Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether the Copthorne Hotel in East Grinstead and Uckfield constituency will be included in the next round of asylum hotel closures.

Exiting all asylum hotels as soon as possible is one of the Government’s top priorities and must be executed through a controlled, managed and orderly plan of work. This plan involves reducing inflow, speeding up caseworking, maximising utilisation of our estate, continuing to increase returns and exploring the use of large sites as suitable alternative accommodation.

Hotel closures will be prioritised based on a wide range of criteria which include but are not limited to cohort-based planning, operational desirability, costs, utilisation, geographical factors and mitigating provider-related risks. The hotel exit programme will be carefully managed to ensure that all supported asylum seekers are provided with suitable alternative accommodation, including large sites, elsewhere in the estate.

For safety, security, and operational reasons, the department does not comment on individual hotels or the timing of closures. Instead, scheduled closures are carefully managed and communicated directly to local authority Chief Executives and MPs when decisions are made.