A BBC investigation has found that 395 UK hotels are being used to house 51,000 asylum seekers. Here’s how it works. Hotel owners are approached by the home office to give up their properties to accommodate asylum seekers.
Once the owner agrees, the hotel is handed to an outsourced company, which then runs the business on behalf of the Home Office.
According to the BBC:
Three large firms have contracts to run the hotels.
One, Serco, provides some 109 hotels in England, according to a High Court judgement from December 2022, mostly in the Midlands, East and North West.
Serco, which also provides other services on behalf of the government, references “growth” in its immigration work in its 2022 annual report.
Another firm, Mears Group, which court documents revealed is running 80 hotels in north-east England, Scotland and Northern Ireland, increased its annual revenue by 22% in 2021.
The company’s annual report said the increase was “largely driven” by its work finding hotel accommodation for asylum seekers.
Home Office spending data shows a smaller firm, Calder Conferences, received £20.6m in 2021 to book hotels. That figure increased to £97m in 2022.
Home Office sources suggested this work related principally to finding bridging hotels for Afghan refugees who arrived following the Taliban takeover in 2021.
Leeds-based Calder’s annual accounts for the year ending February 2022 show turnover increased from £5.98m to £23.66m. The firm’s pre-tax profits trebled, from £2.1m to £6.3m.
Calder’s director, Debbie Hoban, saw her annual remuneration increase from £230,000 to £2.2m.
The firm has not responded to the BBC’s request for comment.
Communities have spoken of their anger about the lack of consultation before asylum seekers moved in. There have been some protests, with far-right elements involved.
At the Wiltshire Leisure Village, a retirement complex near Royal Wootton Bassett, asylum seekers have been housed at a nearby hotel and fences erected, meaning residents of the leisure village do not have access to the golf course.
Fredricka Reynolds, a florist, lost her regular work for a hotel in Kegworth, Leicestershire, when asylum seekers moved in last month.
She said: “They rang me on the Thursday, before the asylum seekers came on the Monday and cancelled all my weddings for the foreseeable [future].”
The hotel is a major part of life for the village of about 4,000 people. Its swimming pool and gym, used by local people, have been closed.
“I understand they need housing, but then also why Kegworth? Why the main business in Kegworth that brings many people to the village, a lot of money into the village? It’s all gone now,” said Ms Reynolds.
Security guards often stop journalists approaching the asylum seekers, but two men living in the Wiltshire hotel spoke of their boredom.
Simpay Khalifa, a 25-year-old Sundanese man who arrived by small boat from France in November, said the hotel was “far from civilisation”.
“There is nothing to do actually. We have to take a bus to get to Swindon. We need something to do like, for example, study some English courses,” he said.
“Some people volunteer and do some charity work, but there is nothing to do here. Nothing. We stay the whole day at the room doing nothing.”
The BBC used Freedom of Information requests to ask all UK councils how many hotels were being used for asylum seekers and how many individuals were living in them.
Of the 398 councils approached, 320 responded. The majority said there were no hotels or asylum seekers in their area, or referred the BBC to the Home Office.
One authority refused the request on the grounds it could lead to asylum seekers being exposed to “harassment, threats and physical or mental harm”.
