Government recovers £74m from asylum lodge companies | EUROtoday

The authorities has recovered £74m from extreme income made by firms working asylum lodging, the BBC can reveal.

The Home Office stated it had recouped the cash following a evaluate of contracts after Labour got here to energy final 12 months.

Ministers had confronted criticism from MPs for neglecting day-to-day administration of the contracts.

But the quantity recouped stays a small share of the general price of asylum lodging.

Home Office figures present the general price was £2.1bn in 24/25 – a median of about £5.77m per day.

That makes the sum recovered lower than the price for the federal government of lodging each fortnight.

Accommodation suppliers had beforehand informed Parliament they’d be returning some income to the federal government, beneath the phrases of their contracts.

The price to the taxpayer of the contracts has elevated considerably since they had been signed.

Dame Karen Bradley, the Conservative chair of the house affairs choose committee, stated the restoration was “welcome” however solely a “first step”.

She added: “This is only a small part of the many billions that the contracts have and will cost.

“The authorities should now set out its long run plan for the way it will ship a resilient and value efficient asylum lodging system.”

Ministers have promised to end the use of asylum hotels before the next general election – and the prime minister has said he would like to bring that deadline forward.

But the Home Office has also sought to bring down the immediate costs of hotels and other types of accommodation, like private flats.

The costs for 2024/25 were a reduction from the previous year – when accommodation cost £3bn – or £8.3m per day.

Much of that was down to reducing the average nightly cost per person, as a result of room sharing and cheaper accommodation being used.

Ministers are also planning to use alternative accommodation- such as military sites – to house asylum seekers.

Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood said: “This authorities inherited asylum lodge contracts that weren’t delivering good worth for taxpayers’ cash.

“We have already saved £700m in hotel costs. Now we are recouping millions more in excess profits. And by the end of this parliament, we will have closed every asylum hotel.”

Last month, the Home Office was strongly criticised by the house affairs committee for its dealing with of asylum lodging.

MPs on the committee stated the federal government had “squandered” billions of kilos of taxpayer cash.

They additionally accused the Home Office of under-utilising mechanisms to reclaim extra income made by lodging suppliers.

There are break clauses in some contracts that might permit ministers to finish use of some lodging in 2026.

The residence secretary informed the BBC final week that each one choices had been on the desk – and that she would examine the authorized preparations “carefully”.

Conservative Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp stated: “The only way to end this crisis is to end the use of hotels altogether.

“The Home workplace is spending £5.77m per day on asylum resorts, that means these financial savings will disappear in simply 12 days.

“The truth is the Labour government is accommodating more illegal immigrants in hotels than at the election, and the first nine months of this year have been the worst in history for illegal immigrants crossing the Channel.”

“Only the Conservative Party has a serious, hard-edged plan to take control of our borders,” the shadow residence secretary added.