Asylum seekers taken from taxpayer-funded hotels and simply moved to other hotels, Sky News finds
Asylum seekers being moved out of taxpayer-funded hotels are simply being moved to other hotels still paid for by the Home Office, Sky News has learned.
Home Office minister Chris Philip told Sky News the government had already closed 50 hotels to migrants, reducing the number from 398 to 348 – something they had pledged to do by the end of this month with a promise to house them in cheaper types of accommodation like the Bibby Stockholm barge.
But Sky News has seen taxis full of migrants leaving one hotel in Kidderminster, Worcestershire, only to arrive at another hotel 70 miles away in Derbyshire.
One asylum seeker from Afghanistan, who we’re calling Khan, 19, arrived on a small boat in early June 2022. He will now be unable to continue attending college, where he was studying English and GCSE Maths, as his new hotel is too far away.
He states he had no choice but to move. “The hotel tell us that if you cancel this process you must sleep on the road like a homeless [person],” he says.
Migrants being moved from now-closed hotel in Bewdley
Khan came to the UK because his family worked for the Afghan government so he no longer felt safe after the Taliban takeover of the country in 2021.
Due to the length of time he’s been waiting for a decision his asylum claim is part of the “legacy” backlog that Rishi Sunak pledged to “abolish” by the end of 2022.
The Home Office said the pledge had been “delivered”, having processed more than 112,000 asylum claims overall in 2023.
It means Khan had expected by now to not still be living in taxpayer-funded accommodation.
“I am also not happy to stay in hotel accommodation because I want to work. I want to start a new life and I cannot do something right now… just sleep and eat,” he says.
He currently has a solicitor chasing the Home Office for a decision on his claim.
“Up to now no-one gave me a response, up to December when I emailed them they told us wait up to the end of the year – now the new year start and when we email them, no-one responds.”
Khan came to the UK because he no longer felt safe after the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan
A group of residents who offer support to people seeking asylum has been tracking the movements of these hotel closures over recent months.
Sarah Frost, lead co-ordinator from Wyre Forest Supports Asylum Seekers, told Sky News: “We’ve got four from here who got moved from a hotel that was closing just before Christmas.
“They got moved here, and now they’re moving on to another hotel. So some people have been in five or six hotels in a matter of six months or so.”
She adds: “I suppose [the Home Office is] consolidating hotels but obviously it still costs to feed the person…I can’t see how it’s really saving money because taxi fares from Derbyshire to Worcestershire is going to cost a lot of money.”
Another hotel in Bewdley, Worcestershire, was closed last week, but Sky News has been told the men were sent to three different hotels further north.
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Hallo believes the moves are due to the upcoming election
Hallo, not his real name, 31, from Iraq was sent by taxi with eight other men to a hotel in Staffordshire.
“It’s just shifting around, just switching…just wasting money”, he says. “I think it’s just because of the next election so they want to tell the native people we sorted out the hotels, the cases, the backlog cases.”
The closure of hotels has also affected families. Near Bromsgrove in Worcestershire, the curtains are shut and children’s scooters have been abandoned outside a hotel that was recently closed to migrants.
Sky News has been told that children have lost school places because they were moved suddenly to another county.
The Home Office told Sky News it is making significant progress to reduce the cost of £8.2m a day to UK taxpayers.
A spokesperson said: “As we exit more hotels in the coming months, we remain upfront about accommodation being on a no-choice basis. This means that individuals may be moved to other parts of the asylum accommodation estate too, including hotels.”
Sky News can reveal that the government has rowed back on a national compensation scheme for victims of child sexual abuse, despite it being promised under the previous Conservative administration.
Warning – this story contains references to sexual and physical abuse
A National Redress Scheme was one of 20 key recommendations made by the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA), but a Home Office report reveals the government has scrapped it because of the cost.
Marie, who is 71, suffered alleged sexual, physical, and emotional abuse at Greenfield House Convent in St Helens, Merseyside, between 1959 and 1962, and is still fighting for compensation.
Greenfield House Convent, where Marie says she was abused
As soon as she arrived as a six-year-old, Marie says her hair was cut off, her name changed, and she experienced regular beatings from the nuns and students.
She claims a nun instigated the violence, including when Marie was held down so that her legs were “spread-eagled” as she was sexually abused with a coat hanger.
Merseyside Police investigated claims of abuse at the convent, but in 2016, a suspect died before charges could be brought.
Marie has received an apology from the Catholic body that ran the home; she tried to sue them, but her claim was rejected because it was filed too long after the alleged abuse.
Marie, 71, is still fighting for compensation for the abuse she says she suffered as a child
In February, ministers said the law would change for victims of sexual abuse trying to sue institutions for damages, which was a recommendation from the IICSA.
Previously, people had to make a civil claim before they were 21, unless the victim could prove a fair trial could proceed despite the time lapse.
Campaigners argued for the time limit to be removed as, on average, victims wait 26 years to come forward. Changes to the 1980 Limitation Act could lead to more people making claims.
Peter Garsden, President of The Association of Child Abuse Lawyers
Civil cases ‘can take three to five years’
But Peter Garsden, president of the Association of Child Abuse Lawyers, worries that when it comes to historical abuse where the defendant is dead, institutions will still argue that it is impossible to have a fair trial and will fight to have the case thrown out of court.
Mr Garsden said it takes “between three and five years” for a civil case to get to trial.
He warned that claimants “can end up losing if you go through that process. Whereas the Redress Scheme would be quicker, much more straightforward, and much more likely to give justice to the victims”.
Victim awarded £10 compensation
Jimbo, who was a victim of abuse at St Aidan’s children’s home in Cheshire, took his case to the High Court twice and the Court of Appeal three times, but, after 13 years, all he ended up with was £10 for his bus fare to court.
Despite the Lord Justice of Appeal saying he believed that the abuse had occurred, Jimbo lost his claim because of the time limit for child sexual abuse claims to be made.
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Neither Marie nor Jimbo is likely to benefit from the removal of the time limit for personal injury claims, which is why Mr Garsden is calling on the government to implement a National Redress Scheme for victims of sexual abuse, as recommended by the IICSA.
Hundreds of millions paid to victims
The governments in Scotland and Northern Ireland have set up compensation schemes and paid hundreds of millions of pounds to victims.
In 2023, the then Conservative government said a similar scheme would be organised for England and Wales.
But the Home Office admitted in its Tackling Child Sexual Abuse: Progress Update that it “is not currently taking forward any further steps on the IICSA proposal for a separate, national financial redress scheme for all survivors of child sexual abuse”.
“In the current fiscal environment, this recommendation is very difficult to take forward,” it added.
For victims, the scheme was the last chance of compensation for a lifetime blighted by abuse.
“The money is about justice and about all the other people who have had to suffer this abuse,” Marie said.
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