Home Affairs Committee publishes report on asylum accommodation

The Home Affairs Committee has published its report into the Home Office’s management of asylum accommodation. Unsurprisingly, given the known extent of the issues, the report is 123 pages with several pages of recommendations.

Conclusions include that there is an over-reliance on the use of contingency accommodation, such as hotels, as providers are incentivised towards their use through the ability to generate higher profits. The committee recommended that the Home Office “give urgent consideration to the practical implications of exercising the contractual break clauses, that become exercisable from March 2026”.

The committee also found that there had been failures in Home Office day to day management of the contracts (partly caused by focus on the Rwanda deal and roll out of large accommodation sites) and oversight of providers and their subcontractors. The refusal to disclose the commercial contracts to the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration was criticised, with the committee stating that the inspectorate’s role in scrutinising the delivery of asylum accommodation was crucial and that legislation should be amended if needed to enable this disclosure.

The Home Office has apparently only started recouping excess profits from providers in 2024, with the providers telling the committee that “they had tens of millions waiting to be returned to the Home Office”.

The report also said that too many people “continue to be placed in accommodation that is inadequate or deeply unsuitable” and that “long stays in inappropriate hotels are often deeply harmful to the people accommodated there”. The Home Office “should prioritise the closure of manifestly unsuitable hotels—such as those in remote areas and near limited infrastructure—that cause the most harm to their residents and place the most pressure on local services”.

Communication with people in asylum accommodation should be improved, as the report said that this is currently poor particularly when people are being moved with very little advance notice. It was recommended that a minimum notice period is set for moving people to new accommodation.

The committee also found that the Advice, Issue Reporting and Eligibility Contract (AIRE) service provided by Migrant Help has been unable to meet demand and the Home Office should take urgent action, to include finding an alternative provider if Migrant Help are unable to perform the contract to an acceptable standard. The committee was not convinced that all of the elements of the service should be delivered through a centralised system and apparently the Home Office is already considering more localised delivery models. The Home Office was told that it should report back to the committee on the outcome of this consideration.

Safeguarding is a huge problem within asylum accommodation, and the committee said that it is “deeply concerned by the volume of evidence indicating significant failures”. Several recommendations were made here:

We recommend that the Home Office strengthens its approach to safeguarding by:

a. Ensuring that there is a robust framework for overseeing and auditing how safeguarding policies and processes are applied on the ground by contractors and subcontractors;

b. Ensuring that staff working directly with asylum seekers receive adequate safeguarding training;

c. Setting performance measures for safeguarding in the contracts, which allow the department to penalise providers who fail to meet safeguarding standards;

d. Urgently reviewing its processes for identifying risks and vulnerabilities and sharing these with accommodation providers and statutory partners; and

e. Using the data it receives through the Safeguarding Hub to more proactively monitor safeguarding concerns, including outcomes of incidents and referrals. (Recommendation, Paragraph 121)

Other concerns and recommendations were made concerning unaccompanied asylum seeking children, impacts of asylum accommodation on local areas and pressure on local services. The latter included a recommendation that the Home Office reinstates the 56 day notice period for people to exit asylum accommodation after receiving a positive decision on their claim.

The committee said that the government should set out a clear and credible strategy for reducing the use of hotels and delivering a sustainable system which should include a realistic timeframe and achievable milestones, in anticipation of the 2026 break clause and the end of the contracts in 2029. The report concluded with some important reminders: “Fairness and equity, rather than cost, should be paramount regardless of the system used. The Home Office remains ultimately responsible for the asylum accommodation system, regardless of who is leading on delivery on the ground.”