Home Office admits it has lost track of migrants with no right to be in UK – but doesn’t know how many

The Home Office admitted it had lost track of migrants who had no right to be in the UK but did not know how many there were, in what MPs described as a “shocking and unacceptable” indictment of the asylum system.

MPs on the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) have called on the government to make public how many failed asylum seekers are living in the UK, what they plan to do to track them down and how they will be deported.

In a damning report on the state of the asylum system published on Friday, MPs said the Home Office was still focused on “short-term solutions” to rising costs and asylum backlogs and lacked a “credible long-term strategy” for how to reduce the billions of dollars spent on migrants’ accommodation in hotels.

Referring to failed asylum seekers who have exhausted their appeal rights, Home Office officials told PAC they knew “where some of them are”, but that some “who do not comply with bail conditions” will be considered fugitives and the department will “try to track them down”.

The Home Office also admitted that it “absolutely did not count everyone as being out of the country” and therefore did not know who had left the UK or who was still remaining. Authorities said they knew the whereabouts of the “vast majority” of those not seeking asylum, but the PAC condemned the situation as a “shocking and unacceptable situation”.

The Home Office does not publish figures on the number of unsuccessful asylum seekers it has lost track of, but ministers acknowledged more than 5,000 were missing by 2024. At the time, 5,598 asylum seekers whose claims had been withdrawn were still in the UK but had been cut off from the Home Office.

MPs also criticized the Home Office’s ability to achieve value for money for taxpayers when managing asylum accommodation contracts. The report stated: “Although the Home Office claims to have clawed back excess profits of ‘£46 million’ from providers last year, we do not find this entirely reassuring.” Rather than demonstrating effective oversight, it highlights weaknesses in the original contract design.”

The report calls for a full review of all hotel contracts to assess whether profit levels are reasonable. Asylum support costs have risen to nearly £4bn in 2024-25, according to figures shared by the National Audit Office; This includes £2.1bn spent on hotels. The number of people housed in Home Office hotels has decreased since the end of 2023; As of March 2026, 20,885 refugees are living in this expensive accommodation. This is down from the peak of 56,042 in September 2023. More people now live in dispersed accommodation, such as multi-occupancy houses in communities. The government also relies on large sites such as former military bases to provide extra housing.

Despite the progress made, MPs on the cross-party committee said there was “no credible long-term strategy to widen distribution”. They warned against plans to expand larger facilities.

With increasing numbers of people presenting homeless people to councils after being evicted from Home Office accommodation, the pressure has instead moved to local councils, the report said.

PAC chairman Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown said the committee’s findings “paint a disturbing picture”. He said: “A focus on short-term, reactive ‘fixes’ has left the government chasing pressures pushed from one part of the system to another. There is no clear strategy unifying these efforts, and engagement between departments and local authorities is patchy at best. Given the inability of senior officials to articulate what the asylum system is collectively trying to achieve, it is not surprising that such a directionless bureaucracy results in people at the center of the system either remaining in limbo or lost altogether.”

He also criticized the Home Office’s management of a former prison site in Bexhill, East Sussex, which was earmarked for housing immigrants but will now be redeveloped for housing. Sir Geoffrey said: “It is untenable that accommodation deemed unfit to host asylum seekers is now considered part of plans to increase the UK’s housing stock. If it is not suitable for asylum seekers, why is it suitable for our homeless population?”

The government said the site would be developed into a social housing project by Homes England in partnership with the council and local community.

Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary, said: “This is what happens when a government scraps every removal mechanism it has inherited and replaces it with almost nothing. More than 73,000 illegal immigrants have crossed the Channel under this Labor government and the apparatus for removing those who have no right to remain is collapsing,” he added.

Max Wilkinson, the Liberal Democrats’ home affairs spokesman, said the report revealed the government’s “failure to fix the broken asylum system left behind by the Conservatives”.

Steve Smith, chief executive of immigration charity Care4Calais, said: “This report confirms what we already knew. Labor has fast-tracked initial decisions, but poor quality decisions mean they are moving people from one backlog to another, and the number of applications is soaring. We have literally tens of thousands of people left in limbo, with the state still needing to provide support to prevent poverty. To fix the system, the Labor government needs to invest in the appeals system; quality initial decisions that give protection to those who need it, as well as increasing access to legal support.”

Imran Hussain, director of external relations at the Refugee Council, said the report’s call for a more effective asylum system “should require the government to rethink its unworkable plans for repeated reviews of refugee status every 30 months, which would be a bureaucratic nightmare and would undermine refugees’ efforts to integrate and find employment.”

A Home Office spokesman said Independent: “Asylum claims are down, hotel use is down, and immigration enforcement activity is at its highest level on record, with the highest number of raids and arrests ever.

“We have tracked down and eliminated nearly 70,000 illegal immigrants and foreign criminals since the government took office, an increase of 41 per cent. Asylum seekers who break bail conditions by escaping will be tracked down and arrested.”