Cost of a single migrant staying in asylum lodge revealed | Politics | News | EUROtoday

A single migrant staying in a lodge room prices greater than £54,000 a yr, based on bombshell analysis. The Home Office faces “cripplingly expensive” payments for momentary lodging for asylum seekers amid a surge in small boat crossings. And the Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH) has urged ministers to think about giving councils one-off grants to purchase homes to maneuver migrants out of resorts. The business physique mentioned individuals would be capable to share the houses, drastically lowering the associated fee to the taxpayer.

Setting out the financial case, CIH instructed the Home Affairs Select Committee the “average cost per person for hotel accommodation is £54,020”.

They added: “In comparison, accommodating three people in a three-bedroom house saves on average £150,395 per annum (the difference between the cost of a hotel and the rent for a three-bed house at average local housing allowance rates)”.

But the transfer can be vastly controversial amid a housing disaster within the UK.

The Local Government Association has warned of “increased demand and the acute shortage of housing”, doubtlessly pushing costs up even greater for households struggling to get their very own dwelling.

And Tory MP Neil O’Brien, who has warned of the influence of immigration on housing, mentioned: “With unlawful crossings on the small boats up by 1 / 4 beneath Starmer, native communities are struggling beneath the strain.

“Migration on this scale obviously makes it more difficult for people to get housing, but on the other hand a lot of British people will feel it is unfair that people who have just arrived should get housed having paid in nothing while people who have worked and paid in for a long time lose out.

“People who are struggling and saving to try and get on the housing ladder will rightly feel this is unfair.”

Reform UK MP Lee Anderson added: “This proposal is a slap to the face of the young people in Britain that are working hard and saving to get their foot on the housing ladder.

“Now they’re being told that migrants could be given priority for housing, despite them never having paid a penny in tax.

“By detaining and deporting all those who arrive here illegally we can drastically reduce the need of asylum accommodation altogether, end the use of hotels and save taxpayers millions in the process.”

The CIH mentioned the Home Office had been too gradual to behave to scale back the lodge disaster.

They mentioned: “When we initially made these calculations in summer 2023, 48,000 people seeking asylum were staying in hotels, requiring the procurement of 16,000 homes to replace entirely.

“Procuring homes takes time – but if we had begun purchasing homes then each home procured would have already repaid the capital grant needed to fund its purchase, and each home procured would now be saving over £150,000 per annum off the current hotel bill.

“If 2,000 homes had been procured during the last year this would now be reducing costs by £300m this year.

“As the determination of asylum claims has quickened, the number of asylum seekers in hotels has fallen to just under 36,000 (September 2024).

“If 16,000 homes had been purchased in 2023, 12,000 would still be in use in the asylum system.”

The CIH warned utilizing resorts is “cripplingly expensive”, including councils are additionally spending £1.7 billion on momentary lodging.

More than 38,000 migrants are staying in lodge rooms, costing £5.5 million a day. An additional 65,707 are in different lodging.

Putting somebody in a lodge room prices £145 per night time, in contrast with £14 for lodging akin to homes, bedsits and flats, the National Audit Office mentioned.

Defending the proposal, John Perry, coverage advisor on the Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH), mentioned: “This government (like the previous one) is keen to cut the costs of accommodating asylum seekers.

“Buying houses to do this would be cheaper than using hotels. If local authorities bought the houses, they could later be used for homeless families once the current backlog of asylum cases has been cleared, which the government is doing.

“This move would save money and – very soon – provide better accommodation for families who are homeless, many living in hotels.”

Asked about assist and asylum resorts, Sir Keir Starmer mentioned: “I’m absolutely determined to get the hotel bill down wherever it falls, and it shouldn’t be falling where it falls at the moment.

“I’m not going to make a commitment to what pathway we’re going to take to get aid spending back up again but that’s what I’m going to tell you… that is where we want to get back to but I don’t want to wait until we get to that point, I want to act now to find other ways of doing what we want to do on aid.”