Good morning. I’m the Guardian’s north of England editor, writing to you from slightly soggy Stockport, so don’t be surprised if this briefing has a distinctly northern tinge.
Today, we are looking at the government’s announcement to stop housing asylum seekers in 50 hotels by the end of January – largely (and you may think unsurprisingly) in marginal Conservative constituencies.
They will instead get sent to “other parts of the asylum estate”, including disused military barracks and the Bibby Stockholm barge, where residents have said conditions are so awful they “despair and wish for death”.
As of the end of June, there were 50,546 asylum seekers staying in around 400 UK hotels, up from 1,200 in March 2020, costing around £8m a day. Eighty are living – for now – in a hotel on the promenade of my home town of Morecambe on the Lancashire riviera.
That’s where we are heading for today’s First Edition, with two excellent local guides: Green party councillor Caroline Jackson and refugee charity chair Dr Elizabeth Hare.
Five big stories
Israel-Hamas war | Hamas militants have reported clashes with Israeli troops in the north-west and southern Gaza Strip, as tanks and other armoured vehicles advanced on its main city.
Coronavirus | Boris Johnson asked why damage was being inflicted on the economy during the pandemic “for people who will die anyway soon” in a meeting with Rishi Sunak, the Covid inquiry has been told.
Climate crisis | Banks pumped more than $150bn last year into companies whose giant “carbon bomb” projects could destroy the last chance of stopping the planet heating to dangerous levels, the Guardian reveals today.
Friends | Jennifer Aniston, Lisa Kudrow, Courteney Cox, Matt LeBlanc and David Schwimmer have issued a joint statement following Matthew Perry’s death.
Police | Black Metropolitan police officers have complained of being put under pressure by white colleagues to donate to a fund that has raised £130,000 for two officers sacked for lying over the stop and search of a black British athlete and her Olympian partner.
In depth: ‘We were basically given no notice. We were just told it was happening’
While waiting for their claims to be processed by the Home Office, asylum seekers always used to be placed in houses and flats managed by outsourcing companies such as Serco.
Hotel use really began in earnest in September 2019, due to an increase in asylum applications and problems in the north-east and Yorkshire agreeing a deal with a housing provider. Numbers rose significantly during the first Covid lockdown because of social distancing guidelines. At the end of March 2020 there were about 1,200 asylum seekers in hotels. By October 2020 there were 9,500.
The numbers have continued to soar, with more than a third of all asylum seekers – 50,546 – in hotels at the end of June. In addition, there are more than 1,000 Afghan refugees still stuck in hotels, after arriving in Britain in August 2021 following the Taliban takeover. Last week the government told local councils that these Afghan refugees, who worked for the UK government in their home country, would need be moved out of hotels by 15 December. Due to their refugee status, these particular Afghans are entitled to benefits and housing, but councils have struggled to find them suitable accommodation.
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Where are the hotels?
The so-called asylum hotels are not evenly spread across the country. Just 110 people are in hotels in Wales, for example, yet 1,094 are in Manchester. Hillingdon, the London borough containing Heathrow airport, has 2,403 hotel-dwelling asylum seekers, more than any other local authority.
The Home Office decides which hotels to use, and often gives councils just a few days to prepare. In June 2022, Lancaster city council, which includes the seaside town of Morecambe, discovered during the Queen’s platinum jubilee weekend that a hotel on Morecambe prom was being shut to tourists and block-booked by the Home Office.
“We were basically given no notice. We were just told it was happening,” recalls Green councillor Caroline Jackson, who led the council until May and is now the cabinet member for housing and homelessness. “It was done in a really underhand way when people were distracted.”
The hotel was soon the subject of many resident complaints. Some were unhappy that their wedding receptions had been cancelled at the last minute, with a small minority guilty of “racist name calling”, says Jackson.
Many felt that Lancaster and Morecambe were housing a disproportionate number of asylum seekers, with about 200 already living in a hotel in central Lancaster. Currently, there are 29 asylum seekers [download] per 100,000 population in the Lancaster district, compared with the UK average of 18.
In Morecambe, about 80 men are now living in the hotel on the prom, mostly from Eritrea, Afghanistan and Iran – “all countries they can’t go back to”, according to Dr Elizabeth Hare, who chairs the local Refugee, Advocacy, Information and Support (Rais) service.
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What happens next?
It is a costly and controversial business: the Home Office spent £2.28bn on hotel accommodation in the last financial year as it struggles to clear a huge backlog, which reached a record high in February, with almost 139,000 cases waiting to be processed – up from just under 6,000 in March 2011.
Last week the immigration secretary, Robert Jenrick, announced plans to stop using 50 out of the 400 asylum hotels. The Home Office said it was starting with those that “have among the greatest impact on their communities [and] imposed the greatest cost to the taxpayer”.
Many also just happened to be in Tory marginals. One hotel is in Stroud, where MP Siobhan Baillie is defending a 3,840 majority; another is in Whitehaven in Copeland (Tory majority: 5,842). Other Tory-held seats among the 50 include Carlisle, Basingstoke, Skegness, Norwich and Huntingdon.
Morecambe Conservative MP David Morris, who has a majority of 6,354, trumpeted the closure of the Morecambe hotel, saying the asylum seekers have “caused pressure on our local services and has caused a great deal of concern for residents living in the vicinity”.
Jackson also welcomed the Home Office decision, saying the hotel is “an important part of the Morecambe hotel industry” and that she hopes it will “reduce community tensions”.
In Lancaster, far-right activists from Britain First have made video recordings outside the hotel housing asylum seekers, with one asylum seeker becoming the subject of a viral social media clip, purporting to show him “following” a local girl when he was simply out walking, says Jackson.
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Where will the asylum seekers be placed next?
