The House of Commons speaker, Lindsay Hoyle, has been urged to stop Conservative MPs from naming hotels which will house people seeking asylum because of concerns it could lead to attacks by extremists.
The Refugee Council has written to the speaker pointing out that it is Home Office practice not to name hotels where migrants are staying, some of which have been targeted by far-right groups.
The former education minister Jonathan Gullis, the Peterborough MP, Paul Bristow, and the MP for Ipswich, Tom Hunt, are among more than a dozen MPs who have named accommodation earmarked for people seeking asylum.
Counter-terrorism police last week said that the firebombing of a migrant centre in Dover had an “extreme rightwing motivation”.
Andrew Leak, 66, from High Wycombe, in Buckinghamshire, is believed to have killed himself after throwing two or three “crude” incendiary devices at the Western Jet Foil site in Kent.
The anti-racist group Hope Not Hate has this year recorded 182 visits from anti-migration activists to migrant accommodation sites, where asylum seekers and security personnel can be harassed and filmed.
In the letter, the Refugee Council’s chief executive, Enver Solomon, said the firebomb attack underlined the fact that asylum seekers are vulnerable to attacks by violent extremists.
“It has been Home Office practice to not publicly name hotels where people are staying in order to guard their safety and privacy, but we know that increasingly MPs are naming specific premises when they raise this issue.
“It is of course right that MPs should be able to raise any constituency issue in parliament, but this can be done without identifying a specific hotel.
“I would very much appreciate it if you could urgently communicate with MPs on this matter, asking that they refrain from publicly identifying hotels that are housing people seeking asylum,” he wrote.
Reacting to the letter, Gullis, who has named a hotel in his Stoke-on-Trent North constituency where 80 people were due to be held, said he would not be silenced.
“People in Stoke-on-Trent, Kidsgrove and Talke are rightly angry that over £6m a day is being spent on hotels for illegal economic migrants to stay in.
“We have every right to speak on behalf of the people we serve and raise their concerns.
“I will not be silenced, and will name and shame greedy hotel chains who are only serving themselves, not the community they are in,” he said.
Hunt and Bristow have been contacted for comment.
During a Westminster Hall debate last week Hunt raised the potential use of an Ipswich town centre hotel to house more than 200 asylum seekers and named another nearby hotel where another 150 were staying.
“The people of Ipswich are welcoming people but, quite frankly, there is a limit,” he claimed.
Bristow has spoken out about 80 people seeking asylum being housed in a named hotel in the centre of his constituency.
“Peterborough welcomes refugees – but something very different is happening with small boat crossings and the use of a smart hotel. This is widely reported and accepted by most,” he wrote on Twitter.
Diana Johnson, the chair of the home affairs select committee, said there was “ little to be gained” from publicising the exact hotels in which asylum seekers were staying.
“We must remember that asylum seekers are a vulnerable group who have often experienced significant trauma. No matter where they are housed their safety must be guaranteed – disclosing the names of individual hotels will only serve to put them at greater risk,” she said.
Rosie Carter, the director of policy at Hope Not Hate, backed the call for MPs to refrain from naming hotels used as accommodation for asylum seekers.
“Publicising hotels being used to house people seeking asylum does nothing to find people more suitable accommodation, but puts pins on a map for the far right to further jeopardise people’s safety. It’s plain irresponsible,” she said.
A spokesperson for Hoyle declined to comment.
