Migrants: Hotel Accommodation

Question

14:37:00

Tabled by

To ask His Majesty’s Government what standard of hotel accommodation they provide to migrants who have entered the United Kingdom in small boats from France.

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my noble friend’s name on the Order Paper.

I thought I was going to get a “two for” there. All accommodation meets relevant legal requirements, as well as contractual standards, to be safe, fit for purpose and properly equipped. The contractual standards are contained in the Asylum Accommodation and Support Contracts.

I thank the Minister for that Answer and apologise for not being my noble friend Lord Evans. He has a contact who runs a series of hostels for backpackers, many of whom are young men who must, in the course of things, share facilities. But when my noble friend’s contact applied to the Home Office to take illegal migrants in his hostels, he was told this was impossible because not all the facilities are en suite. So my noble friend would like to know why shared facilities are suitable for young male legal backpackers but not for young male illegal migrants.

Perhaps the noble Lord could ask the previous Home Office Ministers under the last Administration, because all the contracts with the current asylum accommodation were signed by the previous Ministers. I am very happy to look at the issue, but I repeat, for the avoidance of doubt, that all the contracts were signed by previous Ministers under the last Administration.

The accommodation is not suitable for either the community or the asylum seekers. Given that there are two main ways in which the Government could improve this situation dramatically, can the noble Lord tell us how they are getting on with reducing the backlog of cases being heard, and whether they will allow people to work so they can pay for their own accommodation?

We are getting on quite well, actually. If noble Lords will bear with me, the supported accommodation as of 31 March 2025 is 15% lower than at the end of 2024 and 42% lower than at the end of September 2023. We are moving people through supported accommodation, and we are trying to get the backlog down. We have used money saved from the wasteful Rwanda scheme to put into people examining asylum claims and processing them quickly. I note again the noble Lord’s helpful suggestion that we look at how people can work. That is a pull factor, and we should have an honest debate on that issue, but again, we keep all options on the table.

My Lords, report after report has documented what one described as the “cruel, unsafe and degrading” treatment experienced by many asylum seekers living in hotels, especially LGBTQ people, women and children. What steps are the Home Office taking to strengthen safeguarding procedures so long as hotels—usually of low quality—continue to be used to house asylum seekers?

I am grateful to my noble friend. Safeguarding is extremely important, and it is the Government’s ambition to remove all asylum seekers from hotels as soon as is practical. We have reduced the number of hotels: in fact, we have fewer hotels now, in the week of the general election anniversary, than we had last year when the Conservative Party left office. It is our ambition to further reduce that. When the Conservatives were in office, hotel costs peaked at £9 million per day. This time last year they were £8.5 million per day, and this year they are £6 million per day. That is still too high, but it is on the right, downward trajectory, and we will continue to safeguard in doing that.

My Lords, I have a pal who has a fairly good-grade job. Many months ahead, he had booked four-star accommodation two days a week at a well-known hotel chain. He had a phone call out of the blue and was told, “I’m very sorry but your months-ahead booked accommodation in our four-star hotel has now been cancelled because the hotel of 150 rooms has been taken over for migrant accommodation”. Does the Minister agree with me that the pull factors of good accommodation are clear and obvious? The pull factor of the ability to get a delivery job in this country is very clear, and we can see illegal working on every high street. Until we get a grip on this issue, I am afraid that it will not get any better. We need rather more than “let’s smash the gangs”.

I am grateful to the noble Lord, and I would be grateful if he could write to me with the details of his friend’s hotel, because that is a great surprise to me. We are not opening new hotels; we are trying to reduce the number of such hotels and reducing the bill, under his Government, of £9 million a day to the current £6 million a day that I mentioned. If the noble Lord wants to tackle illegal working, I recommend that he supports the Bill on employment rights currently before this House, which is about reducing the pull factors of illegal working and cracking down on illegal employers. As I recall, the Opposition have voted against that Bill on several occasions and plan to do so again.

My Lords, according to a report by Migrant Voice, in 2023 the Home Office received 1,500 complaints about migrant hotels. They included lack of privacy; having to share rooms and sometimes even beds with strangers; overcrowding; dirty rooms, bathrooms and toilets; little access to healthcare; sexual harassment; intimidation; racism; out-of-date food and so on. These conditions are dehumanising. Are the Government aware of the conditions in these hotels?

I am grateful to my noble friend. He mentioned a report, which was from 2023. This Government have been very clear that, as I said in my original Answer to the noble Lord, Lord Goodman of Wycombe, we need to provide accommodation that meets all contractual standards and is safe, fit for purpose and properly equipped. The contractual standards, which are in the Asylum Accommodation and Support Contracts, must meet decency levels and be maintained. That is the objective of this Government. As I say, the details my noble friend gave are from 2023.

My Lords, if the Minister wants to talk about voting against the Government, perhaps he might like to recall that his party voted more than 130 times against our Bill designed to avoid this situation. Under the Conservatives, the number of asylum seekers being housed in hotels decreased in three consecutive quarters prior to Labour coming into office. Since Labour gained power, the number of asylum seekers housed in hotels has risen by some 29%. At what point does the Minister think his Government will honour their manifesto, given that small boat arrivals are now over 20,000, which is an increase of around 50% on this time last year?

The Government set a clear direction of travel on reducing hotels, tackling the asylum backlog, trying to prevent people coming to this country unfairly in the first place and, when they do claim asylum, processing those claims much quicker. I point the noble Lord to one figure, which I hope is helpful to him. That figure is 9,208, which is the number of people who have been removed from the United Kingdom up to the end of 2024, since the general election. This compares with an average figure of around 2,000 for the previous Government during their term of office. The noble Lord and his Government got us into the position of a rise in hotel numbers to a maximum of 400, a rising cost to £9 million, a record number of people coming to this country, a failure to remove people who are being denied asylum, and a failure to process asylum claims in a speedy and effective way. We are clearing up his mess and doing the best we can to achieve that.

My Lords, can the noble Lord bring us up to date on the position of unaccompanied migrant children who are in hotels, and is he satisfied that their safety and safeguarding are being properly addressed?

I am grateful to the noble Lord. We took an early decision, as he knows, to work with the local authority, Kent, to ensure that safeguarding was in place, and that is in place now. There are still a number of unaccounted migrant children, who precede this Government’s responsibilities, and we are making efforts to track them down as best we can. I assure him that we are taking every step we can to make sure that that situation does not occur again.

Are the Government making any progress in their search for safe third countries where applicants for asylum could have their case processed before being admitted to this country at all? That is the only policy they have that would avoid the need for hotel accommodation almost completely in future. Is this still the Government’s policy? Is there any prospect of progress being made in the near future?

The Government, as the noble Lord knows, have been discussing a number of matters with a number of countries. I cannot bring him up to date today on the final details of those projects. We have scrapped the Rwanda scheme, which was costly, ineffective and did not remove people. We are continuing to work with our French, Dutch and Belgian colleagues to look at how we can stem the flow of people coming here through irregular migration, so that we can look at proper asylum assessments and proper removals, in conjunction with those European countries most impacted in the European community.