Home Office Squandered Billions on Asylum Hotels

A Commons Home Affairs Committee report found the Home Office has squandered billions on asylum accommodation, with projected 2019–2029 costs rising from £4.5bn to £15.3bn. MPs said hotels became the default rather than a stopgap, leaving 32,059 people in hotel accommodation in June and about 103,000 in Home Office-paid accommodation overall, costing taxpayers roughly £2.1bn a year. The committee identified failures of leadership, short-term reactive planning and poor contract oversight of private providers, and flagged profit-share arrangements and excess profits — naming Clearsprings, Mears and Serco and noting Mears ≈£13.8m and Clearsprings ≈£32m pending audit — that remain unrecovered. It also raised serious safeguarding failures, including wrongful age assessments that placed children in adult accommodation, and said community tensions have been inflamed by violent incidents linked to asylum sites. MPs urged ministers to use 2026 contract break clauses and to only end hotel use by 2029 if a credible long-term alternative is in place, warning that closing hotels without a plan would repeat past errors. The Home Office said it is taking action to close hotels and reduce costs.