Councils across England and Wales have said they are keen to help accommodate asylum seekers as the government attempts to move as many as possible out of hotels, in part to try to ease community tensions.
Angela Rayner’s housing and communities department is in talks with the Home Office about the possibility of exercising a 2026 break clause in contracts with three private companies that provide hotels for those waiting for asylum claims to be processed.
While the process is at an early stage, the Home Office is also keen on the idea of councils stepping in, which would save money and could help to distribute asylum seekers more widely.
As of the autumn, there were more than 36,000 people put up in more than 200 hotels, costing £3.7m a day. The hotels were provided by three private companies under contract to the Home Office: Serco, Mears and Clearsprings. If the break clause is not triggered, the contracts would then run to 2030.
The Local Government Association, which represents councils in England and Wales, said that while it had not been briefed about a possible shift away from the current model, councils would be keen to help if it happened.
“Councils have a proud history of supporting new arrivals across the current range of asylum and resettlement programmes,” said Louise Gittins, a councillor and the chair of the LGA.
“We are aware that the number of arrivals, combined with the need to end the use of hotels, means that the Home Office are considering using a different approach to finding and managing accommodation for asylum seekers, including local authorities playing a more active role.”
Any plans to move asylum seekers out of hotels would require work with councils to distribute people evenly, Gittins said. “We are keen to work with government both to improve the current system and work towards longer-term change. Both need to deliver a fairer dispersal of asylum seekers around the country, an understanding of shared roles and responsibilities to keep people safe and supported and the funding needed to deliver this, and a place-based approach to wider cohesion and housing challenges.”
Internal analysis of the issue from Rayner’s department, seen by the Guardian, argued that one pressing reason to make the change would be to ease tensions in areas where large numbers of people are put up in hotels, saying this was closely linked to riots and disturbances in a series of towns and cities last summer.
In one of the most violent incidents of the riots, some people tried to set fire to the Holiday Inn Express in Rotherham, which was being used to house asylum seekers, with others throwing objects at police.
Moving to a council-led approach would require significant changes, including to funding, the briefing document said, while arguing that removing profits for private companies could give more financial leeway.
