What assessment she has made of the potential implications of the number of asylum seekers entering the UK in December 2024 for (a) community cohesion and (b) the use of hotels for housing asylum seekers.
This government inherited an asylum system under exceptional strain, with tens of thousands of people stuck in limbo without any prospect of having their claims processed. At their peak use under the previous government, in the autumn of 2023, more than 400 asylum hotels were being leased by the Home Office, at a cost of almost £9 million a day.We took immediate action to resolve that chaos by restarting asylum processing, establishing the new Border Security Command to tackle the people-smuggling gangs, cracking down on illegal working across the country, and increasing the return and removal of people with no right to be here.Inevitably, due to the size of the backlog we inherited, the Home Office has been forced to continue with the use of hotels for the time being. But this is not a permanent solution, and the small increase in the number in use at the end of last year was just a temporary but necessary step to manage pressures in the system, which is now in the process of being reversed.It remains our absolute commitment to end the use of hotels over time, as part of our reduction in overall asylum accommodation costs. In the interim, we are also continuing to increase our operational activity against smuggling gangs and illegal working, and we have increased returns to their highest level since 2018, with 16,400 people removed in the first six months this government was in charge.The safety and wellbeing of the local communities in which asylum accommodation is located is of paramount importance. The Home Office works in collaboration with local authorities and other partners to ensure that accommodation sites are successfully managed and the impact upon the local community is minimised. Any incident relating to security or community cohesion is reported to the Home Office immediately, so any necessary changes can be made as soon as possible.