At least ten migrants have lived in Home Office temporary accommodation for over three years waiting on their asylum claim decision, a new report from the borders inspector has revealed.
At least 83 people have also been living in asylum accommodation for over two years, and a further 203 people for over a year, the report shows.
The independent chief inspector of borders and immigration looked into the Home Office’s use of contingency asylum accommodation, which is mainly hotel rooms but can be temporary flats or hostels. Expenditure on asylum accommodation and support has risen significantly in the past four years, with think tank IPPR estimating that costs have gone from £739m in 2019/20 to £4.7bn in 2023/24.
Data provided to the borders chief by the Home Office showed the number of accommodation sites that have housed someone for over 1,000 days, between two years and 1,000 days, and under two years. The stats showed that at least one person at ten sites had been housed for more than 1,000 days.
Migrants are housed in hotels and other temporary accommodation when they are waiting on the outcome of their asylum application. Once they receive a decision the Home Office evicts them from the hotel, and they have to find their own home or turn to the local council for emergency help.
The report, published last week by interim chief inspector of borders and immigration David Bolt, also found that the Home Office had paid for 7,000 bed spaces in hotels and large sites that were not being used by asylum seekers.
Data for one hotel provider showed that in March 2023 the Home Office had been paying for 32,656 bedspaces but 11,043 were unoccupied.
The report also found that asylum seekers who were housed at the large sites, former military base RAF Wethersfield and the barge Bibby Stockholm, struggled with stress and anxiety because they were not given a clear date for when they would be moved on.
It was also not clear that housing asylum seekers in these large sites is any cheaper than housing them in hotels, the report found. Despite many millions being invested into making sites like Wethersfield habitable, the inspector found the Home Office only calculated they were value for money if they were at the maximum occupancy of 90 per cent, something the department “does not anticipate it will achieve”.
The report quoted one senior civil servant as saying: “Large sites were always marginal value for money - even if sites are at capacity.”
The Home Office said that the new government was already implementing recommendations made by the chief inspector in his report.
