Asylum Hotel Closures Save Millions Amid Accommodation Shift
Thirteen sites shut down as government moves migrants to alternative housing, facing local protests and political scrutiny.
Image: Eddie Pollard / AI
Callum Smith
Thirteen hotels housing asylum seekers have closed, saving taxpayers £51 million.
Ministers intensify their use of more basic sites, including former military barracks, as part of a broader strategy to transition individuals. The government pledges to cease using asylum hotels entirely by the next general election.
Home Office minister Anna Turley stated that small boat crossings had fallen by 40 per cent. This claim emerged despite a record 230 people reportedly making the journey across the English Channel in a single boat.
By the end of the first quarter of this year, 68,719 migrants lived in dispersal accommodation. The North West accounted for nearly a fifth of all Home Office asylum accommodation in the UK.
Labour confirmed it will redouble its efforts to clamp down on illegal boats crossing the English Channel carrying migrants. The party's borders minister defended plans to house 1,200 migrants near Piddington, a village with a population of 400 people.
Residents of Piddington have voted to stage a symbolic referendum on leaving the UK in protest against these plans. Anna Turley stated that asylum seekers would be allowed out of the contained site but would have everything they need on-site.
Nigel Farage claimed that Andy Burnham 'doesn't have the guts to deal with small boats crisis'. He asserted that Mr Burnham has no more courage to address the issue than previous leaders.
Farage further claimed that the French navy literally escorts boats to the 12-mile line, handing them over to British authorities. He also claimed that under international maritime law, if people are in peril, authorities are perfectly entitled to return them to the safest next place of land, specifically France, the safe country from which they departed.
I will listen to what people are saying and respond to the concerns that they are putting forward.
Andy Burnham stated, "I will listen to what people are saying and respond to the concerns that they are putting forward."