Asked by: Rupert Lowe (Independent - Great Yarmouth)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what services were contracted and delivered on-site within hotels housing illegal migrants in 2025, including medical services, transport, catering, security, and welfare support.
Answered by Alex Norris - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Home Office holds nine contracts for the provision of asylum accommodation and support services across the UK. Information related to these contracts, including the services delivered under them, is publicly available at the links below.
Hotel accommodation is managed directly by the contracted providers. Services delivered on-site typically include food and catering, laundry, security, and basic welfare support. These services are provided to ensure safe and suitable living conditions for asylum seekers and to help manage pressures on local authorities and public services while individuals await a decision on their claim.
Serco
AASC - Asylum Accommodation & Support Services Contract NW - Contracts Finder
AASC - Asylum Accommodation & Support Services Contract MEE - Contracts Finder
Mears
AASC - Asylum Accommodation & Support Services Contract NEYH - Contracts Finder
AASC - Asylum Accommodation & Support Services Contract Scotland - Contracts Finder
AASC - Asylum Accommodation & Support Services Contract NI - Contracts Finder
CRH
AASC - Asylum Accommodation & Support Services Contract Wales - Contracts Finder
AASC - Asylum Accommodation & Support Services Contract South - Contracts Finder
CTM
CCTM22A01 Provision of Bridging Accommodation and Travel Services Contract - Contracts Finder
Contract for the Provision of Asylum Accommodation and Travel Services - Contracts Finder
Asked by: Rupert Lowe (Independent - Great Yarmouth)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, if he will make an estimate of the number of marriages between cousins that have taken place in the UK in each of the last ten years.
Answered by Alex Davies-Jones - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
The number of marriages between relatives, mainly cousins, is not a data set that is collected and the Government therefore cannot give an estimate.
The Office for National Statistics publishes marriage statistics derived from information recorded at the point of marriage registration in England and Wales. This includes data about age, sex, previous marital status and whether the ceremony was civil or religious, but not whether the parties were related.
Asked by: Rupert Lowe (Independent - Great Yarmouth)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how much her Department spent on (a) legal advice and (b) other support services for migrants who arrived in the UK illegally who are in accommodation by contract in 2025.
Answered by Alex Norris - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Home Office does not hold the requested data on the provision of legal advice. Asylum seekers may be eligible for legal aid, which is administered by the Legal Aid Agency in the Ministry of Justice.
Regarding other services, the Asylum Accommodation and Support Contract (AASC) Statement of Requirements provides a detailed breakdown of all services that accommodation providers must deliver, along with the standards expected of them. The full document is available here:
The Home Office publishes information on asylum expenditure, including services such as AASC and AIRE, within its Annual Report and Accounts. These can be found on GOV.UK here: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/ho-annual-reports-and-accounts
Asked by: Rupert Lowe (Independent - Great Yarmouth)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many civil servants employed by their Department work in roles primarily focused on (a) transgender policy, (b) diversity, (c) equity and (d) inclusion; and at what annual salary cost.
Answered by Simon Lightwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Department for Transport does not routinely collate information on specific words and collating this information would come at a disproportionate cost. Information on spending and staffing can be found in the Department's annual report and accounts.
Asked by: Rupert Lowe (Independent - Great Yarmouth)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many civil servants employed by their Department work in roles primarily focused on (a) transgender policy, (b) diversity, (c) equity and (d) inclusion; and at what annual salary cost.
Answered by Olivia Bailey - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Education) (Equalities)
The department currently employs three civil servants in roles focused on diversity,
equity and inclusion. Following a review of all job titles across the department, we can confirm that there are no roles whose primary focus is transgender policy.
Within the central human resources diversity and inclusion team, staffing aligns with standard departmental grading structures for the 2025/26 financial year. The team includes:
Information on roles and salaries for members of the department and its arm's length bodies
is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/disclosure-of-scs-posts-and-salary-information.
Asked by: Rupert Lowe (Independent - Great Yarmouth)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether her Department plans to publish in full the service specifications, unit prices, and key performance indicators attached to asylum accommodation contracts that operated in 2025.
Answered by Alex Norris - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Home Office’s asylum contracts are publicly available on Contracts Finder. Copies of the contracts, including redactions, are available at the below links.
