A scathing report by the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has found that failed asylum seekers are disappearing without a trace due to 'shocking and unacceptable' errors in the Home Office's monitoring system. The committee warned that the Government has no clear plan for moving people out of asylum hotels, and that the asylum system is failing to cope with severe pressure.
Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, who chairs the committee, said: 'Our report provides an end-to-end snapshot of the entire asylum system, and its findings paint a disturbing picture - at the time of our inquiry, control of it had been all but lost.' He criticised the focus on short-term, reactive fixes, leaving a 'directionless bureaucracy' where people are either left in limbo or lost entirely.
The report revealed that the Home Office admitted it does not know with certainty who has left the country and who has not, claiming it knows where the 'vast majority' are through enforcement contact regimes. The committee called on the Government to disclose how many failed asylum seekers it believes are in the country and how it intends to contact them.
The report also highlighted that local authorities have little say over accommodation decisions, and the Home Office does not fully understand the impact on local services. Spending on asylum accommodation reached around £3.4 billion in 2024-25, though the number of hotels has dropped from a peak of around 400 in July 2023 to less than 200 by late 2025.
Sir Geoffrey called for 'serious action' to prevent costly missteps and excessive profiteering by hotel providers. The Home Office said it had saved £700 million in the previous year, but MPs warned that past efforts to use large sites, such as the Bibby Stockholm barge and the former HMP Northeye, were 'costly missteps'.
