Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to financially support local authorities in (a) providing rent subsidies and (b) providing homelessness services caused by accommodating dispersed asylum seekers.

This Government inherited an asylum system under exceptional strain, with tens of thousands of people stuck in limbo without any prospect of having their claims processed. At their peak use under the previous government, in the autumn of 2023, more than 400 asylum hotels were being leased by the Home Office, at a cost of almost £9 million a day.

Inevitably, due to the size of the backlog we inherited, the Government has been forced to continue with the use of hotels for the time being. It remains our absolute commitment to end the use of hotels over time, as part of our reduction in overall asylum accommodation costs.

The Home Office continues to work closely with local authorities to manage all the pressures arising from the provision of asylum accommodation including the impact on wider local authority obligations and plans.