Recommendation 21

The Home Office told us that it is working with the Local Government Association and individual councils and was “talking about all the big issues that arise, whether that is housing capacity, health, safeguarding and so on”.62 Specifically on room-sharing, the Home Office said it was “talking that through nationally and individually with councils”.63 We pointed out that councils had already received letters telling them how many more people would need to be accommodated in hotels. The Home Office acknowledged that its communications had not been about whether the increase in room-sharing will happen, 51 Q 61 52 House of Commons Library, Asylum accommodation: hotels, vessels and large-scale sites, CBP 9831, 7 July 2023 53 Q 63 54 Qq 89–90 55 Q 91 56 Qq 66–68 57 Q 66 58 Q 115 59 Correspondence from the Home Office to PAC dated 18 August 2023 60 Committee of Public Accounts, Asylum accommodation and support transformation programme, Twenty-Fifth Report of Session 2019–21, HC 683, 20 November 2020 61 HM Treasury, Government responses to the Committee of Public Accounts on the Twenty-Fifth to the Twenty- Ninth reports from Session 2019–21, CP 376, February 2021 62 Qq 81, 143 63 Qq 85–86 14 The Asylum Transformation Programme but about how it will be done and how risks will be managed.64 The Home Office could not answer a specific question asking why Hull City Council received a letter from the Home Office saying that it was halting further increases in the asylum seeking population due to unsustainable pressures in the area, only to receive another letter 10 days later saying it would double the number of people in hotels in the city.65 In a letter the Home Office sent to us on 18 August 2023, it said that dispersed accommodation procurement in Hull was paused, except for any accommodation already in the process of being procured. It said that room sharing in hotels was treated separately from dispersed accommodation.66