Britain's reliance on hotels to accommodate asylum seekers has reached a tipping point, exposing the failures of a centralised asylum system established by the former Conservative government. What initially was a temporary measure after 2020 has become a permanent feature of a system in crisis, driven by a massive backlog of asylum applications and a severe shortage of long-term housing options. This poorly managed system has caused social outrage and deepened racial divisions in the UK.
Over the past weeks, St George’s flag has been raised by thousands of Brits, from motorways to villages and towns across the UK, in protest of irregular migration. The disorganised use of hotel accommodations was a significant contributing factor to this protest, including the Bell Hotel case. Ultimately, the hotels are a symptom of a wider problem: the rise of irregular migration to the UK. The Labour government must simultaneously end its reliance on hotel accommodation and continue to counter both irregular routes to the UK and people smuggling.
A Strained and Expensive System
While asylum accommodation policy traditionally aimed to house people in long-term private rental housing, the period after 2020 marked a move towards reliance on hotels. This change has created a two-tier crisis: asylum seekers stuck in unsuitable temporary accommodation and unprepared communities facing sudden influxes without proper consultation.
The geography of asylum accommodation reveals the depth of these policy failures. Between 2018 and 2024, there was a significant shift away from the original dispersal policy, with an increasing number of asylum seekers being housed in London, the South East, and the East of England. Paradoxically, these regions, which are experiencing growing asylum populations, are also those with the highest reliance on hotel accommodations. While hotel use declined across much of the UK between 2023 and 2024, it continued to rise in London, illustrating how the crisis has become concentrated in areas already under housing pressure.
The financial cost is staggering. In the financial year 2024-25, hotels cost on average six times more than other types of asylum accommodation. Although the Home Office managed to reduce some costs between April 2024 and March 2025 by housing more people per hotel and cutting the average nightly rate from £162 to £119, this approach of cramming more people into inadequate spaces is not an appropriate solution.
The recent legal ruling against the Bell Hotel in Epping highlights these systemic flaws. The Conservative government's reliance on hotels, which the Labour government is following despite claiming they would close them, has drawn extensive public backlash and forced councils to seek legal remedies. Simultaneously, the Home Office struggles to propose viable alternatives. What was conceived as emergency accommodation has become a permanent feature affecting tens of thousands of people across the country.
Furthermore, hotels often offer limited access to essential services, such as language tuition or integration support, making it almost impossible to build connections with local communities. For asylum seekers, this leads to isolation and, in many cases, a deterioration of mental health. Local communities, in turn, experience tension and fear when large numbers of people are placed in buildings without real support.
In Epping, this created an atmosphere where protests and unrest escalated, demonstrating how poorly conceived housing arrangements can deepen societal divisions. The crisis exposes both administrative failures and fundamental political misjudgments. The Conservative government's reactive approach, contracting private operators and bypassing meaningful consultation with local authorities, has created legal, financial, and social problems. Now, the Labour government is following in their footsteps by fighting to keep the hotels. At the same time, asylum seekers continue to be isolated and limited in their opportunities to find work and contribute to the economy.
Learning from International Examples
Compared with other European countries, the UK stands out for its heavy reliance on hotels and private providers to accommodate asylum seekers. Different nations have developed more structured approaches, which, while not without challenges, offer valuable lessons for reform.
In Germany, many asylum seekers are housed in initial reception centres featuring extensive facilities with dormitory-style accommodation. People can stay in these centres for 18 months or longer before being transferred to collective accommodation centres or decentralised housing. The type of housing varies by region and may include former army barracks, housing containers, or self-contained flats.
France operates reception centres (Centre d'Accueil pour Demandeurs d'Asile – CADA) as the primary form of accommodation. These can be either collective or private accommodation within the same building or separate flats, usually managed by NGOs. Spain follows a similar model with reception centres (Centro de Acogida a Refugiados – CAR) as primary accommodation facilities. However, both France and Spain face accommodation shortages, leaving many asylum seekers in informal camps or settlements.
Sweden has developed a dispersal accommodation system, primarily housing asylum seekers in shared flats, although municipalities face difficulties in securing suitable housing. Notably, as of March 2025, few asylum seekers in the UK were living in large sites such as former military barracks, suggesting alternative models remain underexplored. Yet, between 2014 and 2024, asylum seekers in the UK became more evenly distributed across local authorities, suggesting that dispersal can work when properly managed.
Currently, the hotels perpetuate cycles of mistrust between locals and asylum seekers, especially when asylum seekers are not adequately vetted for criminal backgrounds or given support for mental health issues. Yet, there are examples of how the system could work differently within the UK itself. Grassroots initiatives in places like Kent have demonstrated that community involvement, volunteering, and systematically implemented regional support can help asylum seekers integrate successfully into their new communities.
Some countries, including Germany, have reaped the benefits of investing in similar strategies. After six years in Germany, the average employment rate of refugees was relatively high at 57% (with 50% in skilled professions), compared to the national employment average of 77%. With each generation, this percentage increases, which is particularly important for countries with ageing populations, such as the UK. In sum, while the policies used by other European countries also have their drawbacks, none seem quite as costly, ineffective, and politically polarising as Britain’s use of hotels.
The Bell Hotel case should serve as a warning that the UK’s current approach to housing migrants is unsustainable and harmful to social cohesion. An effective asylum system must prioritise stability and integration rather than reactive crisis management. The question is whether current Labour policymakers will learn from the Conservatives' failures or continue poorly managing crisis after crisis until the system breaks entirely.
