Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether her Department plans to close any London hotels housing refugees from Afghanistan.

While hotels do not provide a long-term solution, they do offer safe, secure and clean accommodation. We will continue to bring down the number of people in bridging hotels, moving people into more sustainable accommodation as quickly as possible so they can put down permanent roots.

To deliver value for money to the taxpayer, officials are working at pace to consolidate the number of bridging hotels being used, by maximising capacity in hotels which have available rooms and returning rooms back to hotels that are not being used or do not match family requirements.

Part of this work means families can, sometimes, be moved from a hotel scheduled for closure to another hotel. In these instances, families are given appropriate notice of a move and are supported by their Home Office Liaison Officer and Local Authority every step of the way.

We are working intensely across government to find permanent accommodation for these families.