Migrant hotels set to be used for four more years as Labour pushes back deadline again
Hotels are set to continue to be used to house asylum seekers for up to the next four years, the Home Office's top civil servant has admitted.
Sir Matthew Rycroft, the Home Office's permanent secretary, said the department's 'overarching aim' was to 'exit' hotels by the end of the Parliament, which is due at the latest by August 2029.
His statement to MPs on the Commons home affairs committee contrasts with a declared pre-election ambition by Labour to 'end the use of hotels for asylum seekers within 12 months' of recruiting 1,000 caseworkers to tackle the backlog of applications.
The party's manifesto did not set a similar timescale and simply stated that a Labour Government would 'end asylum hotels, saving the taxpayer billions of pounds.' Since coming to power, Labour ministers have acknowledged that it 'will take time' and pledged their 'intention' to end asylum hotels 'as soon as possible.'
The number of hotels reached a peak of 400 under the Tories in autumn 2023, when it housed around 56,000 asylum seekers at a cost of £3 billion to the taxpayer.
It had fallen to 213 by the time of the election last July but had risen to 220 by last October, housing some 35,000. Last month, Dame Angela Eagle, the Border Security Minister, admitted there had been a net rise of six hotels but said that nine were scheduled to close by the end of March.
Labour has ramped up efforts to clear the backlog, with a five-fold increase in the number of asylum applications being processed since the election to around 10,000 a month.
However, this has been tempered by the arrival of more than 25,000 migrants who have been intercepted crossing the Channel since Sir Keir Starmer became Prime Minister.
Sir Matthew said the Government had abandoned the Tory policy of using 'large and novel' sites such as the Bibby barge and former military bases.
Instead, he said it was exiting hotels through using a large number of smaller sites, some of which would be bought by the Home Office but also included private rental properties.
Sir Matthew, who is stepping down from his post in March, said: 'The overarching aim continues to be to exit hotels by the end of the Parliament, but…the journey is off to a good start. It is down from more than 400 to 218.'
He added: 'It will continue to go down, but it might also, on some occasions, go up, because it is a statutory obligation to provide that accommodation and sometimes hotels are the only possible way of doing that.'
Government sources said Yvette Cooper, the Home Secretary, had been working on a 'sustainable and permanent exit from asylum hotels' since entering office. However, they claimed the task had been made harder by the 'appalling state' of the asylum system left by the Conservatives.
'They ground the whole system to a halt, meaning people were staying in hotels indefinitely with no prospect of removal,' said one source.
'We are getting a grip on the mess we inherited. Thousands more asylum decisions are being made each month and changes have been made to the move-on period to ensure people can exit hotels as smoothly as possible. We are increasing removals of those with no right to be here and cracking down on illegal working.'
There were around 97,170 asylum applications awaiting an initial decision in September 2024, down from a peak of around 134,000 in June 2023. There are a record 34,169 outstanding immigration appeals, with many using human rights laws to try to block their deportation from the UK.
A source said: 'There is more to do and we are working with the Ministry of Justice to speed up the asylum appeals system to start tackling the asylum appeals backlog. This is the hard graft needed to get a grip of a system the Tories left in utter chaos.'
Ms Cooper said: 'Whether it be about foreign national offenders in our jail, visa overstayers or failed asylum cases, the rules should be enforced. This is about basic respect and making the system work properly.'
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