Asylum sites to be expanded as ministers bid to end hotel use

Large asylum seeker sites like Wethersfield air base in Essex are set to be expanded under plans to end the use of asylum hotels, the BBC can reveal. Chancellor Rachel Reeves pledged to stop using taxpayer-funded hotels by 2029 in her Spending Review, saying this would save £1bn. One of the ways the Home Office hopes to achieve this is by moving asylum seekers from hotels into cheaper alternative forms of accommodation. Sir Keir Starmer pledged to close the Wethersfield asylum facility during last year's election campaign, but the BBC understands that site and another in Huddersfield are among those under consideration for extensions. A Home Office spokesperson said the government was "making strong strides to deliver a more sustainable and cost-effective asylum accommodation system". "This includes ending the use of hotels, testing new locally-led models, and working closely with local authorities and other departments to ensure a fairer, more efficient approach," they added. "Our use of any property or Home Office-owned site will be used in line with the permissions set by planning permissions." The taxpayer cost of asylum hotels has rocketed in recent years, with total accommodation contractsnow set to be worth £15.3bnover a 10-year period. But while extending large sites might be cheaper, the move is likely to anger local residents and refugee rights groups. In April last year, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said the Wethersfield site couldn't be "seen as either a sustainable solution for housing asylum seekers nor value for money for the taxpayer". Conservative MP Sir James Cleverly, whose Braintree constituency includes Wethersfield, said the existing cap on the number of people living at the facility "was there to protect the safety and security" of constituents, and "those working at and living on the site". Sir James, who became home secretary shortly after the first asylum seekers moved into Wethersfield, said the government plan to potentially expand the site was "disgraceful and shows just how out of touch they are with the concerns of local communities". In March, the High Court found the previous Conservative government's use of Wethersfield to house asylum seekers was unlawful, after three men argued they were living in "prison-like" conditions. The former RAF base has been housing asylum seekers since 2023. It has a current capacity of 800, but is thought to house closer to 500 people at present. The Home Office contract for the base is held by Clearsprings, whose founder Graham King recently became a billionaire, according to the Sunday Times rich list. The Helen Bamber Foundation, a human rights groups, has previously said that accommodating people at the base causes harm to their physical and mental health. Kamena Dorling, the group's director of policy, told the BBC that Wethersfield "should be closed immediately, not extended". She said: "Housing people, including survivors of torture and trafficking, in an isolated, overcrowded camp reminiscent of an open-air prison, with inadequate healthcare and legal services, is an inhumane way to treat those seeking protection." A pair of former student accommodation blocks in Huddersfield, acquired by the Home Office last year, could also be extended. The buildings, constructed in 2019, have a current capacity of 650 but have never been occupied because of safety concerns. Any extensions to asylum seeker accommodation would be paid for using money earmarked for investment from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, meaning it could be borrowed without falling foul of the chancellor's strict spending rules. Home Office figures released last month show that as of March, there were about 100,000 asylum seekers in government-funded accommodation, with about 32,000 of those in hotels. Cooper hopes to end the use of hotels by reducing small boat crossings, speeding up the asylum application process and moving people into alternative accommodation. Following the chancellor's Spending Review, there had been some confusion over what that alternative accommodation might be. Chief secretary to the Treasury Darren Jones told BBC Newsnight the government would be "upgrading current facilities, which will include some extensions". But on Thursday, the prime minister's official spokesman refused to comment on whether new accommodation would be built. A senior Home Office source has now confirmed to the BBC that while there were no plans for entirely new accommodation blocks, extensions of current facilities will be built and other existing accommodation such as unused student blocks will be rented. The £1bn saving which the chancellor said would come from reducing hotel use has already been taken out of the Home Office budget. The Home Office has a new target for how much additional asylum accommodation needs to be created to help achieve the saving, but that exact figure is unknown. The BBC understands that moving around 14,000 asylum seekers from hotels into other forms of accommodation would likely achieve a saving of £1bn. A senior Home Office source said they were "confident" they could save the required money, but acknowledged that failing to hit the target would force the department to ask Reeves for more funding to avoid having to make cuts elsewhere. The number of asylum seekers in hotels is far lower than the record figure in 2023, but has increased since Labour came to power last year. The latest statistics go up to March and therefore don't take into account the knock-on effect of increased small boat crossings in the months since.