Asylum hotels ‘spiralled out of control’, minister admits as more closures announced – UK Times

Eleven more asylum hotels have closed as the government continues its programme of relocating individuals to alternative housing.

The closures, confirmed on Tuesday evening, include sites that previously drew public protests, such as the Britannia Hotel in Wolverhampton and the OYO Lakeside in St Helens.

This latest move is projected to save £65 million annually and brings the total number of hotels utilised for asylum accommodation below 190, a significant reduction from the peak of approximately 400 seen during the Conservative administration.

Borders minister Alex Norris said hotels were meant to be “a short-term stop-gap” but had “spiralled out of control, costing taxpayers billions and dumping the consequences on local communities”.

He said: “We are shutting them down by moving people into more basic accommodation, scaling up large sites, removing record numbers of people with no right to remain.

“This is about restoring control, ending waste and handing hotels back to the community for good.”

The Home Office said further closures would be announced “soon”.

Ministers have pledged to end the use of hotels to house asylum seekers by the next election, with some people already being moved into sites such as disused army barracks.

Home Office officials said some 350 people had now been moved into the former barracks at Crowborough, in East Sussex, which opened to asylum seekers in January.

The number of people being housed in hotels stood at 30,657 at the end of 2025, down 15% on September but still above the record low of 29,561 just before the 2024 general election.

Figures had peaked in September 2023 at 56,018.

At the same time, the number of people in “dispersal accommodation” rose by almost 3,000 over 2025.

Dispersal accommodation typically includes privately managed houses, flats or rooms in properties of multiple occupancy, and is only available to asylum seekers who would otherwise be destitute.

Shadow home secretary Chris Philp said: “The truth is, the most recent figures show there are more asylum seekers in hotels than at the time of the election.

“And that’s despite the Government shunting people from hotels into residential apartments to hide what is going on. Those apartments are then not available for young people struggling to get on the housing ladder.

“Most asylum seekers are illegal immigrants. Keir Starmer has let in more small boat illegal immigrants than any prime minster in history and numbers are 45% up since the election.

“The Conservative plan is to leave the ECHR (European Convention on Human Rights) so that illegal immigrants are deported within a week of arrival – not put up in hotels to apartments. But Labour is too weak to do that.”