Billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money have been wasted on asylum hotels due to what MPs have branded a “failed, chaotic and expensive” Home Office system.
The all-party home affairs committee said ministers and officials “neglected” oversight of accommodation contracts, allowing costs to balloon from £4.5billion to £15.3billion over ten years while contractors made “excessive” profits.
The committee found “no penalties were applied for poor performance at migrant hotels,” which now account for over 75% of asylum accommodation spending.
“Profit share clauses failed to account for the large expansion of hotel accommodation, generating vast profits for providers,” MPs said.
Dame Karen Bradley, the committee’s chair, said: “The Government needs to get a grip on the asylum accommodation system in order to bring costs down and hold providers to account for poor performance. The Home Office must finally learn from its previous mistakes or it is doomed to repeat them.”
The MPs warned that while Sir Keir Starmer’s pledge to end hotel use by 2029 “appeals to popular opinion,” it risks “under-delivery and consequently undermining public trust still further” without a clear long-term plan.
A Home Office spokesman said: “The Government is furious about the number of illegal migrants in this country and in hotels. That is why we will close every single asylum hotel – saving the taxpayer billions of pounds. We have already taken action – closing hotels, slashing asylum costs by nearly a billion pounds and exploring the use of military bases and disused properties.”