Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what the supported asylum population in each local authority ward in England was on 31 December 2003.

The Government is determined to restore order to the asylum system so that it operates swiftly, firmly, and fairly, including reducing the use of hotels over time. Additionally, the Government will be reviewing current Home Office arrangements to ensure efficiency and deliver value for money.

Accommodation costs are considered to be commercially confidential; therefore, the Home Office does not publish this information. The total specific breakdowns of hotel costs are not reportable in the format requested, but the expenditure on asylum is published in the Home Office Annual Report and Accounts, available at HO annual reports and accounts - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).

The number of asylum seekers in receipt of Section 95 support is published quarterly. At the end of quarter four 2003 published statistics indicate that there were 47,148 people housed in Dispersal Accommodation and a further 30,362 in receipt of subsistence only support. The geographical location of these supported asylum seekers was not published at that time. Since 2019 data on the number of supported asylum seekers in accommodation has been published at Asylum and resettlement datasets - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).