Failed asylum system needs 'urgent solution' as migrant crisis deepens

More than 20 hotels across the West Midlands are being used to temporarily house asylum seekers as the country struggles to cope with record applications from migrants.

And council leaders have been told to expect the use of hotels to increase, while other buildings such as empty care homes and holiday camps also being brought on board.

For security reasons, the Express & Star has agreed not to identify the hotels that are being used across the West Midlands.

But many are well known businesses and concerns have been raised by council leaders of the impact caused by the reduction in hotel beds for visitors on business or leisure visits.

Home Office figures show that across the country 207 hotels were used for people seeking asylum in the last quarter of 2021, up from just 24 in the last three months of 2019.

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has said the current situation highlighted long-standing government failings when dealing with asylum seekers.

He said it was disgraceful that just four per cent of asylum applications were processed within a year.

Sir Keir told the Express & Star: “This is a direct consequence of the failure of the Home Office to deal with asylum applications in a timely way.

“There was a time when they were mainly processed within about six months. Now it’s taken much longer.

“That means people who need housing are remaining in hotels. All roads lead back to a complete failure of government when it comes to asylum.”

The scheme, which is run by private contractor Serco for the Home Office, has been severely criticised by council leaders in the West Midlands.

They say asylum seekers are left in hotels, often for months on end in dreadful conditions. Councils are blocked from providing direct support, although local services such as health can be utilised.

Councillor Ian Brookfield, Labour leader of Wolverhampton Council, said the use of hotels for asylum seekers was likely to increase in the coming months.

“We’re over 20 hotels in the West Midlands now,” he said. “And the Government’s latest plans are looking at a 30 per cent increase in order to cope with the demand.

“They are saying they don’t want to use hotels, but the reality is that hotels will continue to be used because they cannot move that amount of people into accommodation because it is just not available.

“So rather than phase it out, this will increase.”

Mr Brookfield said the Home Office was “actively seeking” holiday camps and other large scale venues such as empty care homes to use as temporary accommodation.

“The system is not getting better, in fact it has collapsed,” he added. “The conditions are often cramped and the support is not there. We have one hotel that is purely for unaccompanied children. What kind of life is that?

“The Government needs to be honest with the public and come up with a solution. Clearly, there are huge delays in processing people which needs to be sped up.

“They need to take on more staff to do it, and act as soon as people land rather than once they have been sent all around the country when they become harder to deal with.”

The system has been put under increased strain this year due to record numbers of migrants crossing the Channel in small boats. On one single day at the weekend more than 1,000 landed in Dover.

Concerns have been raised about an increase in organised gangs bringing in people from Albania.

More than 38,000 migrants have arrived in Britain on small boats across the Channel so far this year. About 12,000 are reported as being Albanian compared to a total of 800 last year and 50 in 2020.

Dan O’Mahoney, clandestine Channel threat commander for the Border Force, told the Commons home affairs select committee this week that the numbers equated to “one to two per cent” of Albanian men aged between 20 and 40.

Marco Longhi, Conservative MP for Dudley North, has urged the Government to take “strong action” over illegal immigration, which he says is having a major impact on the West Midlands as one of the regions where arrivals are accommodated.

He said: “People now struggle to book a hotel for a wedding or a wake, because the Home Office has started to use them to house migrants.”

Mike Bird, Conservative leader of Walsall Council, said he was aware of three additional sites in the borough that have been lined up to open as asylum seeker accommodation.

“It is not right that so many asylum seekers are being put up in hotels,” he said. “The accommodation is often substandard and quite frankly we should be offering them far better.

“We have had reports of people living with Covid and of families in dreadful, cramped conditions. The Home Office needs to get a grip.”

Jenni Halliday, Serco’s contract director for asylum accommodation services, said: “With the significant increases in the number of people arriving in the UK we have been faced with no alternative but to temporarily accommodate some asylum seekers in hotels.

“These hotels are only used as a last resort but as a provider of accommodation services on behalf of the Home Office we have a responsibility to find accommodation for the asylum seekers that are being placed in our care.

“The Serco team is working extremely hard to move people into dispersed social housing as rapidly as possible.”

Last month Serco put out a call for homeowners in the Midlands to take in migrants. The firm offered rent and maintenance costs for up to five years as well as covering tenants’ council tax and bills.

Sites such as student accommodation are also being considered, although plans to house nearly 500 asylum seekers at former student halls in Stafford were thrown out by the local council.

Almost 40,000 people have arrived in the UK in small boats so far this year. However, the Home Office says it has processed just four per cent of asylum claims from people who crossed the Channel in 2021.

The UK’s asylum system has long been a point of contention in the West Midlands.

Last year local authorities in the region – including the four Black Country councils – announced they were refusing to take any more asylum seekers, claiming the system had become “unsustainable”.

They said they were being forced to take more than their fair share of asylum seekers while other councils were taking none.

A legal claim was launched but it was withdrawn in May this year after the Home Office vowed to create a “fairer model” of asylum.

A Home Office spokesperson said: “The use of hotels to house asylum seekers is unacceptable and we are working with local authorities to find appropriate accommodation across the United Kingdom.”