‘Cracks are showing’: Asylum contract deadline pushed back as pressure on Labour grows
The Home Office has pushed back a crucial deadline for private sector companies to bid for a key asylum accommodation contract, piling pressure on the government to see through its effort to reform the wider immigration system.
A deadline for businesses to engage the Home Office on a new contract for managing asylum accommodation has been delayed by a month, at a time when home secretary Shabana Mahmood is facing questions – and internal pushback – over Labour’s immigration policies.
The Home Office will also now continue to assess the design of the new asylum accommodation system, which will end the use of asylum hotels if the Labour government follows through on its pledge.
Shadow home secretary Chris Philp said the procurement process delay demonstrated that the “cracks are showing” in Labour’s struggles to get a grip of the asylum system.
“Asylum accommodation under Labour has been a disaster,” Philp said.
“Labour has promised to end hotel use by the end of this Parliament, yet the length and spiralling cost of these contracts exposes the lack of any plan to bring this under control.
“The Conservative Party knows that if we are to completely end illegal immigration and close down this spiralling system of asylum accommodation, we need a comprehensive plan that removes every illegal arrival swiftly and straightforwardly.”
Zia Yusuf, Reform UK’s home affairs spokesman, said the deadline had been pushed back “because companies know these contracts will be scrapped under a Reform government in 2029”.
“The fact Labour is also attempting to plan accommodation for illegal migrants beyond 2029 shows they are not serious about ending the crisis,” Yusuf said.
“Only Reform UK will shut down every migrant hotel and House in Multiple Occupation, detain illegal arrivals and deport them.”
Asylum hotel changes to come after 2029
The new contract will replace an existing agreement that ends in 2029 allowing hotels to be used to house asylum seekers.
The use of community hotels across the country has led to mass protests amid safety concerns in recent years, intensifying discontent with the government and forcing policy to change.
Serco, Mears Group and billionaire Graham King’s Clearsprings Ready Homes are the suppliers in the current accommodation contract.
Suppliers have come under fire over profits gained from providing accommodation to asylum seekers, with a parliamentary report stating that the value for the 10-year contract beginning in 2019 had more than tripled from £4.5bn to around £15.3bn.
Clearsprings and Mears agreed to pay money back as part of an agreement, with the three companies raking in hundreds of millions of pounds from the immigration schemes.
The most recent set of data showed that nearly a third of asylum seekers, about 31,000 people, were in hotel accommodation as of last December while a growing number were being placed in other contingency and dispersal accommodation.
The government is aiming to use disused army barracks, old prison sites and other government-owned land to accommodate asylum seekers in a break from the use of hotels, though there are concerns that new plans could prompt safeguarding issues and deepen political divides within Labour and across Westminster.
A number of party backbenchers have opposed home secretary Shabana Mahmood’s tougher approach to the asylum system and immigration.
Home Office data has shown that more than 4,000 people have crossed the English Channel in small boat crossings this year. The asylum appeals backlog has also skyrocketed to around 80,000 cases while nearly 65,000 people were awaiting an initial decision.
A Home Office spokesperson said: “Engagement notices are not contracts or formal procurement activity, the contents of which change over time.”