Cost of housing an asylum seeker ‘soars from £17k to £41k in just four years’ as hotel use surges

A view of the scene outside the Comfort Inn hotel on Belgrave Road in Pimlico, central London, where the Home Office have reportedly asked a group of refugees to be accommodated four to a room - (PA)

The average annual cost of housing and supporting an asylum seeker has risen by £24,000 per person in the past four years as the Home Office becomes increasingly reliant on more expensive hotel accommodation, according to a new report into asylum expenditure.

Analysts at the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) have found that the bill for supporting each asylum seeker has risen from £17,000 on average in the financial year 2019/20, to approximately £41,000 in 2023/24. Both of these figures are adjusted to 2023/24 prices to eliminate the impacts of inflation.