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The number of asylum seekers living in hotels has halved in a year, Home Office figures show.
Sweeping changes to the asylum system have also led to a significant drop in legal arrivals and asylum claims, but the numbers of asylum seekers housed in private accommodation has increased as the government moves people from hotels into privately rented houses in multiple occupation (HMOs).
There were 16,021 asylum seekers housed in 160 hotels at the end of June, down from 32,041 at the same point last year and a peak of 56,018 in September 2023.
Asylum hotels have been a flashpoint for the far right, especially last summer, and the government has pledged to end their use by the end of the parliament. It said earlier this month another 13 hotels had recently been exited.
But tens of thousands of people are still housed in other forms of contingency accommodation, which has also often been highly controversial, both in local communities and because of the conditions of the housing for a vulnerable group of people.
The latest figures show 69,038 were housed in temporary accommodation.
The shift from asylum hotels to other forms of accommodation has led to an 8% fall in Home Office spending on asylum.
The Guardian revealed this month that the government was considering paying higher prices for housing asylum seekers in private rental properties as part of Andy Burnham’s plan to spread accommodation more evenly across the country.
The home secretary, Shabana Mahmood, said figures showed the government was “restoring control at our border and fairness to the migration system”.
She said: “A little over two years into office and the asylum backlog is down, the number of asylum seekers in hotels is falling, illegal working arrests are at record levels and deportations and returns are up markedly.”
Small boat crossings to the UK have fallen by 23% year on year, which Home Office officials said was down to a combination of more trafficking arrests and more interceptions by French police.
The previous prime minister, Keir Starmer, struck a deal with the French government to deport some would-be migrants back to France in exchange for providing others with a safe and legal route to the UK, known as the one in, one out policy.
However, Home Office figures show the introduction of the scheme has led to a rise in incidents of use of force against deportees to a record 210, including 181 occasions where restraint equipment was used, a figure that has doubled since the start of the French scheme.
Charities say they have documented injuries sustained by asylum seekers as they are removed back to France.
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Mahmood said there was still more to do to deter small boat Channel crossings. “Small boats numbers are now falling but we are not complacent and there is more we must do,” she said. “That is why I have boosted enforcement on the French beaches and overseas and introduced new legislation to tackle the pull factors that draw people here through unsafe and illegal routes.”
Nuni Jorgensen, of the University of Oxford’s Migration Observatory, told PA the government had been able to close hotels largely because asylum decisions were being made more quickly, but there was now an asylum appeals backlog in the courts.
Figures also show that the number of businesses being stripped of the right to sponsor migrant workers has surged to the highest since the post-Brexit scheme was introduced.
Analysis of quarterly migration statistics and a freedom of information request by the workplace justice charity the Work Rights Centre found the number of revocations of licences to sponsor migrant workers surged to 4,403 in the 12 months to June 2026, from 1,828 in 2025.
The skilled worker visa sponsorship scheme was introduced to fill post-Brexit skills shortages in sectors such as care. Unions and charities have warned that the scheme facilitates exploitation.
In some cases, workers have complained of employers using the fact that their migration status is tied to their job to underpay them and force them to work long hours. Other arrivals, such as Shabin Shaji, whose case the Guardian reported on earlier this year, paid cash to recruiters to secure a role in the UK but have been left destitute after their employer “ghosted” them.
