Channel migrants will be housed in hotels at the taxpayers’ expense for up to three more years, it was reported last night.
Ministers fear a backlog of asylum cases will take longer to clear than expected, meaning many migrants will remain long-term in the full-board accommodation.
About 30,000 migrants, most of whom arrived in Britain by small boat, are currently living in hotels at a cost of more than £4million a day.
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper privately believes the backlog will take more time than initially expected to work through, with a knock-on effect on closing migrant hotels, the Times reported.
‘It’s going to take a lot longer to clear than we anticipated. It certainly won’t be cleared in a year,’ a Whitehall source told the paper.
A group of people thought to be migrants leave Gravelines in France onboard a small boat in an attempt to cross the Channel
The new Government has set out plans to scrap the Bibby Stockholm accommodation barge. (A view of the Bibby Stockholm accommodation barge at Portland Port in Dorset)
Conservative ministers had repeatedly declined to put a timescale on the closure of hotels when they were in office.
So far this year 25,185 migrants have reached the UK by small boat including more than 11,000 since Labour came to power.
The new Government has set out plans to scrap the Bibby Stockholm accommodation barge and a large-scale migrant accommodation centre at RAF Scampton in Lincolnshire.
Latest figures, published by the Government in August, revealed the number of Channel migrants winning permission to remain indefinitely in Britain has quadrupled, while efforts to increase deportations have stalled.
More than 25,300 people who arrived here by small boat were granted asylum or another type of humanitarian protection in the year to June, official Home Office data showed.
It compared with about 6,600 in the previous 12 months.
The increases were due to a backlog-clearing exercise launched by former prime minister Rishi Sunak which aimed to eliminate ‘legacy’ asylum claims by the end of last year.
At the same time, only three per cent of the total number of small boat migrants to have arrived here since the start of the Channel crisis have been removed.
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper (pictured) privately believes the backlog will take more time than initially expected to work through
A view of small boats and outboard motors used by people thought to be migrants to cross the Channel
One of Labour’s first acts in power was scrapping the Tories’ Rwanda asylum scheme which was designed to save lives in the Channel by deterring crossings in the first place. (Migrants are brought ashore to Dover, Kent)
The figures showed that of the 127,834 migrants to reach Britain since 2018, only 3,788 had been sent home.
In July, just 18 days after the general election, Ms Cooper revealed she was scrapping key elements of immigration laws introduced by the Conservatives last year.
Background papers from her department showed 125,385 asylum seekers whose claims had been barred from proceeding under the Tories’ measures will now see their cases go ahead.
One of Labour’s first acts in power was scrapping the Tories’ Rwanda asylum scheme which was designed to save lives in the Channel by deterring crossings in the first place.
A Labour source said: ‘We inherited a completely failed immigration system from the Tories, including them spending over £700million on Rwanda and gimmicks that didn’t work.
‘We’re working on clearing down the backlog they left behind.’
