The Refugee Council has called on the Government to bring give asylum seekers from Afghanistan, Syria, Eritrea, Sudan and Iran limited leave to stay, meaning hotels can close faster
Asylum hotels could be shut within a year if people from five countries are given limited leave to stay, analysis shows.
The Refugee Council said Keir Starmer’s current timeline to shut hotels is “unsustainable” and risks inflaming more hatred. In a report published today it urged the Government to bring in a one-off scheme granting people from Afghanistan, Syria, Eritrea, Sudan and Iran limited leave to stay – as long as they pass security checks.
This would pave the way to massively speed up closures – with Mr Starmer only pledging to shut asylum hotels by 2029. People living in around 200 venues around the country say they are made to feel like “targets” as tensions rise.
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In June there were 32,000 people being housed in this way while their claims were processed – down from over 56,000 under the Tories. Muhammad, from Afghanistan – who spent six months in a hotel – said: “People film residents outside the hotel without permission, using it in a negative way. It affects people and makes them feel hopeless about the system.”
Under the proposals, people from those nations – which have the highest asylum approval rates – would be given a “time-limited” permission to stay in the UK. Home Office figures show Eritreans have an 86% approval rate, while Sudanese people have a 98% figure.
Refugee Council chief executive Enver Solomon said: “As long as hotels remain open, they will continue to be flashpoints for far-right activity, fuelling tensions and driving communities apart. It is a failure of government to keep people in a system that leaves them in limbo for months, at huge cost to the public purse.”
Last week the Government was rocked when a High Court judge ruled the Bell Hotel in Epping had to be closed to migrants by September 12 because planning rules were not followed. Since then town halls across the country – including Labour-run authorities – have started looking at mounting their own legal challenges.
And there have been a series of demonstrations outside asylum hotels in recent days. Mr Solomon said the court ruling shows that waiting until the end of the current Parliament to shut them all “is no longer viable”.
He urged the Home Office to adopt the one-off scheme his organisation suggested to speed up closures. It would apply to those who were in the system at the end of June, he said.
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