Source · Select Committees · Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 3
3
Rejected
Set out clear timeline to reduce and cease using hotels for asylum accommodation
Conclusion
The Home Office does not have a credible plan for ending the use of hotels to accommodate people waiting for a decision and the unacceptable cost this creates. The Home Office spent £2.3 billion on hotels in 2022–23 to accommodate people waiting for their asylum decision. In April 2023, there were 48,000 people waiting for a decision while living in hotels. To reduce its reliance on hotels the Home Office has sought ‘dispersal accommodation’ in local areas. But while it initially hoped to find 500 new beds every week, it found, on average, just 48 new beds a week in the year to April 2023. The Home Office has struggled to procure larger scale accommodation and has now told us it is “maximising the use of hotels” by increasing the number of people who share hotel rooms, though it could not set out how much money this would save. We were surprised to hear that the Home Office is paying for in excess of 5,000 empty hotel beds as a ‘buffer’ in case its initial accommodation sites, such as Manston, cannot cope with the number of people arriving. The Home Office has told us that to plan effectively it needs to estimate future demands on the UK asylum system, and that it uses several ‘scenarios’ to model how many people will arrive in the UK. However, it told us that it does not have a date for when it expects to stop using hotels under these scenarios. Recommendation 3: The Home Office should, as part of its Treasury Minute response, set out how and by when it intends to reduce its use of hotels, and when it intends to stop using hotels altogether, under its different planning scenarios about the number of people applying for asylum.
Government Response Summary
The government disagrees with the recommendation, explaining that the use of hotels was a short-term measure and a plan is in place to reduce reliance, including closing over 50 hotels by January 2024. However, it states that modelling future demand is complex and uncertain, thus not committing to a specific date for ceasing hotel use.
Government Response
Rejected
HM Government
Rejected
The government disagrees with the Committee’s recommendation. The Home Office has always been clear that the use of hotels as temporary accommodation for asylum seekers was a short-term measure to ensure that the department met its statutory obligation to accommodate asylum seekers who would otherwise be destitute, during a period of unprecedented numbers of small boat arrivals. In line with the Prime Minister’s comprehensive ten-point plan (13 December 2022) to tackle illegal migration, a clear plan and range of measures have been implemented to reform the management of the asylum accommodation estate. This includes optimising the use of existing hotels and increasing the number of people room sharing, growing the amount of dispersed accommodation available and delivering alternative forms of accommodation sites. As a result of these actions, the department has now begun to reduce reliance on hotel accommodation and has plans in place to close over 50 hotels before the end of January 2024. Whilst modelling asylum and accommodation demand is complex and inherently uncertain, the Home Office will continue to keep modelling assumptions and estimates under regular review to ensure that accommodation estate capacity remains sufficient for future levels of demand, under a range of different planning scenarios.