Labour’s shameful secret – damning figures on asylum resorts | Politics | News | EUROtoday

Shocking new figures present Labour are nonetheless ploughing billions of taxpayers’ money right into a overseas support finances that’s largely used to cowl the price of housing some 32,000 asylum seekers in resorts within the UK. Whitehall knowledge exhibits the Home Office plans to spend a staggering £2.2 billion of abroad improvement help (ODA) this monetary 12 months.

The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) money is supposed to be directed overseas to assist with humanitarian tasks in nation’s which most want assissatance, however a loophole in worldwide guidelines means governments can spend the cash supporting asylum seekers throughout their first 12 months of arrival.

Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour social gathering had promised earlier than the General Election to “end asylum hotels, saving the taxpayer billions of pounds”, however in keeping with the BBC latest damning new figures exhibiting barely any change within the finances masking asylum resorts had been launched by the Home Office with no press launch in latest days. The £2.2 billion earmarked this 12 months is simply marginally lower than the £2.3 billion it spent in 2024/25.

Just days in the past on June 3, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper advised the Home Affairs Committee “we need to end asylum hotels altogether”.

But Whitehall officers advised the BBC there isn’t any incentive for the Home Office to chop again on the controversial spending as a result of ODA cash comes out of the FCDO finances, and never from Home Office coffers.

Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp advised the BBC: “Labour promised in their manifesto to end the use of asylum hotels for illegal immigrants. But the truth is there are now thousands more illegal migrants being housed in hotels under Labour.

“Now these paperwork reveal that Labour are utilizing overseas support to pay for asylum lodge lodging – one more promise damaged.”

Gideon Rabinowitz, director of policy at the Bond network of development organisations, said diverting £2.2 billion from the FCDO to cover asylum hotels was “unsustainable”, adding it was “poor worth for cash” and “comes on the expense of important improvement and humanitarian programmes tackling the basis causes of poverty, battle and displacement”.

He said: “It is crucial that we assist refugees and asylum seekers within the UK, however the authorities shouldn’t be robbing Peter to pay Paul.”

A Home Office spokesperson told the BBC: “We inherited an asylum system beneath distinctive strain, and proceed to take motion, restoring order, and scale back prices. This will in the end scale back the quantity of Official Development Assistance spent to assist asylum seekers and refugees within the UK.

“We are immediately speeding up decisions and increasing returns so that we can end the use of hotels and save the taxpayer £4bn by 2026.”

Express.co.uk have contacted the Home Office for remark.