Some migrant hotels to lose contracts as Government drops fifty sites
The number of hotels in the region housing migrants may be cut under Government plans to drop 50 sites by the new year.
It is unknown if any of the hotels being used in the Black Country and Staffordshire will be affected, but around 400 across the UK are currently providing accommodation to 47,500 people including asylum seekers.
There are at least two sites each in Wolverhampton,Walsall and Cannock, and one each in Dudley and Stafford that are known to be used as shelters while Leave to Remain applications are being processed by the Home Office.
Speaking in the House of Commons the Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick said the situation was “completely unacceptable and must end as soon as practicable”. He said some of the accommodation contracts will be terminated to reduce the £8 million-a-day cost of the scheme.
Mr Jenrick efforts to move migrants out of 50 hotels under the first phase will start within days and the process of “exiting” is expected to take up to the end of January.
In a statement to MPs he said the plans are possible because of “the progress we’ve made to stop the boats”.
“One of the most damaging manifestations of this problem has been the use of hotels to meet our statutory obligations to house those who arrive illegally would otherwise be destitute. I can inform the House that today the Home Office wrote to local authorities and MPs to inform them that we will now be exiting the first asylum hotels, hotels in all four nations of the UK.
“The first 50 of these exits will begin in the coming days and will be complete by the end of January with more tranches to follow shortly, but we will not stop there.
“We will continue to deliver on our strategy to stop the boats and we will be able to exit more hotels. And as we exit these hotels, we are putting in place dedicated resource to facilitate the orderly and effective management of this process and limit the impact on local communities,” the minister said.
Shadow Immigration Minister Stephen Kinnock, for Labour, said the move to decant 50 hotels was paltry and showed the Conservatives “utter lack of ambition” to resolve the situation as 350 hotels remained.
Arrangements for hotel contracts relating to the housing of asylum seekers are in the hands of the Home Office and not individual town halls.
Some 26,501 people have been brought ashore after making the dangerous journey across the English Channel since the start of this year, which compares with more than 37,000 by this point last year.
About 50 migrants have so far been moved back on to the 500-capacity vessel Bibby Stockholm barge in Portland, in Dorset, after the discovery of Legionella bacteria in its water supply led to an evacuation in August.
Another Government plan announced in April under which some asylum seekers would be sent to Rwanda in central Africa is currently being heard at the Supreme Court, with no deportation flights yet taken off.
