Children are experiencing malnutrition and stunted growth due to poor food in Home Office hotels, according to testimony shared with MPs.
One mother reported failing to get a response from the Home Office helpline when her child was diagnosed as underweight by her GP, and another family saw a request to move to self-catered accommodation ignored after their young daughter started to experience panic attacks and developed gastritis from hotel food.
The accounts, which include reported sexual assaults, threats and prostitution taking place inside hotels, have been published by the Home Affairs Select Committee as part of their inquiry into asylum accommodation.
The concerns, raised with MPs by charities supporting asylum seekers, come as freedom of information data shared with The Independent shows that hundreds of complaints have been made to the three Home Office accommodation providers, Mears, ClearSprings Ready Homes and Serco, in the past year.
Data shows that 620 complaints were escalated to Serco from asylum seekers housed by them in 2024, 592 complaints to ClearSprings and 264 to Mears.
Asylum seekers with problems can contact Migrant Help, who are contracted by the government to provide support. The data shows the number of complaints escalated by Migrant Help to the providers for resolution.
The largest category of complaints were concerns about staff, followed by food provision and service delivery. The numbers will be an underestimate of the problems as some asylum seekers say they are unsure how to seek help.
The testimonies, which will inform the committee’s inquiry into asylum accommodation, from charities such as British Red Cross, Freedom from Torture and Migrants Organise, claim that:
• One man, who used a catheter, was forced to spend upwards of four hours a day in the bathroom because hotel food was worsening his digestion. He requested a move but was not relocated, and ended up calling emergency services twice due to pain - resulting in two warning letters from the accommodation provider for wasting resources.
• In one London hotel, multiple women were engaged in prostitution, with men from both within and external to the hotel paying for sex, British Red Cross teams said. Caseworkers had to support women who did not feel safe in the hotel due to the strange men coming and going.
• One asylum seeker said a staff member told him a proof of address, which he needed to open a bank account, would cost him £40.
• One man who had recently been discharged from a mental health ward after a suicide attempt was placed in a room without windows. He asked to move but was told he had to stay in that room or face eviction. His move was refused and he made another suicide attempt.
• One woman requested female-only accommodation due to her history of sexual violence, forced marriage, mental health needs and alcohol dependency. She was then placed in a mixed-gender accommodation. Caseworkers said she began to self-medicate with alcohol and “became effectively catatonic”. She stayed in the accommodation for three weeks, and as of January 2025 was sofa-surfing.
Another asylum seeker, whose testimony was shared with MPs, described threats to her life that she experienced in Home Office shared accommodation. She said another resident threatened her with a knife and then “put salt around the outside of my door saying I was the devil”.
Law firm Deighton Pierce Glynn said that their clients had been “subjected to harassment and abuse in their asylum accommodation, by staff, other residents, and people outside the hotel.” They added: “This has included a potential child abduction; physical abuse; sexual harassment; and racially motivated and homophobic harassment and attacks”.
They said a “common feature” of these cases was repeatedly raising concerns with Migrant Help, hotel staff and accommodation providers “which were not adequately responded to”.
The Asylum Support Appeals Project told MPs that they hear “regular reports of safeguarding issues within asylum accommodation”, which included accommodation on the third floor with no functioning lift for someone in a wheelchair; sexual assault or harassment of children in mixed-gender hotels and children with stunted growth because of poor quality food.
The British Red Cross also reported “not infrequent instances of hotel staff and housing managers in dispersal accommodation being sexually inappropriate and making sexualised comments to female residents”.
At least one age-disputed child had been sexually assaulted after being placed in a hotel for adults, the charity added.
In their evidence to MPs, Serco, who were supporting more than 40,000 asylum seekers at the end of January 2025, also said that there is an “increasing safeguarding risk” from foreign national offenders who are housed in asylum accommodation because the Home Office has nowhere for them to go.
In their evidence, Serco said that these offenders were living in asylum accommodation “on an indefinite basis” due to a lack of returns agreements. They added they are not given information on the conditions of these offenders’ release, nor their additional needs, and have to proactively contact the police and probation service to understand where they can be housed.
A Home Office spokesperson said that the department “will do everything to make sure” foreign offenders are “not free on Britain’s streets”.
Serco also revealed that some local councils are now refusing to engage with them on the premise that, if they don’t reply to them, Serco can’t procure asylum accommodation in their area.
A spokesman said: “The safety and wellbeing of the asylum seekers that we are accommodating is Serco’s highest priority. We work closely with Migrant Help and we take all complaints very seriously. We fully investigate and respond to all of them as required by the Home Office and we use them to continually improve our service.”
Steve Smith, CEO of Care4Calais, said: “From former military camps to mould-infested homes, Britain’s for-profit asylum accommodation model is plagued with substandard accommodation, and it's no surprise there were almost 1,500 complaints against the private contractors last year alone.” He called for asylum accommodation to be delivered “based on the need of people seeking asylum, not private profit”.
Mears currently manage around 7,000 dispersal accommodation properties and around 40 asylum hotels.
A spokesperson said: “Mears understands the importance of supporting each person whilst living in its accommodation and our commitment to welfare and safeguarding meets and exceeds the contractual requirements. We expect high standards of our staff and where there are any complaints either directly to us or through Migrant Help, these are investigated, and appropriate action is taken.”
Migrant Help said that they have a thorough process in place for accepting and dealing with complaints. A spokesperson said: “There are various ways in which people seeking asylum are able to submit complaints, including our free 24/7 helpline, webchat, an online form, and email if the complaint is against Migrant Help.” They added that if a client is unhappy with their response they can request the complaint is escalated to the Home Office.
A Home Office spokesperson added: “We work closely with accommodation providers to ensure the safety and welfare of asylum seekers in our accommodation, including tailoring support to meet their individual needs if necessary.”
Clearsprings Ready Homes did not respond to requests for comment. In submissions to MPs, they said they had given information to residents about living in the UK, staying safe, how to report hate crime and abuse of any kind, and a guide to available education courses and activities.
They said they are trying to address concerns about food by procuring more self-catering accommodation options.
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