Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if he will make an estimate of the cost to the public purse of transporting asylum seekers in taxis to (a) contingency and (b) bridging hotels from (i) Glasgow to (ii) Aberdeen in each of the last 12 months.

Bridging hotel accommodation was previously used to temporarily house Afghans resettling in the UK and has not been used to accommodate asylum seekers. As of 31 August 2023, we have successfully ended the use of bridging hotels for legally resettled Afghans.

Costs are considered to be commercially confidential, therefore the Home Office does not publish this information. The total expenditure on asylum is published in the Home Office Annual Report and Accounts, available at HO annual reports and accounts - GOV.UK.

The AASC Requirements below gives a detailed breakdown of all of the services to be undertaken by our accommodation providers and to the standards we expect. Full details of our polices:

http://data.parliament.uk/DepositedPapers/Files/DEP2018-1112/AASC_-_Schedule_2_-_Statement_of_Requirements.pdf.