Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what was the cost to the public purse of accommodating unprocessed asylum seekers in hotels in the most recent week for which data is available.

Under the Immigration & Asylum Act 1999, the Home Office has a statutory obligation to house asylum seekers, who would otherwise be destitute, whilst their claim is under consideration. The cost for hotel rooms has now reached £6 million a day. The enduring solution is to stop the boats and that’s why we have brought forward the Immigration bill.