Britain spent a record £5.38billion on its asylum system last year up, new figures have revealed.
Home Office spending on support and accommodation for asylum seekers and related migration and border activity rose by £1.43billion in 2023/24, up more than a third from £3.95billion the previous year.
It is the highest amount on record since comparable data began being collected in 2010/11.
It is more than four times the equivalent figure for 2020/21, which was £1.34billion and nearly 12 times the total a decade ago in 2013/14 when it was £0.45billion.
The total covers all Home Office asylum costs, including direct cash support and accommodation, plus wider staffing and other related migration and border activity.
The figures, released on Thursday, do not include the cost of operations responding to Channel crossings, intercepting migrants as they make the perilous journey to the UK often in small boats.
Although the majority of migrants entering the UK in this manner do then end up in the asylum system, data suggests.
The latest Office for National Statistics (ONS) figures cover the previous Conservative government's administration prior to the general election.
New Tory leader Kemi Badenoch admitted her party had failed on migration.
In a speech on Wednesday, she said there had been a "collective failure of political leaders from all parties over decades" to grasp migration, adding: "On behalf of the Conservative Party, it is right that I as the new leader accept responsibility, and say truthfully we got this wrong.”
It comes as the migration minister repeatedly declined to say when asylum hotels would close on Thursday.
Challenged to name a date on LBC, Seema Malhotra said hotels would shut only as the Government “return those who have no right to be here".
Acknowledging that the Labour Government had closed seven hotels but opened 14, she said: "We absolutely want to see hotels closed and what we know, what your listeners will also know, is we do have to house destitute asylum seekers.
"But this has been an overall fall since 400 hotels were being used at the peak."
