Home Office seeks £2.6bn emergency payment for asylum hotels

The Home Office have requested £2.6bn in an emergency cash payment after overspending on hotels for asylum seekers. James Cleverly, the current Home Secretary, made the request after a shortfall last year, when Suella Braverman was in charge for 11 months.

The chair of the home affairs select committee, Diana Johnson, plans to write to Cleverly to ask why the costs of housing asylum seekers was not included in the department’s main estimates.

The additional cash request has emerged in a written statement as latest figures show that the number of people crossing the Channel in small boats has increased by 13% compared with the same time last year.

In the written statement, Cleverly said the “net cash requirement for the year exceeds that provided by the main estimate 2023-24”.

He added: “Parliamentary approval for additional resources of £2.6bn will be sought in a supplementary estimate for Home Office. Pending that approval, urgent expenditure estimated at £2.6bn will be met by repayable cash advances from the contingencies fund.”

The overspend, which compares with a total budget of about £20bn, follows a £1bn overspend in the last financial year. Whitehall sources said the extra cash was spent on hotel rooms for asylum seekers, during a period when the numbers being housed in hotels exceeded 50,000 for the first time.

Yvette Cooper, the shadow home secretary, said: “The Tories have completely bust the budget of the Home Office through staggering incompetence and chaos but the taxpayer is paying the price.

“The overspend this year is significantly worse than last year despite all Rishi Sunak’s promises. Their failure to clear the asylum backlog, end the use of hotels for asylum seekers stuck in their broken asylum system or sort out proper contracts has left them with an eye-watering £2.6bn black hole that the British taxpayer will need to fill. Time and again they go for gimmicks rather than ever getting a grip.”