New Home Office figures reveal that while the number of asylum seekers in hotels has fallen, the number living in dispersed accommodation across British communities has risen, raising concerns among ordinary residents.
The figures for June 2024, around the time Labour came to power, showed 29,585 asylum seekers living in hotels. Today's new figures show that number has fallen to 16,021. However, the number in dispersed accommodation has risen in the same period, from 61,778 asylum seekers to 69,038.
HMOs and community impact
Dispersed accommodation means houses and flats in the general community. In many cases, these are Houses in Multiple Occupation (HMOs), where a single property can house multiple young men rather than families. A large number of HMOs in a neighbourhood can change its character for the worse.
People trying to find a home to buy or rent, and local councils trying to house homeless families, are competing in the property market with private firms employed by the Government to snap up properties for asylum seekers.
Deportation and backlog
More than 210,000 asylum seekers have crossed the Channel since people smugglers started launching boats in 2018. However, just 9,694 migrants who arrived on dinghies in that period have been deported - fewer than one in 20. Some have been granted asylum because they were genuinely fleeing persecution, but others are stuck in the system.
More than 120,000 asylum cases - either initial decisions or appeals - are waiting to be heard by the courts. This is why hundreds of asylum seekers are still living in towns and cities nationwide, including 3,938 in Glasgow, 2,136 in Birmingham and 1,961 in Liverpool.
Local concentration
In the London borough of Hounslow, nearly one in a hundred residents is an asylum seeker. In Coventry, asylum seekers make up one in 120 people. In Hartlepool, one person in 150 is an asylum seeker.
The British public has been remarkably tolerant and generous for the many years this crisis has continued, but it can't go on forever. If Labour refuses to remove asylum seekers from the UK - particularly those who arrived across the Channel illegally - then it would find itself replaced by a government that will.
