£1.3bn cost of hotels for Channel migrants

THE cost of housing Channel migrants and other asylum seekers in hotels has rocketed to £1.3billion a year, according to an analysis.

Migration Watch UK, which campaigns for tougher border controls, said the accommodation was costing almost £4,300 per head each month – equivalent to one and a half times the average NHS nurse’s monthly wage.

The £1.3billion figure was calculated from official figures released in February which showed 25,000 migrants were in hotels on full board. However, the true cost to the taxpayer is now likely to be far higher because more than 28,000 additional migrants have since arrived in the UK by small boat from northern France.

The figure is more than £1billion above a £70million-a-year forecast issued by the Home Office 18 months ago, the report said. Hotels are being used as a stop-gap for migrants due to a shortage of other accommodation such as social or privately rented housing.

This month residents of Stratford-upon-Avon expressed concern after a recently-renovated Grade II-listed hotel in the town was closed to public bookings to start housing asylum seekers.

Alp Mehmet, chairman of Migration Watch, said: ‘As the illegal boat arrivals soared over the summer the number being housed in hotels has likely gone up too. It is now costing the already hardpressed, taxpayer eye-watering amounts of money.’

Migration Watch’s report said: ‘With the public facing a worsening cost of living crisis and exploding energy bills, it is unacceptable for ever-growing amounts of public funds to be diverted to providing hotel accommodation on this scale, especially given the fact that it is being spent in response to rising trends in illegal immigration.’

Figures published last month showed the number of asylum seekers receiving taxpayer-funded support climbed to 116,109 at the end of June, up by more than 31,000 or 37 per cent in three months.

The total includes those in longer-term housing and some who receive subsistence allowances only. Migration Watch said the £1.3billion-a-year cost for the 25,000 people being housed in hotels in February equated to £ 4,258 per asylum seeker per month. The Royal College of Nursing estimated last year that the average annual salary of an NHS nurse was £33,384, or £2,782 gross per month.

her leadership campaign, Miss Truss promised urgent action to tackle the Channel migrants crisis. ‘Words,’ she thundered, ‘are not enough.’ Since then, the number arriving in smugglers’ boats this year has hit a record 30,000, while accommodating asylum seekers in hotels is costing taxpayers £1.3billion a year. Perhaps the PM is keeping her cards close to her chest. But if she can’t stem this illegal tide, her premiership risks being sunk.