Starmer Closing Hotels Won’t Stop the Crisis — It Puts It on Your Street
Starmer says he’ll shut asylum hotels, but record arrivals mean they’ll just be replaced by housing on your street.
Keir Starmer promised today that asylum hotels will be “emptied.”
“When it comes to the asylum hotels, I want them emptied. I’ve been really clear about that. I completely understand why people are so concerned about it. The only way to empty them is an orderly, systematic working through the cases as quickly as possible.”
But only last week, his government went to court to keep the Bell Hotel in Essex open for asylum seekers, overturning a council’s attempt to close it. Judges sided with the Home Office — forcing local residents to live with the very outcome Starmer now says he wants to end.
It’s a stark contrast: promising to close hotels in public while fighting in court to keep them open.
But Britain has just hit record asylum numbers: 111,000 claims in the past year, higher than even the 2002 peak.
Hotels may close — but with arrivals still at record highs, that means tens of thousands more being placed directly into houses and flats in local communities.
Closing hotels doesn’t end the crisis.
It just moves it onto your street.
🛂 Record Asylum Claims — And Most Don’t Arrive by Boat
The biggest number of all is often overlooked:
In the year to June 2025, the UK received 111,000 asylum applications.
That’s a record high — greater even than the peak in 2002.
And the majority of claims don’t start with dinghies. They begin with a visa — for study, tourism, or temporary work — before switching into the asylum system once inside the UK.
This is why the crisis is about far more than just the Channel.
One striking example is Pakistan — now the single biggest source of asylum claims. And most of those cases began with a legal visa, not a small boat.
👉 Read my full breakdown here: Pakistan Tops UK Asylum Claims – Most Arrive on Visas, Not Boats
🚤 The Boats That Grab the Headlines
Small boats dominate debate — and here too, 2025 is breaking records.
In the first 8 months of 2025, 29,003 people crossed the Channel.
That’s 38% higher than last year (21,052).
Already more than the previous 8-month record of 25,065 set in 2022.
Labour promised to smash the gangs. Instead, they’re smashing data records.
🏨 Hotels: Still Packed
In the year to June 2025, 32,059 asylum seekers were in hotels.
That’s up from 29,585 a year earlier.
Barely down from the 32,345 in March 2025.
💷 Costs Down — But Still Billions
The Home Office’s annual accounts show the bill for hotels is still staggering — even if it has dipped slightly:
£2.1bn was spent on asylum hotels in 2024/25 — almost 30% lower than the £3bn the year before.
Average spend fell from £8.3m per day to £5.8m per day.
The nightly cost per person dropped from £162 to £119, thanks to more room-sharing and moving some families into other forms of housing.
But these savings don’t mean the problem is solved. With record crossings in 2025, costs will rise again — unless more and more arrivals are shifted straight into community housing instead of hotels.
Despite the rhetoric, the hotels remain full.
🤝 The Macron Deal: Numbers Don’t Work
The “one in, one out” deal with France was announced on 10 July 2025 and came into force on 05 August 2025.
Since then:
3,567 new arrivals have crossed.
At an alleged rate of 50 returns a week, it would take 71 weeks just to return those who arrived since the deal was signed.
At the end of those weeks? The number here would be the same — because for every one returned, one comes in legally.
It’s not a deterrent. It’s a political soundbite.
🏠 From Hotels to Houses
Starmer’s pledge to shut down hotels doesn’t stop the crisis — it just shifts it.
66,234 asylum seekers were in dispersal housing in the year to June 2025 — taxpayer funded homes and flats in towns and cities.
Add the hotels and other accommodation types, and over 100,000 people are in taxpayer-funded accommodation.
With asylum claims on the rise, and the biggest on record in the past year, the only way to empty hotels is to move more and more arrivals into communities.
Risks to Communities
Housing pressure: social housing lists grow, private rents rise.
Local services: schools, GPs, hospitals, and councils stretched.
Integration strains: sudden arrivals in small towns create tension.
Security gaps: many destroy ID documents; background checks limited.
Closing hotels doesn’t fix the problem — it relocates it.
⚠️ Conclusion
Starmer promised to bring control. But the reality is record crossings and record asylum claims.
Shutting hotels won’t stop the crisis. It just makes it more visible in towns and neighbourhoods across the country. The crisis doesn’t disappear. It just moves in next door.
And until the attraction to come to the UK is reduced — free housing, healthcare, legal aid, and cash allowances — the problem won’t ease. It will only get worse.
That’s why the contradiction matters: only last week, the government went to court to keep the Bell Hotel open, even as the Prime Minister now promises to shut them down. It’s not control — it’s double-speak.
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