Bill for hotels and asylum support hits £5.4billion as boat numbers soar
THE taxpayer will shell out £5.4 billion on migrant hotels and other asylum support this year – a staggering £15 million a day.
Rocketing costs have forced the Home Office to secure an extra £4 billion from the Treasury to cover a massive overspend on asylum accommodation.
Across all areas of immigration and asylum, the Home Office’s overspend will hit £5.9 billion in the 2023-24 financial year, official papers showed.
An analysis of the figures by the Labour Party said it amounted to an ‘eye-watering’ £4.3 billion overspend on asylum support across the year.
There are currently more than 50,000 asylum seekers being housed full-board in hotels across the country.
The £5.4 billion also covers asylum seekers living in self- catering accommodation, who receive £49.18 a week for each person in their household to cover food, clothing and other costs.
In a letter to the Commons home affairs committee, published yesterday, Home Office mandarin Sir Matthew Rycroft said asylum was ‘a volatile area to budget’.
The permanent secretary said
‘Lays bare the complete chaos’
the £4 billion extra allocated to asylum support ‘was not an unanticipated spend but a result of record levels of small-boat arrivals since the Spending Review 2021’.
In addition, the Home Office was given an extra £1.2 billion to implement the Illegal Migration Act and Rishi Sunak’s ten-point plan to combat illegal immigration, which he set out in July 2022. The department also secured an extra £500 million for Afghan resettlement schemes. Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper said: ‘This lays bare the complete chaos the Tories have created in the asylum system.
‘They are spending billions on hotel rooms because of their failure to clear the backlog of asylum applications. Despite promises of action from the Prime Minister, they have not delivered and now the Home Secretary has been forced to go to the Chancellor with a begging bowl because he’s bust his budget by over £5 billion.’
Immigration minister Michael Tomlinson said: ‘Labour have no plan to stop the boats and would take us back to square one, meaning unlimited and uncontrolled immigration. Sir Keir Starmer’s approach to immigration would mean an extra 250,000 migrants a year.’
The Government’s plan to remove ‘irregular’ migrants to Rwanda – to claim asylum there rather than here – was declared unlawful by the Supreme Court in November.
Ministers believe the prospect of being removed to the African nation will deter migrants from crossing the Channel. Mr Sunak said ‘ emergency legislation’ unveiled in December will overcome the Supreme Court’s legal objections, but the Safety of Rwanda Bill is facing tough opposition in the House of Lords.