UK Government to End Migrant Hotel Stay by January Amid Rising Costs

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The Government of the United Kingdom is poised to finalize its intentions to cease using 50 identified hotels as makeshift residences for migrants by January. Early in the year, around 400 hotels were reportedly providing shelter to an unprecedented number of asylum seekers.

According to a disclosure expected Tuesday, Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick will unfold a strategy for discontinuation of hotel contracts that are currently draining significant finances from the public purse, at a rate of £8 million per day.


Government agencies haven’t shied away from expressing their disapproval of the steep expenditure, vowing to curb the state’s dependency on hotels for migrant accommodations. This reliance on hotel housing has seen a steep surge, mirroring the hike in asylum seeker numbers within the UK – a figure hitting its highest in almost two decades last year with 74,751 individuals, as revealed by the Home Office.

Going by the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999, the UK Home Office bears a legislated responsibility to provide housing to destitute asylum seekers awaiting the conclusion of their claims. August witnessed a record high in numbers of individuals undergoing application processes, with a staggering 175,000 people.

In a proactive step last December, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak set forth a robust target to eradicate this mounting backlog by the close of the current year, effectively leading to the recruitment of double the number of personnel involved in processing asylum applications, to 2,500. The Labour Party, however, proposes the engagement of an additional 1,000 caseworkers to efficiently combat the backlog.

In an encouraging development, hotels in areas including Northampton and Kettering, potential electoral strongholds for Labour in the approaching general elections, have already discontinued housing migrants, and more are set to follow suit.

To further alleviate the burden on hotels, the government has begun the relocation of migrants to the Bibby Stockholm barge, despite a temporary evacuation occasioned by a Legionella bacteria outbreak in August. Ministers are hopeful that more such floating accommodation solutions will see the light of day in upcoming months.

The transition hasn’t been smooth, however, with violent demonstrations cropping up in response to hotels serving as temporary homes for asylum seekers. Legal ambiguity over the strategy also looms large, with the Supreme Court currently pondering on the scheme’s lawfulness, following a Court of Appeal reversal of an earlier High Court decision in favour of the plan.

Prime Minister Sunak remains unwavering in his commitment to curbing illegal immigration to the UK, a key agenda of his administration.