Home Office could move asylum seekers into pop-up buildings as it scrambles over migrant hotel crisis
Asylum seekers could be moved from migrant hotels to temporary premises, with plans to be announced “within a few weeks”, a minister has said, as the government tries to resolve the refugee housing crisis.
Pop-up buildings were previously used to deal with overcrowding in prisons; These buildings contained en-suite bathrooms, beds, desks, and televisions installed on the prison grounds.
Housing minister Steve Reed said the government was looking at “modular” building forms to enable new spaces to be built quickly as part of plans to end the use of hotels “completely”. Speaking to the media on Monday morning, Mr Reed said progress on providing accommodation for asylum seekers would be announced “within weeks”.
It comes after a scathing report revealed the Home Office wasted billions of pounds on migrant hotel contracts as a result of mismanagement and incompetence. A cross-party group of MPs also found the authorities had failed to recoup millions of pounds of excess profits owed by companies operating the hospitality business.
Mears, one of the accommodation providers, said on Monday that they were now paying the Home Office.
Mr Reed said: “You can use modular building forms. That means it can go up much quicker than it normally would, and there are planning processes we can use to make sure the planning system doesn’t get delayed in those circumstances.”
“I expect announcements on that within weeks, so we’ll have to wait and see.”
He added that the Ministry of Internal Affairs was investigating former military bases to accommodate immigrants, and said: “We can use large areas, attract people there and end the use of hotels altogether. This is where we want to get to.”
Sir Keir Starmer said on Monday he was “disappointed and angry” at the “mess” he inherited when the Tory government came to power.
Referring to the backlog of asylum claims, he said: “Under the previous government, we had years where they weren’t processing claims, so tens of thousands of people had their claims not processed,” creating pressure on housing.
Former home secretary Yvette Cooper hinted in September that the Home Office could house asylum seekers in “modular buildings” on industrial or former military sites.
Pop-up cabins are already being used to increase capacity at the former military base RAF Wethersfield, the Home Office’s largest asylum accommodation site.
Plans had been made to install cabins at RAF Scampton, but this was canceled when Labor came to power.
Construction company Portakabin also said it was open to making an agreement with the Ministry of Internal Affairs to provide emergency prefabs to refugees.
Mr Reed added: “We want to do it right, but our intention is to acquire former military bases where we can use large areas, attract people there and eliminate the use of hotels altogether. That’s an example of that. That’s where we want to get to.”
The Home Office, which has pledged to stop using hotels by 2029, housed around 103,000 people as of June 2025. Although the number of refugees in hotels is down from a peak of 32,059 people in June, the figure is still higher than the previous year.
In a damning Home Office report on asylum accommodation published on Monday, MPs warned ministers against using large sites instead of hotels because they were found to be more costly.
In one example, the Home Office spent £15.4 million to purchase space at the former Northeye prison to provide accommodation for asylum seekers, but concluded it was unsuitable and could not be used. The department went ahead with the purchase despite clear warnings that significant work would be required to make the site fit for use.
The Ministry of Internal Affairs said it also plans to use medium-sized areas that can accommodate 200 to 700 people to house refugees.
This will include the supply of empty tower blocks, provision of training in training colleges and student accommodation. While accommodation providers have been sourcing these spaces for some time, some buildings have faced issues with planning permission or the amount of investment required to bring them up to standard.
MPs from the Internal Affairs Committee said that civil servants do not yet have “a clear and achievable plan for the delivery of medium-sized areas”. [the Home Office] needs”.
The only major site currently used to house asylum seekers is the former RAF base Wethersfield, but the Home Office is considering opening similar accommodation.
MPs also warned the department had little control over how large accommodation contracts were delivered.
The projected cost of these contracts has more than tripled between 2019 and 2029, from £4.5bn to £15.5bn.
A spokesman for Mears said: “The contracts contain clauses to reconcile payments over time and share profits above the proposed contract level with the Home Office. We work with the Home Office on an open-book basis and, following an independent audit, Mears has made appropriate and agreed payments to the Home Office.”
Committee chair Dame Karen Bradley said the Home Office should be “split” into two separate departments to manage borders and crime.
