Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, which private companies hold contracts for the procurement of hotel accommodation for asylum applicants.

Due to the continuing unprecedented high volume of small boats arrivals and the historical pressure from COVID-19 measures on the asylum system it has been necessary to continue to use hotels to accommodate some asylum seekers to meet our immediate statutory need.

The precise number of hotel spaces available will fluctuate through each day, therefore it is not possible to advise how many accommodation spaces were available to asylum seekers on each day since 5 September 2022.

Under the Asylum Accommodation and Support Services Contracts (AASC), three accommodation providers have been contracted to procure and provide hotel accommodation for asylum seekers; Clearsprings Ready Homes, Mears Group and Serco.

The contracts have been awarded on a regional basis as follows.

• Serco - Midlands and East of England, North West
• Mears Group - North East, Yorkshire and Humberside, Northern Ireland and Scotland
• Clearsprings Ready Homes – South of England and Wales

Accommodation costs are considered to be commercially confidential, therefore the Home Office does not publish this information. However, total expenditure on asylum is published in the Home Office Annual Report and Accounts, available at https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/ho-annual-reports-and-accounts