Number of asylum seekers housed in UK hotels up 8% since last year, Home Office figures reveal
The number of asylum seekers housed in UK hotels has gone up 8% in past year, Home Office figures have revealed.
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Home Office spending on asylum in the UK stood at £4.76 billion in 2024/25, down 12% from a record £5.38 billion in 2023/24, Government figures show.
The figures, released on Thursday, reveal the total costs linked to housing asylum seekers, with data showing a total of 32,059 were housed in hotels in the 12 months since June 2024.
The total covers all Home Office costs related to asylum, including direct cash support and accommodation, plus wider staffing and other migration and borders activity.
It does not include costs relating to the interception of migrants who travel to the UK across the English Channel in small boats.
The figure for 2024/25, £4.76 billion, is more than three times the equivalent amount in 2020/21 (£1.34 billion) and is more than 10 times the total a decade ago in 2014/15 (£0.47 billion).
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Minister Catherine McKinnell has said it is “really important” to manage asylum accommodation while also speeding up the claims process.
“We inherited a terrible mess from the last government when it comes to the immigration system and particularly the processing of asylum claims – massive backlog.”
Speaking with LBC's Tom Swarbrick on Thursday, Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philps conceded that housing asylum seekers in hotels was "wrong".
"Yes, the last government decided that it was wrong to use hotels and that is why it instituted a policy of reducing them.
"There should not have been 56,000 people in hotels. And that is why subsequent to that, very robust action was taken to reduce those numbers, which worked. The numbers halved subsequent to that."
It comes as he denied "hypocrisy" where criticising Labour for housing asylum seekers in
"But unfortunately, since Labour came to office, that trend has not continued. And in fact, the numbers in hotels in the nine months after they came to office actually went up. But let's remind ourselves why it's happening.
"It's happening because illegal immigrants are crossing the Channel in record ever numbers," he said.