Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many hotels in Northern Ireland are currently being used for asylum accommodation, broken down by local government district.

Exiting the use of asylum hotels as quickly as possible remains one of the Government’s top priorities. We made a clear commitment to return these hotels to local communities, and we are delivering on that promise. As is widely recognised, this is a complex undertaking that must be carried out through a controlled, managed and orderly programme of work.

The number of hotels used to accommodate asylum seekers is significantly lower than at its peak under the previous government in summer 2023, when more than 400 hotels were in use at a cost of almost £9 million per day. As of 20 April, fewer than 190 hotels are in use.

It is longstanding policy that we do not publicly comment on individual hotels which may or may not be utilised. However, data on the number of asylum seekers receiving accommodation support, broken down by accommodation type including hotels, is published quarterly as part of the Immigration system statistics on GOV.UK.