Allowing a ban on housing asylum seekers at a protest-hit hotel risks encouraging further disorder, Yvette Cooper has told the Court of Appeal.
The Home Office is applying to be allowed to appeal an interim High Court injunction to stop asylum seekers being housed at The Bell Hotel in Epping. Epping Forest District Council won the temporary ban after a series of violent protests resulted in multiple arrests and saw police officers injured.
The hotel owners, Somani Hotels Ltd, and the Home Office were at the Court of Appeal on Thursday seeking permission to overturn the ban, which threatens to throw the government’s asylum policy into chaos if more councils seek similar vetoes.
In documents submitted to court, the home secretary said that the injunction “essentially incentivises” other councils who wish to close down migrant hotels in their areas to seek legal action.
Ms Cooper argued that the “the available asylum estate is subject to incredibly high levels of demand” and allowing Epping council’s injunction “creates a chaotic and disorderly approach”.
“The granting of an interim injunction in the present case runs the risk of acting as an impetus for further protests, some of which may be disorderly, around other asylum accommodation,” the Home Office told the court.
Responding to the High Court’s order last week, deputy leader of Reform UK, Richard Tice, urged local residents around the country to protest at hotels housing migrants to force their removal.
Shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick hailed the ruling, saying: “What a result for the people of Epping. What now? More peaceful protests. More injunctions…Starmer will only respond to pressure”.
In his ruling, Mr Justice Eyre agreed with the council’s argument that The Bell is no longer a hotel, and as such it “no longer provides a resource for dining, receptions, functions and the like”. Mr Justice Eye found that there was a case to argue that there had been a breach of planning control.
Edward Brown KC, for the Home Office, told Court of Appeal judges on Thursday that Mr Justice Eyre’s decision “substantially interferes” with the “national public interest… which is to ensure that vulnerable individuals, namely asylum seekers, are accommodated”.
Mr Brown said that the home secretary has a duty to provide accommodation for asylum seekers, who would be “potentially destitute” without the use of hotels.
In written arguments, the Home Office said that the “fact of criminal wrongdoing (and local concerns arising from criminal wrongdoing) is not a sufficient reason to require the immediate closure of asylum accommodation infrastructure housing many other individuals”.
In further submissions, Piers Riley-Smith, for Somani Hotels, said the Court of Appeal should “exercise its discretion” and quash the injunction made last week.
He said the “extremely high-profile nature of the issue” created a “risk of a precedent being set as a number of other local authorities are reported to be considering similar injunctions to address the use of hotels for asylum seekers”.
Philip Coppel KC, for Epping Forest District Council, said in written submissions that it was “surprising” that the Home Office did not act sooner in the legal battle. Mr Coppel said that the home secretary’s case “is based on generalised assertions” about the difficulties of finding new accommodation to house asylum seekers.
The appeal by the hotel owners and the Home Office come in the same week as a resident at the hotel, Hadush Gerberslasie Kebatu, has been on trial accused of sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl last month.
Mr Kebatu told a court on Wednesday that he did not attempt to kiss the girl because his is “not a wild animal”. He told Colchester Magistrates’ Court that he only said “hello” to the schoolgirl and her friends in Epping, Essex, and nothing more because he was “worried about my asylum case”.
He said he had only been living in the hotel for around a week before his arrest after travelling through Sudan, Libya, Italy and France in order to get to the UK.
Another man who was living at the site, Syrian national Mohammed Sharwarq, has separately been charged with seven offences, while several other men have been charged over alleged disorder outside the hotel.
Twenty-eight people have been arrested in relation to disorder at The Bell hotel, and 16 of them have been charged.
The latest Home Office data, published last week, shows there were 32,059 asylum seekers in UK hotels by the end of June.
This was up from 29,585 at the same point a year earlier, when the Conservatives were still in power, but down slightly on the 32,345 figure at the end of March.
Immigration minister Seema Malhotra on Thursday dismissed Reform UK’s plans to deport some 600,000 migrants if they took power, saying they were “gimmicks” that have “unravelled on basic facts and figures”.
The High Court injunction if not overturned will stop 138 asylum seekers housed at The Bell Hotel from living there beyond September 12.
