Plan to End Asylum Hotel Use in Six Months

The Refugee Council has called on ministers to shut down asylum hotels by next spring by introducing a policy once used under Sir Tony Blair’s government.

The charity has suggested that Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer follow New Labour’s example by granting temporary, time-limited leave to remain to migrants from countries that almost always receive asylum approval.

Currently, around 32,000 asylum seekers are staying in more than 200 hotels across the UK. Roughly 40% of them come from five “high grant” countries: Afghanistan, Eritrea, Iran, Sudan, and Syria. Another 21,000 people from these same nations are housed in other Home Office-funded accommodation, bringing the total to nearly 33,000. This figure closely matches the number of people living in hotels, meaning that a temporary status scheme could remove the need for their costly accommodation.

The plan is being put forward ahead of a legal challenge on Thursday by the owners of the Bell Hotel in Essex, who are contesting an injunction preventing its use for housing asylum seekers after it became the centre of anti-immigration protests.

Enver Solomon, the Refugee Council’s chief executive, argued that waiting until 2029 to close asylum hotels is unnecessary. “A targeted, one-off scheme focusing on people from countries with high grant rates could end the use of hotels by 2026,” he said, warning that hotels would otherwise continue to stir division and unrest in local communities.

A similar initiative was run between 1999 and 2000, when Blair’s government granted 30,000 migrants exceptional leave to remain to resolve a backlog left by John Major’s administration.

The charity said any new programme would involve security checks and provide only temporary leave, with cases reviewed at a later stage.

Grant rates for asylum remain very high for people from Sudan (94%), Eritrea (84%) and Syria (up to 98%). While approval rates for Afghans once reached 96%, they have fallen to 39%. Iranians’ rates have also dropped, from 82% to 60%.

The Refugee Council is urging the Home Office to move everyone in this group out of the asylum system by March 2026.

Meanwhile, public opinion remains divided. A YouGov survey found that 54% of people consider anti-hotel protests “completely” or “somewhat justified,” while 34% oppose them. Another 11% were unsure. Political loyalties strongly shaped responses: 95% of Reform UK supporters, 78% of Conservatives, and only 35% of Labour and Liberal Democrat voters approved of the protests.