Labour councils poised to take legal action against migrant hotels
Ministers are scrambling to devise contingency plans to house asylum seekers as 80 Labour, Conservative and Reform councils consider their legal positions.
The Conservative-run Epping Forest district council was granted a temporary injunction blocking the Bell Hotel from being used to house migrants on Tuesday. It risks collapsing the government's asylum accommodation system as councils around the country explore their own legal options.
ALAMY
In a sign of a growing rebelling against the government, two Labour-run councils — Tamworth and Wirral — confirmed they were considering different approaches, while an MP in the party expressed support for closing hotels 'as quickly as possible'.
The Tory leader Kemi Badenoch on Wednesday wrote to all 65 Conservative councils celebrating the 'victory' and encouraging them to 'take the same steps' to 'protect your community' after consulting planning officers.
The injunction related to The Bell was granted on the basis that the hotel failed to apply for planning permission for a 'material change' in its use.
There has been a marked increase in the use of hotels to provide asylum accommodation since 2020, under the Tory government. About 1,200 asylum seekers were housed in hotels in March 2020, but the number had ballooned to more than 47,000 two years later, House of Lords Library research showed.
Migrants held in such hotels are awaiting judgments on their cases — and could include asylum seekers as well as people who arrived in the UK via small boats.
Reform UK said the 12 councils it controls were exploring their own legal options after the ruling and also urged residents to protest at hotels housing migrants, to force their removal.
The ruling also prompted Antrim & Newtownabbey borough council to start an 'enforcement investigation' into the planning status of an asylum hotel in Co Antrim.
Carol Dean, leader of Labour -run Tamworth borough council, which was the scene of violent disorder after the Southport stabbings, said the ruling 'represented a potentially important legal precedent'.
Hundreds of anti-immigration protesters descended on the Holiday Inn Express in the market town of Tamworth in August last year. Some threw missiles including fireworks, a petrol bomb, bricks, chunks of concrete and lampposts at the hotel and police officers.
Dean stressed that the council had explored similar legal avenues when the Home Office first started housing asylum seekers there. However, she said the council did not pursue a temporary injunction after noting that other cases had been initially granted but were 'not ultimately upheld by the courts'.
'The situation at Epping Forest represents a potentially important legal precedent, and we are carefully assessing what this might mean for our circumstances here in Tamworth,' she said.
Authorities on the Wirral, a peninsula in Merseyside, had to deal with similar hostilities when a hotel in Hoylake became the target of protests after it emerged the Home Office was planning to use it as accommodation for male asylum seekers instead of families. Three men were arrested on suspicion of public order offences after demonstrating outside the hotel this month.
Paula Basnett, the leader of the Wirral Labour council, said it was 'unacceptable for the government to impose unsuitable, short-term arrangements that disrupt communities and bypass local decision-making'.
One Labour MP whose constituency has had protests outside an asylum hotel, also backed 'any measure to close the hotels as quickly as possible'.
The MP, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, told The Times: 'I'd like to see the end of profiteering contractors benefiting off asylum which is rudimentary unsuitable and unwanted in our community.'
They added: 'Whether legal challenges are going to be an effective route, I'm not sure. The ruling in Epping is quite narrow and I'm not sure if it will work up here. In any case the legal case is not dealing with the problem, just the symptoms — the Home Office will just be housing them somewhere else.'
ALAMY
The government has been attempting to reduce the use of asylum hotels, with the number falling from 400 in the summer of 2023 to 210. However, they remain politically toxic and have been hotspots for anti-immigration unrest, meaning their locations are largely kept secret.
The number of asylum seekers living in hotels fell from 46,000 at the end of 2022, to 38,000 at the end of last year, according to figures compiled by the Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford. At the same time, the number of people living in 'dispersal' accommodation jumped from 56,000 to 66,000.
Dan Jarvis, the security minister, told Times Radio on Wednesday that migrants in Epping would be 'appropriately accommodated' at other sites. 'We're looking at a range of different contingency options,' he said.
He added that 'we'll see over the next few days and weeks' whether more legal cases would follow after other councils said the ruling had set a 'massive precedent'.
The first council to follow Epping's example on Tuesday was Broxbourne, which is controlled by the Conservatives, in Hertfordshire. Corina Gander, leader of the local authority, said: 'We are going to be looking at the ruling of Epping yesterday and we will be expecting to go down the same path.'
Groups opposing the far right in Newcastle two weeks ago
IAN FORSYTH/GETTY IMAGES
The Tory-run East Lindsey district council, which has one asylum hotel in its district, and Hillingdon council, which is believed to have at least four, are among the Tory councils considering action.
A group of lawyers is also being assembled by Robert Jenrick to help scores of other councils seek similar injunctions. The shadow home secretary said 'patriotic' local authorities and community groups should follow Epping's lead.
The group of pro-bono legal advisers includes Lord Banner KC, described by Keating Chambers as 'one of the UK's most effective and influential planning' silks.
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