also be used to house people seeking asylum.
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The Home Office is hoping to ramp up removals from the UK to free up hotel space. Ms Mahmood has also pledged to revoke housing and financial support from asylum seekers who have the right to work or who have broken the law. The home secretary will remove the current legal obligation to provide support to asylum seekers who would otherwise be destitute. The government has pledged to revoke the duty in the coming months and replace it with a discretionary power, that will further restrict who is helped.
A senior Whitehall source told The I paper that the one in, one out returns deal with France will also be expanded, and that the government is hopeful a similar deal could be agreed with Germany.
More than 36,000 asylum seekers were being housed in Home Office hotels in September last year. The number of people in migrant hotels peaked at 56,018 at the end of September 2023 under the Conservatives, but fell to 29,561 at the end of June 2024.
The total number of people in receipt of asylum support from the government is also up two per cent year-on-year, with 111,651 individuals getting help at the end of September.
MPs warned last year that billions of pounds had been squandered on asylum hotel contracts due to poor management and incompetence at the Home Office.
The influential Home Affairs Committee criticised the level of accountability and oversight over large accommodation contracts. Migrant hotels became flashpoints of protest last summer after an asylum seeker in Epping, Essex, sexually assaulted a 14-year-old girl.
Epping council sought to close down the hotel, taking their legal fight to the High Court, but were unsuccessful. The Home Office argued that the government would “face considerable difficulties in re-accommodating them [the asylum seeker residents] appropriately” if the hotel was shut down.
