The Home Office plans to buy up to 800 properties to house 35,000 asylum seekers currently living in hotels. This is because housing them in hotels costs taxpayers £5.4 million every day.
However, this plan has raised concerns that it could make the housing crisis in the UK even worse. There is already a shortage of homes for local residents, and councils worry this move will add more pressure to an already strained system.
The Government’s plan comes after Labour scrapped a policy by the previous government that aimed to house asylum seekers in large sites, like old prisons and military bases.
Although £80 million had already been spent on this policy, Labour decided not to continue with it. Instead, the Home Office is now looking to buy or lease properties around the country, but this decision is causing controversy.
Councils, represented by the Local Government Association, have warned that housing asylum seekers in regular homes will make it harder to provide housing for local residents in need.
They say the housing crisis is already severe, and this plan could worsen it. Councils want the Government to come up with a fairer way to distribute asylum seekers across the country and provide more funding to handle the extra demand.
At the same time, Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner has announced plans to build 370,000 homes a year, even if it means building on protected green belt land.
However, this goal seems difficult to achieve, especially when some councils in London are already struggling to find homes for local families. In one year alone, 15,000 households from London were moved to other areas, including as far away as County Durham, because of a lack of housing.
The Conservatives have criticized Labour, blaming them for not doing enough to reduce the number of asylum seekers. They argue that Labour’s decision to cancel the Rwanda policy, which aimed to send asylum seekers to Rwanda, has encouraged more people to cross the English Channel in small boats. The Rwanda policy had cost £715 million before Labour abandoned it after coming to power. The Home Office’s top civil servant, Sir Matthew Rycroft, said that if Labour had not won the election, the Rwanda scheme would likely have been implemented by now.
Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp has also criticized Labour, saying their decisions have made the border crisis worse. He said there has been an 18% increase in small boat crossings since Labour took over and accused them of allowing criminal gangs to profit from human trafficking. He also said taxpayers are paying a huge price for Labour’s failure to manage the situation.
Some of the previous government’s housing plans for asylum seekers have also been scrapped, even though they cost millions.
For example, the Home Office spent £15.4 million on an old prison in Bexhill-on-Sea, £34 million on the Bibby Stockholm barge in Dorset, and millions more on plans to use old military sites like RAF Scampton and RAF Linton-on-Ouse. None of these projects have been completed, leaving many asylum seekers still living in hotels.
Currently, 13,000 asylum seekers are staying in hotels in London, while 4,000 are in the North West, including over 1,200 in Manchester.
Birmingham also has about 1,180 asylum seekers living in hotels. These numbers highlight how widespread the issue is, with taxpayers continuing to pay the daily costs of temporary housing.
Critics argue that the Government needs a better plan to address both the housing shortage and the growing number of asylum seekers. They say the focus should be on creating fair solutions for everyone—both local residents and asylum seekers—while reducing costs for taxpayers.
