Pressure on Labour to scrap migrant hotels as Home Office ‘refuses to commit to end date while spending £5.5million accommodating asylum seekers every day’_Nhy
Pressure is growing on Labour to fulfill their election pledge to scrap migrant hotels – with the Home Office yet to commit to an end date.
It comes as the total cost of accommodating asylum seekers in hotels is now £5.5million every day, according to figures obtained by The Times.
The number of migrants living in hotels at the expense of taxpayers has also risen by 8,500 under Labour.
The increase comes despite their election manifesto pledge to ‘end asylum hotels, saving the taxpayer billions of pounds’.
Figures showed there were 38,079 in hotels at the end of December, up from 29,585 at the end of June – an increase of 29 per cent.
However, government sources have said Angela Rayner is putting Labour under increased pressure to scrap the policy.
An insider told The Times: ‘She wants a particular date, rather than it drifting.’
It is understood she wants the Government to terminate contracts they have made with private companies to house migrants.
A group of males is seen outside one of the hotels currently housing migrants in November
government sources have said Angela Rayner is putting Labour under increased pressure to scrap migrant hotels
A worried group gather in Manchester to protest against asylum seekers being housed locally
Contracts with Serco, Clearsprings Ready Homes and Mears are worth around a whopping £4.6billion.
Nevertheless, the Home Office is yet to set a definite end date on migrant hotels as it does not want to commit to ‘arbitrary targets’.
A source said: ‘Setting a date would be setting us up to fail. We don’t want to become a hostage to fortune like we saw under the last government’s failed pledges.’
The only vague timeframe given by the department was by Matthew Rycroft, the department’s top civil servant, last month.
He told MP’s that the aim is to get to ‘zero by the end of the parliament’, leaving open the possibility migrant hotels could stay until August 2029.
The main issue facing the Government is the lack of other alternatives – with the party saying it does not want to use large sites such as former RAF properties.
However, the delay in shutting down migrant hotels has been criticised by the Conservatives.
Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp previously said: ‘Despite promising to end hotel use for asylum seekers, the numbers have gone up again and they are costing Britons dear.
Anti-immigration protesters clash with members of Stand Up To Racism outside Cresta Court Hotel in Altrincham
The number of asylum seekers living in hotels at the expense of taxpayers has risen by 8,500 under Labour (pictured: Sir Keir Starmer)
Migrants wave to a smuggler’s boat in an attempt to cross the English Channel, on the beach of Gravelines, near Dunkirk, northern France on April 26, 2024
‘Removals of small boat arrivals are down again under Labour, with only 4 per cent of small boat arrivals being removed. Does the Labour Government really think that letting 96 per cent of illegal immigrants stay here is going to deter anybody?’
From the beginning of the Channel crisis in January 2018 to the end of December 2025, 151,161 migrants reached Britain by small boat. But only 4,995 have undergone enforced or voluntary removal from the country.
Last year there was a total of 8,164 enforced returns of immigration offenders and foreign criminals, a 28 per cent increase on the previous 12 months but still far below the 15,000 sent back annually in 2012 and 2013.
Mihnea Cuibus, from Oxford University’s Migration Observatory, said: ‘The Government has so far struggled to reduce the number of asylum applicants in supported accommodation.
‘The combination of more refusals, a long appeals backlog in the courts, and a moderate increase in asylum applications towards the end of the year have all contributed. As a result, the Labour Party has not so far made much progress towards its goal of ending the use of hotels for asylum seekers.’
MailOnline has contacted the Home Office for comment.
