Outrage as Labour closes just 11 migrants hotels since summer chaos | UK | News
Ten thousand refugees were moved out of hotels and resettled in shared accommodation and military installations as Labor moved to reduce the £4bn annual bill, which had become a political burden.
Figures released by the Ministry of Internal Affairs show that the hotel population has contracted sharply; It has fallen by a third since December, when 30,657 immigrants were subject to public charges. The current figure is 20,800. In the latest round of closures, 11 more hotels returned to commercial use; A group has reduced running costs by around £65 million a year by purchasing a historic manor house alongside various graded properties. Since taking office, Labor has cut the total refugee housing budget by £1bn, to £4.7bn in 2023-24.
People leaving hotels are going to multi-dwelling homes or large consolidated areas. Those currently in use include two former defense installations: Crowborough Army camp in East Sussex, home to 350 people, and RAF Wethersfield outside Braintree in Essex, where the population approaches 1,300.
Border security and asylum minister Alex Norris is reported to have said that expanding the vast network of sites, particularly those on former military land, is at the heart of the Government’s plan.
“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,” he said.
“We’re closing them down by moving people into more basic accommodation, enlarging large areas, removing record numbers of people who don’t have the right to stay. This is about restoring control, ending waste and giving hotels back fully to the community.”
The opposition responded
Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp disputed the progress chart, claiming the government was simply moving asylum seekers sideways rather than removing them, The Telegraph reported.
“This is despite the fact that the Government is moving people from hotels to apartments to hide what is going on,” he said. “These flats are not available to young people struggling to get on the housing ladder.
“The majority of asylum seekers are illegal immigrants. Keir Starmer has taken in more illegal immigrants by small boat than any prime minister in history, and numbers have increased by 45 per cent since the election.”
Philp allegedly suggested leaving the European Convention on Human Rights, which allows illegal immigrants to be deported within days of their arrival, was the only real solution and said Labor did not have the resolve to follow through.
He also noted that compared to the situation at the time of the last general election, the hotel population was still higher than when Labor came to power, refuting the Government’s claim that it was turning the tide.
Hotels are closed
With 186 hotels currently in operation, properties have shrunk from around 220 at the Labor election, but remain well above historical norms. The figure rose to more than 400 under the Conservatives, who have significantly expanded the use of commercial accommodation during Covid.
The 16th-century Madeley Court Hotel, a listed manor house in the Shropshire countryside near Telford, is among those returned. Its 50 rooms had been occupied since 2021 by migrants earning up to £150 per night. The building’s architectural condition made its use as an emergency shelter particularly controversial.
Two Victorian properties have also been released: the Crewe Arms, a 61-room hotel that has not been allowed to charge guests for more than three years, and the Britannia in Wolverhampton, which has consistently hosted 200 people since the summer of 2021.
The list of closures will get longer. Banbury House Hotel contributed 64 rooms; OYO Lakeside in St Helens, a three-star property, took in 48 asylum seekers last year. The Sure Hotel in Aberdeen hit the headlines in 2024 when a man armed with a crossbow arrived and told officers he was going to “shoot them all”. He was later arrested and charged with the crime.
Rounding out the eleven are the Marine Court Hotel, a seaside resort in Bangor; The Citrus Hotel in Cheltenham; A pair of Halifax properties, the Rock Hotel and the Wood Merchant Hotel; and the Holiday Inn at Heathrow, the largest of the group with 433 rooms. Between them, these properties once housed 2,199 people in a single spot. This number is currently zero.
