Asylum hotel use shows small fall this year as Tory failure haunts Labour

The number of asylum seekers in hotels has dropped slightly since March as ministers grapple with the "terrible mess" left behind by the Tories.

Data released by the Home Office reveals that 32,059 migrants were being housed temporarily in UK hotels at the end of Labour's first year in Government. This is down from 32,345 three months earlier - but is 8% up from the same point 12 months ago.

It is 43% lower than the peak under Rishi Sunak, however. It comes as pressure grows on Keir Starmer to end the use of hotels - which he has promised to do by the end of this Parliament. But the PM's problems got worse on Tuesday when a High Court judge issued a temporary injunction ordering migrants out of the Bell Hotel in Epping. The Home Office is now braced for a series of similar legal challenges from councils across England, including from Labour town halls.

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This morning education minister Catherine McKinnell told Sky News: "We inherited a terrible mess from the last government when it comes to the immigration system and particularly the processing of asylum claims - massive backlog."

When the Tories were in power, the number of migrants living in more than 400 hotels rocketed to 56,000 and was costing taxpayers over £9million a day. The Conservatives started putting thousands of people in hotels back in 2020 when Boris Johnson was PM, insisting it was temporary.

Pressed on the speed of Government efforts to close asylum hotels, Ms McKinnell said: "What we've done is doubled the number of asylum claims that have been processed. So, that is reducing the number of people who are requiring this accommodation, but also returning people that shouldn't be here.

"We're also committed to ending the use of asylum hotels by the end of this Parliament. So, it will take some time to clean up the situation that we've inherited, but, you know, it's really important that we continue to both manage the accommodation that people are currently in and also speed up the process.

"The backlogs are totally unacceptable, not only for the amount of time that people are wasting, but that people are just not being returned that shouldn't be here as well."

Ministers are keen to avoid a repeat of ugly scenes outside asylum hotels across the country. In recent weeks demonstrators have clashed with police in Epping after a man living at the Bell was accused of assaulting a 14-year-old girl.

It is unclear where people currently living there will go. Khadar Mohamed, 24, told The Mirror those ensconced inside were 'living in pain and fear' each time locals held protests outside the hotel and that many now were more uncertain about their futures.

There are fears of further disorder after Reform chief Nigel Farage called for peaceful protests outside asylum hotels across the country. Brendan Cox, co-founder of campaign group Survivors Against Terror told The Mirror: “Farage needs to decide if he wants to be a serious politician or is more interested in being a rabble rouser."

Mr Cox, whose Labour MP wife Jo was murdered by a far-right terrorist in 2016, continued: "There is a legitimate public debate about the use of hotels for accommodating asylum seekers - calling for protests that he knows full well will intimidate residents, stretch the police and could lead to violence is not the way to address it.”

And Kemi Badenoch has breen branded "desperate and hypocritical" after kicking off over the asylum hotel mess her party caused. The under-fire Tory leader called on Conservative-controlled councils to launch legal challenges over hotels in their area.

Mrs Badenoch said she was "encouraging" them to "take the same steps" as Epping Council "if your legal advice supports it". A Labour spokesman said her letter was a "pathetic stunt" and "desperate and hypocritical nonsense from the architects of the broken asylum system". Labour said there were now "20,000 fewer asylum seekers in hotels than at their peak under the Tories".

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