The Home Office has told Jackson there are now 130 places available elsewhere in the district, but not whether these places are in houses or hotels.
“We find it very difficult to believe that they’ve been able to find 130 rooms in houses because of the extreme difficulties we have in finding places for homeless people,” she says.
Jackson fears they will instead be squashed into the Lancaster hotel, where bunk beds have already been put in the rooms so residents can double up. “I know from the police that this has caused severe problems. They have been called to sort out internal problems in recent weeks. Normally they get called because there is some sort of worry or concern outside.”
The government says residents will be given at least five days’ notice of their departure, but no choice of where they will go next.
“People at the hotel are very anxious and frightened about possibly being sent to a military camp or a barge,” said Hare, referring to the Bibby Stockholm, the boat in Dorset where one asylum seeker attempted to kill himself last week. “All we can do is tell them that when they find out where they are going, tell us and we will contact the nearest church or charity that can help them.”
The Home Office says it will “continue to demand that local authorities deliver on their mandated commitments to their regional dispersal plans”.
That effectively shifts the responsibility from central to local government, says Jackson. “The budgetary cost has basically been shifted on to districts, who are already in a very vulnerable position over their finances.”
About 3,000 households are on the waiting list for social housing in Lancaster and Morecambe, with a 20% increase in people contacting the council’s homelessness service between July and September. This includes asylum seekers who end up destitute after being granted refugee status – an increasingly common occurrence since the Home Office cut the deadline for leaving asylum accommodation from 28 to seven days after a successful claim.
What else we’ve been reading
Light pollution from streetlamps, screens and headlights is disrupting our health and that of our ecosystems. Reconfiguring how we feel about the dark could vastly improve our lives, writes Jacqueline Yallop. Nazia Parveen, acting deputy editor, newsletters
“I had no idea what heroin addiction looked like, and I certainly didn’t believe that the man I had married was lying to me.” Following Matthew Perry’s untimely death, Poorna Bell writes movingly about living with a drug addict, as she recalls her late husband confessing to a heroin addiction. Helen
With Halloween mania in full flow Amelia Tait looks at the new trend of “boo baskets”. Essential items to get into the true spirit of the season or just hampers full of useless clutter destined for landfill? Nazia
I loved Emma Gannon’s guide to life milestones for childfree people. We may not be able to celebrate a child’s first tooth or post a picture of them looking cute on their first day at school, but we can set our own celebration days, nurture new friendships, travel widely and look for joy and meaning within our chosen families. Helen
In an incredibly hopeful piece, Dr Daniela Lamas, a pulmonary and critical care physician, explores the use of gene therapy to combat sickle cell disease. Nazia
Sport
Football | Amid the horrors of the news coming out of Israel and Gaza over the past few weeks, John Duerden reports on the hopes of the Palestine football team to reach the 2026 World Cup. “The national team represents Palestinians inside Palestine and in the diaspora, and you can imagine the symbolism this status represents, and the hope it carries.”
Rugby union | The World Cup has come to an end, with South Africa victorious – but who won the coveted Guardian player of the tournament award? Our rugby writers give their verdict on the tournament, from best try to biggest disappointment, and they take a punt on who might come out on top in four years’ time.
Cricket | Another World Cup continues in India, but England have already been sent packing in ignominious style. Where did it all go wrong for the defending champions? Simon Burnton runs the rule over the disappointment and offers some hope for a rebuild ahead of the T20 World Cup next year.
The front pages
“Israeli PM rules out ceasefire and declares: ‘This is a time for war’” – that’s our Guardian print splash this Tuesday morning. We use the same front-page photo as the Daily Telegraph – where the headline is “Israel frees kidnapped soldier in Gaza raid” – and the Times, where the top story is “Civil servants wanted to ban Israel from AI talks”. “No ceasefire: Israel says ‘this is a time for war’” – that’s the Daily Express while the Daily Mail has a photo of three female hostages “paraded” by Hamas and calls them “Pawns of the terrorists”. “Tragic joke” – the Daily Mirror is all over the “Covid messages bombshell” that has unfolded at the coronavirus inquiry. “Johnson made it ‘impossible’ for UK to tackle Covid, top adviser says” is the treatment of that story in the i. Top story in the Financial Times is “Big Four firm PWC elevates head of advisory business to be global chair”. And in the Metro, the weather. “Saved from storm”, it says, about a pair who were washed off a harbour wall in North Yorkshire and then luckily washed back on to it. Get ready for Storm Ciarán, the paper warns. The Sun has “Maddie cops finally say sorry to Kate and Gerry”.
Today in Focus
‘We’re totally isolated’: inside Gaza as Israel’s war intensifies
As Israel steps up its military campaign in Gaza, residents trapped in the territory are facing a humanitarian crisis
Cartoon of the day | Ben Jennings
The Upside
A bit of good news to remind you that the world’s not all bad
The UK police have, quite rightly, come in for a good deal of criticism in recent years – so let’s enjoy a rare piece of cheering news, when a few Bath bobbies escorted a swan back to its home in the River Avon last weekend.
Recreating a scene from Edgar Wright’s 2007 comedy Hot Fuzz, the cygnet had become lost in the heart of the Georgian city and so a constable and two community support officers came to its aid – much to the relief of local shoppers.
“I was out shopping with my wife and daughter,” said Simon Galloway, 59, “we noticed a bit of commotion outside. That was when we saw a cygnet being escorted down the street … everyone had their phones out, laughing.”
Sign up here for a weekly roundup of The Upside, sent to you every Sunday
Bored at work?
And finally, the Guardian’s puzzles are here to keep you entertained throughout the day – with plenty more on the Guardian’s Puzzles app for iOS and Android. Until tomorrow.
