Asylum Accommodation

Katie Lam Excerpts

Monday 29th June 2026 Commons Chamber

[Katie Lam (Weald of Kent) (Con)]

I thank the Minister for advance sight of his statement, which confirms what we have suspected since last week: this Government are planning to put more illegal migrants into sites across the country.

Some of those sites are due to host illegal migrants until 2030, yet the Government did not think that it was worth alerting the hon. Members who represent those communities and live nearby ahead of the announcement in the press. Rather than subjecting the plans to proper scrutiny here in Parliament, the Government tried to sneak the news out quietly before the weekend, without discussion here in this place by those people’s democratically elected representatives. That is exactly the same playbook that the Government have tried to use in places like Inverness where, thanks to the work of the Conservative group on the Highland council, the Home Office’s plans to house illegal migrants at Cameron barracks were blocked.

We have seen in far too many cases the risk that illegal migrants, most of them young men, pose to the public, particularly to women and children. If the Government are planning to force communities to live alongside people who have shown complete contempt for our laws and norms by the very act of coming here illegally, the least that they can do is to allow those plans to be subject to proper scrutiny.

Now that we finally have an opportunity to scrutinise the plans, we can perhaps see why the Government were so keen to hide them. For all the talk of smashing the gangs, they reveal that this Government do not have any faith in their own ability to fix the problem. If they are so sure that they are ending illegal channel crossings, why are the Government making plans to host illegal migrants in this country until 2030? What does that tell us about their confidence in their own approach?

The truth is that this Government have no intention of fixing the problem: they care only about managing people’s perceptions of it. While they talk up the reduction in illegal migrants living in hotels, they conveniently leave out the fact that thousands more migrants are being housed in so-called dispersal accommodation: homes in the middle of our towns and cities where illegal migrants pose an even greater risk to the public.

Since the last election, 75,000 people have crossed the channel. In the past few weeks alone, 3,000 have made the crossing. For all the Government’s talk of removals, nearly all of them—some 93%—are being allowed to stay. The Minister boasts about a reduction in outstanding decisions, but they have achieved that reduction by granting asylum to thousands upon thousands of illegal migrants.

The Minister said in his statement that to stop the use of asylum hotels for good

“we must go further, and that means scaling up our use of larger, more basic facilities.”

He is right that the Government must go further to stop the use of asylum hotels for good, but he is utterly wrong that the problem is solved by instead spending huge resources to create other places to live for those who arrive here illegally.

As Conversative Members have made clear time and again, the only real solution to the crisis at our border is to remove illegal migrants as soon as they arrive. People must know that if they try to break our laws, they cannot stay. For it to be possible to remove people as soon as they arrive, we must leave the jurisdiction of the European Court of Human Rights that prevents us from doing so, but the Government refuse to recognise that. They are in hock to activist lawyers in this country and unaccountable judges in Strasbourg, and keeping those people happy takes precedence over keeping the British people safe and delivering on their democratic will.

The plans before us are another sorry example of that. More illegal migrants will enter the endless cycle of appeals and legal challenges, allowing them to stay here for years at the taxpayer’s expense. More people will be put at risk because of these plans and because of the Government’s unwillingness truly to solve this problem for good.

[Alex Norris]

We see the contrast there clearly. While the Government have a serious plan on how to accommodate a significant number of people and change that reality, the hon. Lady offers just “Hail Marys” and long shots. Her colleagues had 14 years, but sat through them and did not make any of those decisions. It is hard to believe.

The hon. Lady started by asking why, and that is a very important point, because these sites are part of our theory of change. At the moment, the traffickers say, “Come to the UK. Live in a hotel. You will be able to work illegally, dead easily.” We have to change that reality if we want to reduce pull factors. This plan does so; it says, “You will not live in a hotel. You may well live on a military site.” That is about reducing numbers and reducing the impact on the British taxpayer, and that is the right thing to do.

The hon. Lady mentioned dispersal accommodation. The previous statistics release in May shows a 32% reduction in the number of people in hotels, but there was a reduction of less than 1% in the number of people in dispersal accommodation, so the reality is not quite as she put it. On decision making, she knows that the grant rate has not changed significantly at all, so I simply cannot accept her case that by making more decisions we are letting more people through.

The reality is that we have a choice between another hopeful attempt at culture war by an Opposition who have no ideas, and a serious plan to reduce numbers. Let us face it: asylum applications are three times what they would have been 10 years ago. From us, it is serious action; from the Opposition, it is empty calories.