It came as the government highlighted how it has closed 100 hotels by the end of this month used by migrants
Government plans for asylum accommodation will cost tens of millions of pounds more than using hotels, with flagship sites housing hundreds fewer migrants than planned, Whitehall’s spending watchdog has found. The National Audit Office said the Home Office expects to spend £1.2 billion on housing asylum seekers in large accommodation sites and latest estimates suggest they will cost £46 million more than using hotels.
The report, published on Wednesday, comes in the wake of ex-home secretary Dame Priti Patel telling the Commons last week that the Government’s asylum accommodation system needs reform and there are “serious questions” to be asked of her former department. Head of the NAO Gareth Davies said: “The Home Office has made progress in reducing the use of hotels for asylum accommodation.
While the Government has “made progress” by cutting the number of hotels to house asylum seekers, and had stopped using 60 by the end of January, it has “incurred losses and increased risk” by “rapidly progressing its plans to establish large sites”, the NAO said. So far only Wethersfield – which has a capacity of 1,700 – and the Bibby Stockholm, with space for around 500 men, are housing asylum seekers. But both sites were housing just under half the number of migrants the Home Office expected would be the case at the end of January, with 576 at Wethersfield and 321 on the Bibby barge at that point.
– The department “prioritised awarding contracts quickly, and modifying existing contracts over fully-competitive tenders”, with “overly-ambitious accommodation timetables” leading to “increased procurement risks”. – There are “uncertainties” about how the Illegal Migration Act is being implemented, making it harder for the Home Office to assess what asylum accommodation it needs. The report said the law changes will make it “more difficult to assess how much and what type of accommodation the Home Office will need” as it does not know how effective the deterrent will be or how it will affect the amount and type of accommodation it needs.
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