Asylum Seeker Hotel Accommodation: Reopening

Anna Gelderd Excerpts

Tuesday 21st January 2025 Westminster Hall

[Bradley Thomas (Bromsgrove) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir John. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Windsor (Jack Rankin) on securing this important debate. As a Conservative, I firmly believe that people who enter our country illegally have no right to stay here. We need to have strong borders, we need an effective deterrent to stop people making what is often a perilous journey, and the Government must take all possible steps to drive down numbers of illegal crossings.

I am not going to repeat all the numbers that have been cited, because I think people, in this House or in the country at large, are aware of the scale of the issue. We have seen numbers go up as a direct result of the Government’s decision to scrap the Rwanda deterrent and repeal the Illegal Migration Act 2023, which prevented those who came to the UK from claiming asylum. We heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Windsor that more than 60% of them are granted asylum and leave to remain. That increase in the numbers means that Labour has increased the number of hotels open since the election—I think the number cited was 14.

Communities across the country, including mine in Bromsgrove, have a legitimate fear that hotels are going to emerge in their area, where people have not previously seen the benefits of such accommodation being used to house illegal migrants pending the processing of their applications. The reopening of such hotels is a political choice by the Government—they chose to do that; they did not have to. They could have chosen to use alternative accommodation sites, including military barracks or the Bibby Stockholm barge. They also chose to repeal tough legislation to protect our borders.

Bromsgrove has hosted asylum hotels in the recent past. Fortunately, it does not at the moment, but there have been three instances in recent years.

[Anna Gelderd (South East Cornwall) (Lab)]

Constituents in South East Cornwall have expressed concern about the use of a hotel in the Fowey valley. Does the hon. Member agree that it is essential for asylum seekers to be housed appropriately where facilities are available and where infrastructure exists to avoid undue strain on local communities?

[Bradley Thomas]

I agree with the hon. Lady’s point about the appropriateness of the location. We all recognise that hotels are often based in rural areas or in an economy without any relevant services nearby, which is wholly inappropriate.

To return to the broader question of the Government’s approach to dealing with illegal migration, I am grateful that, in Bromsgrove, every one of the unsuitable sites that was previously used is no longer in use. There is a more fundamental point, however, about fairness to the UK taxpayer.

Successive Governments have tended to view people as an economic unit, but they cherry-pick the category of person they define either as a net economic contributor or as a draw on the economy. Students, for instance, go through university and accrue student debt, which is a debt to society that will be repaid after graduation when they are net economic contributors. When illegal migrants arrive in the UK, however, a financial accrual starts ticking that includes everything to do with the cost to the state of processing applications, the cost of hotel accommodation and the cost to the UK taxpayer of giving them an allowance to spend while they are out and about in the communities where they are residing.

On the point about fairness, that does not feel equitable to many of my constituents and, I am sure, many constituents across the country. It strikes me as perverse that students accrue debt while they are at university and, when they become economic contributors, that is drawn down through the PAYE—pay-as-you-earn—system from their earnings, yet we allow a seemingly bottomless pit of funds to accrue as a debt to be absorbed by the UK taxpayer. Why do the Government not explore a scheme whereby, if asylum seekers are deemed to be genuinely in fear and are allowed to integrate and remain in the UK, they repay their debt when they become economic contributors and are active in the workplace? It could be a tiered, sliding scale that recognises the cost that the UK taxpayer is expected to shoulder for people fleeing from a state of alleged persecution.

We must significantly redress the balance in favour of the UK taxpayer. I speak to numerous constituents who are concerned about the extent of the debt that the state is accruing. We have heard about increasing dependency on welfare, and countries across the west already face a demographic time bomb and a demographic twilight as populations age and burdens on the state grow. We in the west do not have enough of a pipeline of economic talent coming in at the bottom end, so we already face what we could call a time bomb of indigenous welfare dependency, exacerbated by the additional costs of processing illegal migrants on ludicrous timescales that the general public laugh at. Frankly, they feel short-changed by the efforts of—I will be quite honest—successive Governments, who have failed to get a grip on the situation.

In short, we desperately need to redress the balance. We cannot be in denial about the extent of the cost to the British state. Any migrant who comes to the UK and is able and willing to make an economic contribution will almost certainly always be welcome—we have dozens of potential growth industries that our economy desperately needs to support—but this is about getting the balance right. If the Government choose to view people as economic units, the interests of the UK taxpayer must be first and foremost. We cannot view UK taxpayers as just being there to shoulder a bill and disregard their concerns for their communities, while the Government at the same time choose to consider asylum seekers for more than just their economic value.

--- Later in debate ---

[Rupert Lowe (Great Yarmouth) (Reform)]

Thank you very much, Sir John, and apologies for not bobbing appropriately. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship.

Our message to the world has to be this: if you come here illegally, you will be deported. Not housed in luxury accommodation, fed and cared for at the taxpayer’s expense; deported. Not allowed to roam the streets entirely unchecked, with no limits; deported. Not free to apply for asylum under whatever lie the Home Office is buying this week; deported.

Removing those with no right to be here is not cruel; it is not heartless; it is necessary. Language matters, and these men are not desperate asylum seekers; they are not irregular migrants—they are illegal migrants, and they should be treated as such. Spreading them across the country into unsuspecting communities is pure insanity. Members should ask themselves honestly: if a hotel at the bottom of their road was suddenly filled overnight with young foreign males who had entered the country almost entirely unchecked, would they be happy for their teenage daughter to go out after dark? The answer is no.

[Anna Gelderd]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that women across the country face very difficult situations walking home at night, and that often the tone of debate is incredibly important to maintain our safety in all situations?

[Rupert Lowe]

I do not think the tone of the debate is in any way relevant. What is relevant is what the Government do to protect the interests of the British people.

The answer to the question I asked is no, and if Members disagree they are even more deluded than the Home Office. When I try to explore the actual cost of these hotels and the surrounding healthcare, travel, translation, recreational activities and more, I am denied vast swathes of information by the Home Office. It is a cover-up. It says that it does not pay for x or y, but that is because it is all subcontracted out on billion-pound contracts spread over 10 years. The list of further subcontractors on those contracts is fully redacted. Why might that be? Again, it is a blatant cover-up. Let me be abundantly clear: the full cost of these hotels is being concealed from the British public. I am doing everything in my power to uncover the truth.

Locals are not even informed about what has happened in their town. I asked the Home Office to develop a consultation process with residents before a hotel is hijacked. It refused and reminded me of its obligation to care for illegal migrants. What about the safety and needs of taxpaying local residents?

Hotels are being filled with young men in close proximity to girls’ schools. Does anyone here find that acceptable? I have pushed the Government to undertake a review of the impact on British women and girls of crime emanating from these hotels. Again, they refused. Who is the Home Office actually serving? Sadly, I have little doubt that far more crime is being committed by illegal migrants than we are being told.

I have raised the matter time and again with the Government. Nobody seems to care. There are roughly 30,000 illegal migrants in hotels around the country. As we know, the vast majority are young males, many from cultures that do not respect women. That is not racist, far right or whatever else; it is a reality, and one we must start to deal with.

Secure detention is required, not open hotels. If the facilities do not exist, build them. If we get serious on deportations, they will not be necessary for long. Send the following message and the boats will stop: “If you come to the UK illegally, you won’t be met with luxury accommodation. What will the British Government do to you? Two words: detain and deport.” That is the only way.