1 of 2 | Britain will begin exiting contracts within days with 50 of the 400 hotels being used to house more than 50,000 asylum seekers across England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland by January as part of a plan to cut the $9.7 million a day cost of the contracts. File photo by Will Oliver/EPA
Oct. 25 (UPI) -- Britain will stop using 50 of the 400 hotels being used to house more than 50,000 asylum seekers across England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland by January as part of a plan to cut the $9.7 million a day cost of the contracts.
Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick, who made the announcement in the House of Commons on Tuesday, said he had written to local authorities and MPs in affected areas to notify them of the decision to begin exiting hotels in the next few days.
"These hotels should be assets for their local communities: serving businesses and tourists; hosting the life events that we treasure like weddings and birthdays -- not housing illegal migrants at unsustainable cost to the taxpayer," Jenrick told MPs.
The government has been working to reduce reliance on hotels by making asylum seekers share rooms, re-purposing disused military barracks and moving them to accommodation barges -- the first of which began taking residents aboard Thursday. Local councils where migrants are being hosted have also received increased funding from the central government.
But Tuesday's move was possible because of the progress the government had made on reducing illegal migration with the number of people arriving on small boats down by more than a fifth from the same period in 2022, said Jenrick who pledged no let-up in the drive to get numbers down.
"We will continue to deliver on our strategy to stop the boats and we will be able to exit more hotels. And as we exit these hotels, we are putting in place dedicated resources to facilitate the orderly and effective management of this process and limit the impact on local communities," he said.
However, local politicians complained they had not been consulted, warning the move could merely transfer the financial burden of accommodating asylum seekers to local taxes and increase the already rising numbers of migrants city, town and district councils must house because they are on the streets.
"Councils are also becoming increasingly concerned over the numbers of asylum seekers presenting as homeless which is likely to dramatically increase when Home Office accommodation is withdrawn as a result of the current clearance of the asylum backlog," said Local Government Association chair Shaun Davies
"Given increased demand and the acute shortage of housing available across the country, it will make it extremely challenging for those leaving accommodation to find affordable, long-term accommodation and there needs to be a joint and funded approach nationally, regionally and locally to manage the move on from asylum accommodation and avoid risks of destitution and street homelessness throughout the winter."
Stopping the small boats that brought 45,755 asylum seekers to England's shores in 2022 -- mostly from France -- is one of Conservative Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's five pledges for a more secure and prosperous future for Britain.
