Asylum Seeker Hotel Accommodation: Reopening

Debate between Gavin Williamson and Jack Rankin

Tuesday 21st January 2025 Westminster Hall

[Jack Rankin]

I was trying to be generous in my remarks, but I think the point has been made for the record.

This issue is emblematic of the failure of our current immigration system. I will accept, for the Minister, that this is a failure of both sides of the House, but I would say that it is deteriorating under the new Government. The issue cuts through with the public because it is so visible. These are not detention centres in specific coastal areas or on the fringes of our towns. They are often hotels at the very heart of our communities throughout the country—north, south, east, west, rich and poor. Constituents can see how their taxes are being misspent and how their borders are being mismanaged, and they mark the state’s homework. Why are we allowing tens of thousands of people to enter this country illegally each year? Why are we entertaining a farcical so-called asylum system benefiting only those who break the law, and lawyers funded by taxpayers?

Datchet is a lovely Thameside village in my constituency, of about 4,000 people. At its heart is an old-fashioned village green with a church, a pub and—unusually for a village that size—a hotel. The hotel is enabled by Windsor castle being less than a mile and a half away. Datchet sits on the north bank of the Thames, and literally just the other side of the river is Home Park, the private area of Windsor castle, where both Their Majesties and Their Royal Highnesses the Prince and Princess of Wales live. In November that hotel—the Manor hotel—was reopened at great public expense to 85 “single adult males” who in my view are illegal economic migrants. If they are in such a location as Datchet, a mile from Windsor castle, then they are everywhere.

The Manor hotel is just one of 14 asylum hotels that have opened since the election, evidence of Labour’s broken manifesto pledge to close such hotels. With 220 hotels around the country now being used for such asylum accommodation, I am told that one in three Members of Parliament will be dealing with this problem. That shows just how endemic it is. This reopening was thrust upon my constituents with just 24 hours’ notice. Commandeering hotels at such notice without consultation requires some efficiency. Just imagine if that pace and efficiency could be used to deport these very migrants.

That is to say nothing of the detrimental effect such a change can have on local pride and community cohesion. With 85 adult men in a small village of 4,000 with no warning and no information provided about who they are and where they came from—if any vetting at all has been done—my residents, and the constituents of Members across the House, are right to be concerned. When the hotel was previously open for a public meeting, residents raised numerous concerns about antisocial behaviour associated directly with the hotel, including verbal abuse, public defecation and the photographing of children outside schools. These are the real-life impacts of this effective asylum amnesty.

I have since pressed the Minister in the main Chamber to provide my constituents with a timescale for the ending of the misuse of the Manor hotel, but my question was brushed aside, as many similar questions posed by colleagues on this topic have been.

[Sir Gavin Williamson (Stone, Great Wyrley and Penkridge) (Con)]

It is a great privilege to serve under your chairmanship, Sir John. I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate. He touched upon the lack of notice that was given to his constituents, and that is certainly what I have experienced with the Roman Way hotel in my constituency. There is a lack of information forthcoming from the Government. He refers to numbers of 220 hotels—14 of those opened since the election, but that figure had to be forced out of the Government by an urgent question. Does my hon. Friend hope that the Minister will be open about how many hotels have been opened since the general election, the total number and, most importantly, when they are going to be closed?

[Jack Rankin]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his intervention; I am sure the Minister takes note of his questions. My view is that yes, the public simply deserve transparency on this issue. The men individually cannot really be blamed; they are acting, arguably, in their own best interests, but we, collectively, are the fools for putting a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow—we need to remove it.

Ultimately, to stop the use of asylum hotels we need to stop the boats, and there is only one way to do that—deterrent, deterrent, deterrent. Nobody who comes to this country illegally should be able to claim asylum. France is a safe country. They should be arrested immediately and deported within days to their country of origin or a safe third country. With the correct political will, it really is as simple as that, but Labour scrapped the deterrent before it could even begin.

Instead we have an incentive system that, at every step, encourages illegal economic migrants to chance their arm. For example, smuggling gangs know that they can equip migrants with unseaworthy vessels because they know they will be picked up by the British authorities before they sink. Migrants know that once they land, armies of lawyers and campaign groups will fight to keep them here while they are housed in hotels and given an allowance for the trouble. The latest data shows that a staggering 66% of those arriving on small boats are granted asylum. We have a system that works against the interests of the British people.

The Labour Government say they want to smash the gangs and end the backlog by recruiting caseworkers, but without deterrents those commitments are meaningless—the flow will continue. The Minister admitted—in my view—the futility of smashing the gangs when she described it as playing whack-a-mole. The Conservatives spent years trying to do the same, and although we made progress on cutting crossings from Albania—note, with deportation—the wider problem remained. Repeating the same exercise and expecting a different result is madness.

While the initial cost of housing is funded nationally, when that asylum is granted that cost—in my understanding—falls on the local authority. Could it not be the case that the extra caseworkers provided by the Government will simply be rubber-stamping asylum claims to cut the backlog, but then simply transferring the cost to another one of the taxpayer’s pockets through social housing benefits and the welfare state? Increased processing simply means more asylum cases granted, and pushed and smeared into the welfare state. One of my local councils, the Lib Dem-run royal borough of Windsor and Maidenhead, has recently asked to increase council tax by 25%; how can it be expected to find extra resource for 85 illegal economic migrants entering our welfare system?

In the main Chamber, the Minister celebrated processing 11,000 decisions a month. The approval rate last year was 52%, which could mean as many as 66,000 illegal economic migrants granted asylum and entering our welfare system every year.