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Migrants could remain in hotels for up to three more years due to a growing backlog in the asylum system. We read in The Times this week that there are 225,000 asylum claimants awaiting decisions, with some 30,000 being put up in hotels.
The cost to the taxpayer has been £8 million a day. “That’s only a small slice of the bill: many more are in dispersal accommodation. “This backlog benefits nobody except the companies that make money by accommodating them….”. So wrote The Times. The money now spent on (warm) hotel accommodation for asylum seekers is over double the amount to be saved by denying pensioners the winter fuel allowance that many of them will be desperate for to keep warm.
Despite Labour’s pledge to clear the backlog and “end asylum hotels,” if anything, the backlog has grown. Small boats are still coming, while the rate of clearing applications has slowed.
The backlog, already huge, become worse due to a dramatic drop in productivity following Rishi Sunak’s election call. Asylum decisions plummeted from 14,148 in April to a mere 2,990 in June, even though the number of caseworkers stayed the same. Caseworkers were processing an average of just two cases per month, compared to seven in April.
Meanwhile, British citizens are being sidelined as migrants coming illegally are prioritised. A recent report from the Ministry of Housing Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) revealed that over 320,000 households in England are now homeless – the highest on record, representing a population larger than Nottingham.
In his conference speech, Sir Keir Starmer promised to prioritise housing for veterans, young care leavers, and domestic abuse victims. All very well but, by law, asylum seekers cannot be left destitute. The government – or local authorities – are obliged to house them. Which means that migrants who make their way here illegally and shouldn’t be here at all, are permitted to stay and accordingly have to be accommodated. And that is why they will continue to make their way to the UK and won’t be frightened off by threats to ‘smash the gangs’. The boats will stop if those coming in them are detained, processed quickly and removed within days of arriving.
The solution? Amend the Human Rights Act, leave the European Convention of Human Rights, (something now no lesser authority than Lord Sumption is calling for) and negotiate strict return agreements with more countries. If countries don’t cooperate, the UK must be willing to use aid and visa bans as leverage. The Rwanda deal should also be brought back. Only then will the tide of illegality across the Channel ease then stop.
This is a preview of Migration Watch’s free weekly newsletter. Please consider signing up to the newsletter directly, you can do so here and will receive an email copy of the newsletter every week as soon as it is released.