Immigration: Labour will appeal ruling over aslyum seekers in hotels

MINISTERS will appeal a court decision earlier this week that barred the UK government from accommodating asylum seekers in a hotel, security minister Dan Jarvis said on Friday (22).

The high court on Tuesday (19) granted a temporary injunction to stop migrants from staying at the Bell Hotel in Epping, northeast of London, following several weeks of protests outside the hotel, some of them violent.

There were protests after a resident was charged with sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl.

Jarvis said on Friday, "We've made a commitment that we will close all of the asylum hotels by the end of this parliament, but we need to do that in a managed and ordered way.

"And that's why we'll appeal this decision."

A total of 111,084 people applied for asylum in the UK in the year to June 2025 - the highest number ever.

Latest official data showed there were 32,345 asylum seekers being housed temporarily in UK hotels at the end of March.

It was under the previous Conservative government that migrants were accommodated in hotels.

Jarvis said, "This government will close all asylum hotels and we will clear up the mess that we inherited from the previous government.”

Since Tuesday's injunction, a number of councils across the country controlled by Labour, the Conservatives and Reform UK have also said they are mulling legal challenges to block the use of hotels in their areas.

Prime minister Sir Keir Starmer has pledged to end the costly practice of housing the thousands of asylum seekers arriving in small boats in hotels around the country, but has said it will be done in a gradual manner.

Immigration has overtaken the economy as the number one issue for the British public, according to at least two regular trackers of voters' concerns.