After another summer of protests outside hotels housing asylum seekers, many people are talking of an ‘asylum scandal’ . They are right; there is a scandal concerning the asylum system, but it isn’t necessarily what they think it is.

Huge profits from asylum hotels

Near the end of October, Gaby Hinsliff, writing in the Guardian argued that not only were there tiktokers, like Luigi Newton, living the life of riley on sun loungers on the beaches of Dubai, thanks to the proceeds of government spending on asylum hotels. And that even with the easy money they are making, “they’re just small fry, the most visible and least subtle end of a much bigger corporate phenomenon; an under-examined corner of the property market, responding perfectly logically to the incentives inadvertently created by a blundering state. Welcome to the asylum and immigration scandal you rarely hear about: the one that isn’t actually about asylum seekers, but about political failure, and the middle men turning a tidy profit on the consequences”.

Indeed, the government reported that the cost to the government of the asylum accommodation contracts for the ten years between 2019 and 2029, has gone up more than three times from £4.5 billion to £15.3 billion.  While some of this can be traced back to external factors such as thew Covid-19 pandemic, there is one other major factor.

The Tories left a chaotic and failing asylum system

Successive governments have overseen a chaotic asylum system, which is doing nobody any favours. It was reported on 27 October that the Home Office report had also stated that because of long-term mismanagement of what has been described as a “failed, chaotic and expensive” system, the Home Office had squandered billions of pounds on asylum accommodation.

It was further reported that the Commons cross-party home affairs committee report, published on 27 October, criticised failures by both the last Tory government and the current Labour administration, to manage the mix of hotels, shared housing and large sites such as the Wethersfield former military base in Essex.

The report was also said to have “found the Home Office “incapable of getting a grip on the situation” and identified “failures of leadership at senior level”. The report raises concerns about financial mismanagement of ten-year contracts with the private providers Clearsprings, Mears and Serco, which began in 2019, with the contract value tripling from £4.5bn to £15.3bn”.

In another report on 27 October, Chair of the Home Affairs Committee, Dame Karen Bradley, was reported as saying that “urgent action is needed to lower the cost of asylum accommodation and address the concerns of local communities. The Home Office has presided over a failing asylum accommodation system that has cost taxpayers billions of pounds” and warned that ministers from both the Conservatives and Labour had made ‘undeliverable promises to appeal to popular sentiment’, such as pledging to end hotel use by 2029”, before accusing the Home Office of being unable to plan long-term, saying: “It has instead focused on short-term, reactive responses.”

These are damning words for the way that the Home Office has handled the asylum situation for so many years now. Governments have spent too long reacting and responding in short-term ways, swayed by often very uninformed and prejudiced areas of the media.  The resulting chaos has been harmful to local communities and asylum seekers. 

The report from the Home Office crucially notes that the use of hotel accommodation, which was only supposed to be a very short-term measure “has become a widespread and embedded part of the asylum accommodation system, increasing the cost of the asylum accommodation contracts by billions of pounds beyond the original forecast.”

The report then goes on to criticise the Home Office and highlight the failures in the contracts that governments have signed, with big providers,  regarding asylum hotels.

Who has done well out of the chaos?

It may come as no surprise that it seems that the largest providers of hotel accommodation have done very well out of the chaos. As Gaby Hinsliff puts it, “Is it entirely a coincidence that, as the committee found, hotels also seem to be more lucrative for the big providers?”

It has also been noted that the report highlighted signs of sloppy management by the Home Office that should also be a cause for concern. The providers of accommodation, under the contracts were supposed to keep only 5% of the profits, with any excess being returned to the taxpayer.  However, it has been reported that the select committee “calculated there was at least £46m lying in corporate bank accounts that the Home Office hadn’t chased up. Meanwhile, a National Audit Office spot check found invoices paid by the Home Office for beds that turned out not to exist”.

What could have been done?

It is clear that the current asylum system is a chaotic mess and is letting many people down, not least the asylum seekers themselves. Billions of pounds have been spent on a failing system.  So, how else could that money have been spent?

Well, it could have been spent ensuring that the asylum system was fit for purpose, from the point of view of both taxpayers and the asylum seekers themselves, instead of wealthy accommodation providers being able to line their already very full pockets.

This could have meant more people being employed to ensure that claims are processed quicker and more fairly.  It also could have meant more border guards, so that safe routes could have been opened again. That is the easiest way to ensure that the small boats stop coming and at the time save the lives of asylum seekers, who feel forced to make that perilous journey.

As for asylum seekers costing money for their accommodation then that cost could easily be reduced.  Many asylum seekers have just the skills and experience we need as a country in many areas of work and could be allowed to work.  This would be far more dignified for the asylum seekers and would also save money, which could be spent on our hard-pressed public services.  Indeed, any asylum seekers working would be expected to pay tax, so increasing the amount of money available for our public services.

This has long been a demand by the campaign group Asylum Matters who argue that, “anyone waiting for longer than six months for a decision on their asylum claim should be granted the right to work, unconstrained by the Government’s Shortage Occupation List. This change would provide people with a route out of poverty, would reduce the cost of the asylum support system, and would help integration for those who gain some form of status. There is no evidence to support the claim that such changes would act as a ‘pull factor’ and increase the number of people claiming asylum in the UK.”.

This has always made a lot of sense to me.  But then allowing asylum seekers would mean admitting that, yes, they are fellow human beings who should be valued.  And of course, certain accommodation providers wouldn’t be able to make the kinds of huge profits from the taxpayers they have in recent years, would they?

At the end of the day, governments really should remember that asylum seekers are humans like the rest of us , who have often been through very traumatic events.  There have to be better ways to accommodate them than the present government’s latest plan to use military bases – or ridiculously expensive rundown hotels.  Perhaps if we put the needs of asylum seekers and communities across the country first, rather than profits for a small number of already very wealthy people, we might start to get it right and end the chaos we see at present.

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