Commercially sensitive information (including pricing details) and information related to performance management of services (including service credits) are redacted to allow the Home Office to obtain maximum value during the lifetime of its contracts.
The Home Office has no current plans to publish any further information related to its asylum contracts, other than the information already publicly available.
Information on the requested contracts is available below:
Serco - AASC - Asylum Accommodation & Support Services Contract NW - Contracts Finder, AASC - Asylum Accommodation & Support Services Contract MEE - Contracts Finder
Mears - AASC - Asylum Accommodation & Support Services Contract NEYH - Contracts Finder, AASC - Asylum Accommodation & Support Services Contract Scotland - Contracts Finder, AASC - Asylum Accommodation & Support Services Contract NI - Contracts Finder
CRH - AASC - Asylum Accommodation & Support Services Contract Wales - Contracts Finder, AASC - Asylum Accommodation & Support Services Contract South - Contracts Finder
CTM -CCTM22A01 Provision of Bridging Accommodation and Travel Services Contract - Contracts Finder, Contract for the Provision of Asylum Accommodation and Travel Services - Contracts Finder
PFS - Support Payment Card - Contracts Finder
Migrant Help - AIRE - Advice Issue Reporting and Elligibility - Contracts Finder
Mitie Limited - Provision of Security Services at Home Office Contingency Accommodation - Contracts Finder
British Refugee Council - Independent Unaccompanied Asylum-seeking Children (UASCs) Support Service - Contracts Finder
thebigword Group Limited - Language Services - Translation & Interpretation - Contracts Finder
VF Services (UK) Limited - Contract for the provision of Home Office and Asylum Interviews - Contracts Finder
Asked by: Rupert Lowe (Independent - Great Yarmouth)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how much her Department spent on (a) laundry services, including contracted laundries, (b) on-site services and (c) reimbursements by (i) supplier and (ii) accommodation site type in 2025.
Answered by Alex Norris - Minister of State (Home Office)
We do not report and hold data at this granularity and would only be obtainable at disproportionate cost.
The Home Office publishes information on asylum expenditure in the Home Office annual report and accounts: 2024 to 2025 - GOV.UK.
Asked by: Rupert Lowe (Independent - Great Yarmouth)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many civil servants employed by their Department work in roles primarily focused on (a) transgender policy, (b) diversity, (c) equity and (d) inclusion; and at what annual salary cost.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
There are no roles primarily focused on transgender policy.
Within central HR there are 18 roles primarily focused on Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) - a total of 16.06 FTE.
The total aggregate annual salary cost based on the latest reporting period for Jan 25/26 is: £918,348.60.
Asked by: Rupert Lowe (Independent - Great Yarmouth)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many hotels and other accommodation sites were used for illegal migrant accommodation in 2025; and what the average occupancy was across those sites.
Answered by Alex Norris - Minister of State (Home Office)
At its peak under the previous government, around 400 hotels were used to accommodate asylum seekers – costing £9 million per day. That figure is now under 200 - the government remains committed no longer using hotels to accommodate asylum seekers by the end of this Parliament.
The Home Office does not publish data on the utilisation of asylum accommodation. We aim to utilise our estate as fully as possible, however, as with all types of accommodation properties may be temporarily vacant for a variety of operational reasons, including the need for maintenance or refurbishment work, or while awaiting allocation to new occupants following the departure of previous residents.
Data on the number of supported asylum seekers in accommodation, including hotels, and by local authority can be found within the Asy_D11 tab for our most recent statistics release: Immigration system statistics data tables - GOV.UK.
Asked by: Rupert Lowe (Independent - Great Yarmouth)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what the cost was of providing accommodation in hotels and other contingency accommodation to illegal migrants in 2025.
Answered by Alex Norris - Minister of State (Home Office)
We do not report and hold data at this granularity, including by method of arrival, and would only be obtainable at disproportionate cost.
The Asylum Accommodation and Support Contract (AASC) Requirements below gives a detailed breakdown of all the services to be undertaken by our accommodation providers and to the standards we expect. Full details of this can be found here: http://data.parliament.uk/DepositedPapers/Files/DEP2018-1112/AASC_-_Schedule_2_-_Statement_of_Requirements.pdf.
The Home Office publishes information on asylum expenditure in the: Home Office annual report and accounts: 2024 to 2025 - GOV.UK.