22-07-2025
Asylum seeker bill leaves Tory council in £17m deficit
A Conservative-led council has been forced into a deficit after the Government failed to provide adequate funding for the migrants it housed there.
Hillingdon council, responsible for the area around Heathrow airport, is in discussions with the Government to receive exceptional financial support (EFS) to deal with a £17m deficit.
According to the local authority, there are almost 3,000 asylum seekers in the borough, with around 2,800 currently housed in hotels near the airport.
This is twice the recommended amount under the Home Offices fair shares scheme, which attempts to proportionally allocate asylum seekers based on local population numbers.
Last year, Hillingdon received only £2,278,000 from the Government to house claimants locally, despite costs exceeding £4,000,000 over the same period.
Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary, criticised Labour for letting councils go 'bankrupt' trying to 'mop up' the Government's mess.
Hillingdon council also expects a cost of £1.2m to house Chagossians, following Sir Keir Starmer's deal to pass the islands to Mauritius.
Since the deal, which is set to cost at least £30bn, Hillingdon has seen a significant number of families from the Chagos Islands arriving at Heathrow and seeking housing support.
In one week in July, 120 Chagossians arrived, with the council claiming that the cost was not being 'fully met by the Government'.
Asylum seekers facing eviction from hotels by the Home Office must be housed in local council funded temporary accommodation, as many are not being deported.
The council explained this has placed a 'spiralling strain' on finances, as they have a legal requirement to house asylum seekers that arrive through the borough.
Mr Philp told The Telegraph that 'councils are going bankrupt trying to mop up this government's mess and Starmer's plan is to shove the problem onto private landlords, turning Britain's limited housing stock into permanent accommodation for illegal immigrants'.
He added: 'British taxpayers are footing the bill for hotel rooms, three meals a day, and numerous benefits for people who broke into this country, all while families in Hillingdon can't get a GP appointment.
'The Conservative Party's Deportation Bill would bring this circus to an end. We would detain illegal arrivals on the spot, deport them without delay. If the ECHR stands in our way, we will leave it.'
Cllr Ian Edwards, leader of the council, said: 'The pressure on our finances has never been greater, and the scale of the financial challenge and demand for our services has continued to mount with no sign of abating.'
Migration Watch, a think tank calling for lower migration criticised the Government's 'abject failure' to deal with the crisis, with Alp Mehment, the chairman, saying: 'This is another shocking consequence of the Government's abject failure to deal with this growing crisis.
'Migrants and their traffickers know that once here they'll be looked after royally at taxpayers' expense and few will ever be removed.'
A government spokesman said: 'This government inherited a broken asylum system, with tens of thousands stuck in a backlog and claims not being processed, wasting millions in taxpayer money.
'We are immediately speeding up decisions and increasing returns so we can end the use of hotels, and save the taxpayer £4 billion by 2026.'
