Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to the Answer of 18 October 2023 to Question 202546 on Asylum: Hotels, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of using hotels below three star grade as a short term option for asylum seekers, where those hotels have been deemed to meet health and safety requirements.

We are committed to ensuring that destitute asylum seekers are housed in safe, habitable and fit for purpose accommodation, and that they are treated with dignity while their asylum claim is considered.

The Home Office has always been clear that use of hotels as temporary accommodation for asylum seekers was a short-term measure to ensure that we met our statutory obligation. As a result of the range of measures we have implemented to stop the boats, reform the management of asylum accommodation estate and the delivery of alternative forms of accommodation sites, we are now able to stop the procurement of new asylum hotels and begin the first phase of hotel exits.