Government vows to end asylum hotels amid claims more could be used

Downing Street has insisted the Government is “committed” to ending the usage of asylum hotels amid claims the Home Office is considering reopening immoderate antecedently closed by the Conservatives.

Labour vowed successful its manifesto to halt lodging migrants successful taxpayer-funded hotels but stands accused of seeking to usage more.

Shadow location caput James Cleverly said: “The past Conservative authorities closed 150 asylum hotels and had flights acceptable to spell to Rwanda.

“But Labour scrapped our deterrent connected time 1 and are present reopening asylum hotels costing upwards of £4 cardinal each time – and breaking yet different committedness they made to the British people.”

The Home Office is understood to beryllium reviewing the hotels being utilized to location asylum seekers. But the section would not corroborate if it was seeking to usage much oregon reopen immoderate of those antecedently closed.

The Prime Minister’s authoritative spokesperson said: “As the Government has said previously, we inherited an asylum strategy successful chaos, with tens of thousands stuck successful a backlog arsenic radical were actively not processed by the erstwhile government.

“What we are doing is surging returns and processing the backlog. We’ve redeployed 300 staff, we’ve returned 3,600 individuals with nary close to beryllium here.

“Clearly, this is going to instrumentality time, and we regularly reappraisal our usage of asylum accommodation because, arsenic acceptable retired successful the manifesto, we’re committed to ending the usage of asylum hotels and redeeming the payer billions of pounds.”

A Home Office root said Labour “inherited a chaotic scenery of costly edifice contracts, ample sites and dispersed accommodation”, adding: “We person started processing asylum claims, which had crushed to a halt nether the Tories, starring to a grounds asylum backlog and a £5 cardinal achromatic spread successful the Home Office budget.

“The Home Office regularly reviews our asylum accommodation footprint to trim costs, physique flexibility and present worth for wealth for taxpayers.”

A Home Office spokesperson said the Government is “determined to reconstruct bid to the asylum strategy truthful that it operates swiftly, firmly and fairly” and it was “committed to speeding up the asylum process” by taking “urgent enactment to restart processing and wide the backlog, which volition prevention an estimated £7 cardinal for the payer implicit the adjacent 10 years”.

There has besides been a “major surge successful migration enforcement and returns enactment to region radical with nary close to beryllium successful the UK”, helium added.