More than 32,000 asylum seekers were being housed temporarily in UK hotels at the end of March, as one expert predicted the Government meeting its pledge to end the use of such accommodation “still seems a fair way off”.

The figure of 32,345 is down 15% from the end of December, when the total was 38,079, and 6% lower than the 34,530 at the same point a year earlier.

London was the area of the UK with the highest number of asylum seekers in hotels while overall Afghan and Iranian were the most common nationalities to be housed in this kind of accommodation.

Asylum seekers and their families are housed in temporary accommodation if they are waiting for the outcome of a claim or an appeal and have been assessed as not being able to support themselves independently.

They are housed in hotels if there is not enough space in accommodation provided by local authorities or other organisations.

Millions spent

Figures for hotels published by the Home Office on Thursday begin in December 2022.

They show that hotel use peaked at the end of June 2023, when 50,546 asylum seekers were being housed in this way, and was at its lowest level a year later when the figure dropped to 29,585.

Labour has previously said it is “committed to end the use of asylum hotels over time” adding that under the previous Conservative government at one stage “more than 400 hotels were in use and almost £9 million per day was being spent”.

The Government does not release regular data on the number of UK hotels used to provide temporary accommodation for asylum seekers, although in March the Home Office confirmed 216 hotels were “currently” in use, with seven due to close by the end of April.

There were 213 hotels in use in July 2024 at the time of the general election.

A report from public spending watchdog the National Audit Office (NAO) earlier this month detailed that those temporarily living in hotels accounted for 35% of all people in asylum accommodation, and for about 76% of the annual cost of contracts – £1.3 billion of an estimated £1.7 billion in 2024-25.

That report said data from suppliers “suggests that hotels may be more profitable than other forms of accommodation”, while profit margins for contractors average 7% – which is within the Home Office’s original estimate of between 5-13%.

The Home Office announced in March it had ended the use of supplier Stay Belvedere Hotels (SBHL), subcontracted by Clearsprings, after its performance and behaviour “fell short” of expectations.

On the latest Government data, the Refugee Council said while it felt “encouraged fewer people are being accommodated there, currently there are still over 30,000 people stuck in limbo in hotels”.

Mihnea Cuibus, researcher at the Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford, speculated that a “stubbornly high” backlog of asylum appeals is a challenge for Labour as it works to end the use of hotels.

He said: “Labour’s pledge to end hotel accommodation for asylum seekers has been a tough nut for them to crack.

“The government is now making more asylum decisions, but the backlog of asylum appeals remains stubbornly high. This means that many asylum seekers are still in government accommodation, so ending the use of asylum hotels still seems a fair way off.”

Data

London accounted for more than a third (37%) of the total number of asylum seekers in hotels.

The most recent data showed that of the 32,345 asylum seekers in hotels across the UK at the end of March, 12,024 were in the English capital.

Some 3,738 (12%) were in south-east England, 3,306 (10%) in the West Midlands and 3,167 (10%) in north-west England.

These four regions together account for more than two-thirds (69%) of the total.

Of the remaining 31%, 2,609 (8%) were in eastern England, 2,141 (7%) were in Yorkshire and the Humber, 1,999 (6%) in south-west England, 1,352 (4%) in Scotland, 1,285 (4%) in the East Midlands, 345 (1%) in north-east England, 288 (1%) in Northern Ireland and 91 (0.3%) in Wales.

Afghan and Iranian were the most common nationalities, accounting for 3,822 (12%) and 3,637 (11%) of the total respectively.

The next most common were Syrian (2,130, 7%); Eritrean (2,045, 6%); Iraqi (2,001, 6%); and Pakistani (1,426, 4%).

These six nationalities together accounted for nearly half (47%) of the total. Birdland