The British taxpayer pays eight million pounds (€9.2 million) every day to house migrants in hotels. This recurring—and growing—bill is a result of the Conservative Party’s inability to do anything other than talk about illegal crossings.
There has been a lot of rhetoric on this from Tory HQ in recent months, particularly on “stopping” dangerous Channel crossings, given that the next general election is just around the corner. But every new pledge appears to end in disaster.
The use of hotels has been no different. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said in January that he would end the “appalling situation where taxpayers are paying to keep illegal migrants in hotels.” At that time, Britons were paying around £6 million every day. In the eight months since, during which time there has been yet more government talk about “ongoing work to slash the number of hotels being used for asylum seekers,” the figure has risen by a third.
That is according to Home Office figures. These show that there were 50,546 migrants being housed in hotels in August, up by 10,000 since September. Part of the increase in costs is, The Times reports, due to the fact it takes an average of nearly four months to move individuals out of hotels, even if they have been granted asylum.
Whatever the reason, it is clear that no amount of chatter will fix it. And this does not bode well for the Conservative Party, which already looks likely to suffer defeat in the next election.
Migration Watch UK Chairman Alp Mehmet described these latest figures, which are bound only to increase again, as “horrendous.” He told The European Conservative:
They can only come as a shock to the public. More concerning still is that if the government doesn’t get a grip quickly, it will only get worse. And the poor old, put-upon, taxpayer foots the bill. This is so unfair.
A Tory government source quoted in The Times gave about the only response it has to such deserved criticism; that Labour would “add to the problem.”
