Hundreds of asylum seekers moved from hotels to army barracks, Home Office announces | Immigration and asylum
The Home Office announced that hundreds of asylum seekers had been moved away from government-funded hotels, while others were sent to live in army barracks.
According to the Guardian’s initial report, 11 “asylum hotels” in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland have been closed and more will close “in the coming weeks”. Around 350 people were moved to Crowborough military camp in east Sussex, which a spokesman described as “essential accommodation”.
The moves follow Keir Starmer’s pledge to close all hotels housing asylum seekers before the next general election. It comes weeks before Labor faces potential defeat in local elections in England.
Reform UK continued to campaign for the closure of all 200 asylum hotels, housing around 30,000 people. Other refugees (more than 70,000 people) live in other types of accommodation such as shared housing or military barracks.
The number of hotels currently used to house refugees dropped from 400 to 185. Asylum seekers have little choice but to live in state-funded accommodation during their first year in the UK, as they are banned from working while their claims are assessed. The Ministry of Internal Affairs is obliged to host them.
The Banbury House hotel in Oxfordshire, the three-storey Georgian building that has been the focus of some protests, is no longer housing asylum seekers, the Home Office said in a statement. The Marine Court hotel in Bangor, County Down, was closed in February after hosting asylum seekers for four years, the local authority said.
The Citrus hotel in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, had been the focus of a campaign by local activists before it was emptied of asylum seekers a few weeks ago. Other closed hotels include the Holiday Inn near Heathrow; Britannia hotel in Wolverhampton; the Madeley Court hotel near Telford, which was closed to asylum seekers earlier this week; OYO Lakeside in St Helens, Merseyside, which was destroyed in December; The Crewe Arms hotel in Crewe; Sure hotel in Aberdeen; and the Rock hotel and the Wool Merchant hotel, both in Halifax.
Immigration minister Alex Norris said: “Hotels were intended as a short-term stopgap under the previous government, but they have spiraled out of control, costing taxpayers billions of dollars and falling on local communities with consequences.
“We are closing them by moving people into more basic accommodation, enlarging large areas, eliminating record numbers of people who have no right to stay.”
Under the last government, asylum decision-making came to a halt and hotel use jumped to almost 400 facilities. The latest hotel closures will save £65 million, according to the Home Office.
Protests outside hotels in England have become tense over the past two summers. Some protests have turned violent, such as when protesters in Rotherham in August 2024 tried to set fire to a hotel containing asylum seekers.
Refugee NGOs say the hotels are not suitable for long-term accommodation. A parliamentary inquiry found the government wasted billions of dollars on a “failed, chaotic and expensive system”.
Refugee Council External Relations Director Imran Hussain said large military sites were not a viable alternative to hotels. “The government’s own spending watchdog has previously found that they are more expensive than hotels and isolate people from local communities and essential services,” he said.
“There is a better way to end the use of hotels,” Hussain added. “The government could empty out hotels within a few months by allowing people from countries such as Sudan and Iran to stay for a limited period of time, subject to strict security checks.”
Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp said there were more refugees in hotels than at election time. “This is despite the fact that the government is moving people from hotels to apartments to hide what is going on,” Philp said. “These flats are not available to young people struggling to get on the housing ladder.”
