Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if he will make an assessment of the potential impact of hotel use for asylum seekers on community cohesion in Oldham; and when he plans to end the use of temporary accommodation for asylum seekers.

Asylum hotels were only ever a temporary measure, in response to an unprecedented spike in small boat arrivals and the statutory requirement to accommodate asylum seekers who would otherwise be destitute. The Government has always been clear that they are an inappropriate form of accommodation and that we must stop using them as soon as possible.

Wherever hotels are used, the Home Office works in partnership with local authorities and other statutory partners, including through multi-agency forum (MAF) meetings. These consider, amongst other things, community cohesion issues.

We will have closed 100 hotels by the end of March. We continue to work with our providers on closing further hotels across the estate and will write to local authorities and MPs when a decision to close a site has been made.