The government has been accused of “deflecting its failures” with its “unworkable” Rwanda plan rather than reducing asylum backlogs as tens of thousands of asylum seekers continue to languish in hotels.
New data obtained by the Refugee Council reveals that the number of people seeking asylum who are living in hotel accommodation almost trebled last year, surging to 26,380, despite a pledge by the Home Office at the start of 2021 to reduce the numbers.
Figures uncovered by The Independent last month revealed that the numbers continued to increase into 2022, with 28,621 asylum seekers in hotel accommodation by May of this year.
The Refugee Council’s findings, obtained under freedom of information (FOI) laws, reveal that 378 people had been in hotel rooms for a year by the end of December 2021, and almost 3,000 (2,826) for more than six months.
The number of families housed in single hotel rooms has increased by nearly a third (27 per cent) in 2021, which includes over 2,500 children (10 per cent of the hotel population).
This is despite the government pledging last February to limit the use of hotels to house people in the asylum system and its promise to move people into longer-term accommodation within 35 days.
The department is spending £127 on hotels per asylum seeker each day, and a total of more than £1.7bn each year, the Home Office previously disclosed.
The report also highlights cases of people having inadequate access to clothing, appropriate footwear and other basic essentials such as paracetamol, mobile phones and internet data.
It suggests that many of those living in asylum accommodation have limited access to the vital legal and health services they desperately need while claiming asylum, and are being cut off from the rest of society and support networks.
One person the charity is supporting, an Iranian woman referred to as Angel in the report, has been living with her three children, aged 22, and twins aged 14, in a hotel since November 2021.
“The school is quite far away. At the beginning, it was hard for me to make sure they got there safely. They need to get a bus and walk, it is over half an hour away,” she said.
“I didn’t get any financial support at the beginning so when the school sent us the letter and said they had a space I couldn’t take my children. I went to reception and said I don’t have any financial support to get my children to school today. Reception said they couldn’t help.”
Enver Solomon, chief executive of the Refugee Council, said the impact of this on people who have already endured suffering was “huge, damaging their mental health, robbing children of their childhood and leaving people unable to progress with their lives in any meaningful way”.
He added that the “huge” increase in the number of families and vulnerable children stuck in hotel rooms was the “brutal reality of a broken system”.
“The government is deflecting its failures with cruel and unworkable policies like that of the Rwanda scheme, rather than focussing on creating a fair, effective and humane asylum system which addresses the backlog of people trapped in the asylum system,” he said.
“The government must ensure swift decisions are made so that those who have protection needs can stay in this country as a refugee, and those who do not can be supported to safely return to the country from which they came.”
It comes after renewed doubt was cast over the Home Office’s plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda when it was revealed that British officials repeatedly told the government not to strike such a deal with the country.
Documents presented to a High Court hearing on Tuesday said that Rwanda was “initially excluded from the shortlist of potential partner countries for [Priti Patel’s] proposed immigration policy on human rights grounds”.
They showed that before the plans were announced, the UK High Commissioner to Rwanda indicated that the country “should not be pursued as an option for the planned migration policy”.
A Home Office spokesperson said asylum seekers had the same access to healthcare as British citizens and permanent residents, and that their immigration plans would reduce the use of hotels.
