The hotels in the UK will no longer be used to host asylum seekers, an increasingly delicate topic in the country
Refugees from the UK making Prince William's hand after he visited a Leeds hotel for their hosting, photo: Danny Lawson / AFP / Profimedia Images
The United Kingdom will give up the use of hotels to host asylum seekers before the following 2029 elections, Rachel Reeves said on Wednesday, presenting a measure that will lead to budgetary savings of a billion £ (35 billion) a year, reports Reuters.
Every year, tens of thousands of asylum seekers reach the southern coast of England in small boats. They are mainly accommodated in hotels throughout the country, which cost the government 3.1 billion pounds during the period 2023–2024.
“We will end the expensive use of hotels to host asylum seekers in the current legislature,” Reeves said in a speech in which he presented the expense plans for the coming years.
Increasing the expenses for accommodation, together with the impact on tourism and the objections of locals compared to the presence of asylum seekers in their communities, made hotels a sensitive topic in the UK.
Reeves' Labor Party had promised last year that it would end the use of hotels for asylums before the general elections, to save “billions of pounds”, but had not specified until he did so.
Reeves said that giving up hotels will be achieved by allocating additional funds to reduce the arrears in the asylum, faster judgment of appeal cases and the repatriation of those who have no right to remain in the UK.
