Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many asylum seekers are housed in contingency accommodation; and what assessment she has made of trends in the level of the use of that accommodation.

At its peak, around 400 hotels were in use as contingency accommodation for asylum seekers, at a cost of approximately £9 million per day. The number of hotels in use has since reduced to fewer than 200. The Government remains committed to ending the use of hotels to accommodate asylum seekers by the end of this Parliament.

The Home Office publishes data on the number of asylum seekers supported in accommodation, including contingency accommodation such as hotels, broken down by local authority. This information is available in the Asy_D11 table within the most recent Immigration system statistics data tables - GOV.UK.

The Home Office keeps the asylum accommodation estate under continuous review. Demand for asylum accommodation remains volatile, requiring the Department to respond at pace to meet its statutory duty to support eligible asylum seekers who would otherwise be destitute.

The Department’s assessment is that overall reliance on contingency accommodation, including hotels, has reduced in recent months, reflecting efforts to move towards more sustainable accommodation solutions.