Select committee: Home Affairs Committee

Conclusion 20

4th Report – The Home Office's management of asylum accommodation Published 27 Oct 2025 Addressed to Home Office
Conclusion (the committee's words)
Long stays in inappropriate hotels are often deeply harmful to the people accommodated there. Local services are left to respond to these impacts and fill the gaps where the basic needs of asylum seekers are not being met. The use of hotels has at times had a significant impact on community cohesion, which cannot be underestimated. The closure of hotels should therefore help reduce the number of cases where asylum seekers are placed in inappropriate accommodation, and ease local tensions. (Conclusion, Paragraph 88)

From: Home Affairs Committee, 4th Report – The Home Office's management of asylum accommodation (HC 580), 27 October 2025

Government response

The government responded to the whole report on 22 January 2026 (deadline 27 December 2025).

Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.

The government sets its response within its 'Restoring Order and Control' programme, committing to exit asylum hotels 'as soon as possible', while setting out some actions already taken and giving reasons where it does not agree with a recommendation.

  • On hotels, the government says it will close them "as soon as possible, and by the end of this Parliament", noting use has fallen from over 400 at its peak to 197 as of 5 January 2026. It does not comment on the timing of individual closures.
  • On contract management, it says it has strengthened capability and commissioned an independent review led by Mark Beaton, and reports recovering £74 million in profit share and service credits in the current financial year.
  • It says the Home Office "will seek to introduce" a more rigorous profit-share methodology in future contracts, and that revised KPI amendments "will be finalised by February 2026".
  • It does not agree to account for Contingency Accommodation directly in the National Allocation Plans, saying this would limit its ability to increase Dispersal Accommodation in areas that already host Contingency Accommodation.

Read the government's response ↗ Report an error