Home Office 'paying for thousands' of empty hotel beds

The Home Office is paying for up to 5,000 empty hotel beds to manage the potential "overflow" of asylum seekers, a senior government official has revealed.

Simon Ridley, second permanent secretary at the Home Office, told MPs on the Commons Public Accounts Committee (PAC) that the excess beds would act as a "buffer" in cases of overcrowding at the Manston processing site.

He said: "In the outflow from Manston to accommodation, we have got two things in place. First is a number of beds that we are calling ringfenced hotels where we can move people quickly as an overflow from Manston before coming out into the more permanent estate. Secondly we are making sure we've got a buffer that's close to 5,000 beds in order to let us move people out."

It comes after the Home Office announced its commitment to "slash" the number of hotels being used for housing asylum seekers last month, as the current system cost £6m a day.

Sir Matthew Rycroft, permanent secretary at the Home Office, said the government hadn't "put a date" on when people will stop being housed in hotels as there are "too many variables" in the situation.

Around 50,000 people seeking asylum are currently being housed across the Home Office's hotel estate.

Rycroft said: "We are determined to do it as quickly as possible given the hotels are not the ideal accommodation for people in this situation and nor are they ideal for the taxpayer given the cost per person per night.

"We've got the date by which the total [of migrants] will peak and one of the purposes of the work we are doing is to limit the total number of hotels."

Ridley told MPs that the Home Office is expecting roughly 45,000 further asylum seekers to cross the Channel, though he pointed out that "the real peak of arrivals is July, August and September so we could be upwards [of that number]".

Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, Conservative MP for the Cotswolds, said some hotels had been advised to double their capacity despite there being "no licence or agreement for accommodating two people in any of the rooms on this site", which has led to the policy being "seriously contested by local authorities".

Carmarthenshire County Council, Ipswich Borough Council and East Riding of Yorkshire Council have all brought unsuccessful legal challenges against the housing of asylum seekers in hotels in their local areas in the past year.

Ridley responded: "We are trying to make sure we make best use of the estate and the money we spend on that. We are seeking to manage that over time. It is a dynamic situation and we think we can use the estate more effectively to manage the potential risks."