As number of asylum seekers housed in hotels rises, there's one thing everyone agrees on

The number of asylum seekers being housed in hotels has risen during Labour’s first year in office, despite the party pledging to end the practice, with experts saying it leaves migrants “trapped in limbo” and “far too many people” stuck in hotels.

According to Home Office figures released today (21 August), 32,059 asylum seekers were being housed in hotel accommodation at the end of June 2025, up 8% on the same point 12 months ago, but lower than the peak of 56,042 in 2023.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves pledged during her spending review in June to end the practice of housing migrants and refugees in hotels by 2029, claiming the scheme involves “billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money spent on housing asylum seekers in hotels, leaving people in limbo and shunting the cost of failure onto local communities”.

People housed in hotels under the scheme have described the accommodation as “crowded”, in “bad condition” and report having to sleep on the floor due to a lack of beds. Adam, a Yemeni asylum seeker who became homeless after eviction from an asylum hotel, told the Big Issue that he grew isolated and depressed while staying in hotel accommodation.

Read more:

• ‘I came here for safety and I’ve come into danger’: The grim reality of life in asylum hotels for women
• Cost of housing asylum seekers soars to £41,000 per person, study finds: ‘Urgent reform needed’
• I fled the Taliban and crossed the Channel in a small boat. People come to England as a last resort

Elsewhere in the figures, it was found that 43,000 people arrived to the UK in small boats in the year ending June 2025, 38% more people than the previous year. People from Afghanistan were reportedly the most common nationality of those arriving in small boats, accounting for 15% of arrivals.

Campaigners have previously expressed dismay at the amount of people crossing the Channel in small boats, with Natasha Tsangarides, associate director of advocacy at the charity Freedom from Torture, previously telling the Big Issue that the journeys were “dangerous”, and that migrants had been forced to take “increasingly greater risks in the absence of safe routes”.

In total, 111,000 people claimed asylum in the UK in the year ending June 2025, which is 14% more than the previous year, and higher than the previous recorded peak in 2002.

Meanwhile, the amount of people granted work-related visas have fallen, with health and care worker visas issued falling by 88% over the past year, and the number of nursing professionals being granted visas falling by 80%.

Reducing the asylum backlog is a ‘genuine achievement’

The statistics released by the Home Office also showed that for the first time in four years, the asylum applications backlog has fallen below 100,000 people. It now stands at a little more than 70,000 cases, down by 18% from the previous year, and its lowest since September 2021, which experts described as a “genuine achievement” by the Labour government.

“Bringing the asylum system back from the brink of collapse is a genuine achievement in the government’s first year,” Enver Solomon, chief executive of the Refugee Council, said. “The increase in asylum decisions means refugees can begin to rebuild their lives sooner, and the use of costly hotels can be ended faster.”

Solomon added: “However, this good work is being put at risk by poor-quality decisions – right now nearly half of appeals are successful. These mistakes have life-changing consequences for the people we work with, who have fled persecution in countries like Sudan and Afghanistan.”

He added that there are “still far too many people” housed in hotels.

“Everyone agrees that hotels are the wrong answer – they cost the taxpayer billions, trap people in limbo and are flashpoints in communities,” he said. “Getting decisions right first time is vital so refugees who need protection can move out of hotels and start rebuilding in safety, while those who don’t have the right to stay can return with dignity and respect.”

The solution, Solomon explained, lies in “safe and legal routes, so people escaping conflict can reach the UK without taking dangerous journeys. Schemes for Ukraine, Syria and Afghanistan have shown what’s possible; that same lifeline must now be extended to others.”

Marley Morris, associate director for migration, trade and communities at the the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), added that the “continued reliance” on hotels to house asylum seekers “shows how much more work there is to do”.

“To end the use of asylum hotels for good, the Home Office will need to tackle the appeals backlog by improving the quality of initial decision making and speeding up the appeals process. And it will need to invest in expanding the stock of temporary accommodation, saving money compared with hotels,” Morris said.

“In the long run, it should move to a decentralised model of accommodation with greater local oversight, in order to help manage some of the tensions with local councils, which have reached a height this week.”

Steve Smith, CEO of Care4Calais, added that the statistics “blow apart so much of the misinformation that is helping spread hate across the country”, with small boat arrivals accounting for under 40% of total asylum claims, despite “majority of the airtime given to migration by politicians and the media” focusing on small boats.

“Fifty-seven percent of small boat arrivals come from five countries (Afghanistan, Sudan, Eritrea, Iran and Syria) where conflict and persecution rage, and which have some of the highest grant rates of protection,” Smith added. “We need safe routes for these people to claim sanctuary in the UK. What we do not need is more gimmicks and failed deterrent policies.”

He continued: “Frankly, if these facts were given the same amount of attention as the misinformation and scaremongering being disseminated about people seeking sanctuary, I doubt we would be seeing the level of hate we have been witnessing in places such as Epping in recent weeks.”

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