A record 111,084 people applied for asylum in the first year of the Labour government, while the number of asylum seekers housed in hotels rose 8 per cent to 32,059 after a surge in Channel crossings, new data showed on Thursday.
Senior Labour MPs, all of them under threat of losing their seats to Nigel Farage’s Reform UK according to a YouGov survey, urged the Government to go “further and faster” to cut the number of small boats crossings – with a record near-28,000 people arriving in the UK in 2025 so far – and speed up its timeline to close asylum hotels within “months” rather than the current 2029 target.
Steve Yemm, the MP for Mansfield, said the Government should set up “return hubs” that would see all Channel migrants deported on arrival and sent on a one-way ticket to another country, even if they were found to be genuine refugees – a scheme that would replicate the much-criticised Conservative Rwanda policy that Cooper scrapped on taking office.
“However, my constituents in Mansfield want the Government to go further and faster and I would welcome legal and cost effective return hubs overseas.
“If all 900 arrivals were deported on a Monday, and all 700 on the Tuesday, then how many might arrive on the Friday?”
A second senior Labour MP, also under threat from Reform, said that despite the “dire” headlines there were signs of improvements, with hotel use down 43 per cent on the peak under the Tories in September 2023 and the backlog of claims falling below 100,000 people for the first time in four years.
A surge of small boats is blamed for a rise in hotel use by migrants (Photo: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)
“The PM must take a personal grip of this too.”
“Of course councils are looking at options – hotels were forced on them by the last government – no one wants the hotels, and we should understand and respect councils and communities who say no more.”
There are currently 210 hotels housing 32,000 asylum seekers in the UK, at a cost of £5.7m a day, down from 400 hotels costing £9m a day under the Conservatives.
Call to quit ECHR
The Government plans to curb the use of Article 8 of the ECHR to appeal against asylum rejections, but not withdraw from the convention, which experts warn would imperil the Northern Ireland peace deal and other international agreements.
“They’re paying international criminals to get here and the courts are saying they have a right to stay under the refugee convention, I assume, and possibly other conventions. That doesn’t seem reasonable to me.”
The figures published on Thursday also showed some positive news for Cooper with spending on asylum, including direct cash support and accommodation such as hotels but not costs relating to intercepting migrants crossing the English Channel, down 12 per cent £4.76bn in the year ending March 2025.
Dr Nuni Jorgensen, researcher at the Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford, said: “Reducing the backlog in processing asylum claims is critical to any plan to reduce the use of contingency accommodation like hotels.
“The Government will be hoping that its enforcement activities and the new returns agreement with France will reduce the number of people applying for asylum and requiring accommodation, but there is no sign of this in the data so far.”
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Read MoreBut shadow home secretary Chris Philp accused Labour of having “lost control of Britain’s borders”, claiming “hotels would already be gone” if the Conservatives were still in power.
The Refugee Council praised Labour for “bringing the asylum system back from the brink of collapse”, saying quicker asylum decisions “means refugees can begin to rebuild their lives sooner, and the use of costly hotels can be ended faster”.
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