The British public has been remarkably tolerant and generous so far
Prime Minister Andy Burnham (Image: Getty)
Getting asylum seekers out of hotels has been a top priority for the Government. But new Home Office figures out today reveal why that’s not enough. Simply closing asylum hotels doesn’t solve the problem – it just moves it. Because what we are seeing instead is an increase in the number of asylum seekers living in what the Government calls “dispersed accommodation”. That means houses and flats in the general community.
Ordinary British residents may have objected to a local hotel being filled with asylum seekers. But that doesn’t mean they are happy for them to move into the house next door either. And in many cases, these are what are called “Houses in Multiple Occupation” or HMOs. In other words, one property can be home to a number of people. But they are not families – a mum, a dad and some children. Instead, a single property can house multiple young men.
Having a large number of HMOs in a neighbourhood can change its character for the worse.
What’s more, people trying to find a home to buy or rent, and local councils trying to house homeless families, are competing in the property market with private firms employed by the Government to snap up properties for asylum seekers.
Figures for June 2024, around the time Labour came to power, show 29.585 asylum seekers were living in hotels.
Today’s new figures show that number has fallen to 16,021. So maybe Labour deserves some credit for that.
The bad news, however, is that the number in dispersed accommodation has risen in the same period, from 61,778 asylum seekers to 69,038.
And this is what happens when you refuse to do the one thing that will really solve the asylum crisis – which is to send people home.
More than 210,000 asylum seekers have crossed the Channel since people smugglers started launching boats in 2018 (before that, they hid people in lorries).
However, just 9,694 migrants who arrived on dinghies in that period have been deported. That’s fewer than one in 20.
And some will have been granted asylum because they were genuinely fleeing persecution. But others are just stuck in the system.
In fact, more than 120,000 asylum cases – either initial decisions or appeals – are waiting to be heard by the courts.
This is why hundreds of asylum seekers are still living in towns and cities nationwide – including 3,938 in Glasgow, 2,136 in Birmingham and 1,961 in Liverpool.
In the London borough of Hounslow, nearly one in a hundred residents is an Asylum seeker. In Coventry, asylum seekers make up one in 120 people. In Hartlepool, one person in 150 is an asylum seeker.
Some people on the Left imagine this would not be a problem if only the British public was a little more tolerant. The reality is that people have been remarkably tolerant and generous for the many years that this crisis has continued. But it can’t go on forever.
If Labour refuses to remove asylum seekers from the UK – particularly those who arrived across the Channel illegally – then it would find itself replaced by a government that will.