Asylum hotel use halves as Shabana Mahmood hails migration progress

HOME SECRETARY Shabana Mahmood said the asylum backlog is down, the number of asylum seekers in hotels is falling, illegal working arrests are at record levels, and deportations and returns are up markedly, as new government data showed a sharp fall in migration-related numbers.

"A little over two years into office and the asylum backlog is down, the number of asylum seekers in hotels is falling, illegal working arrests are at record levels, and deportations and returns are up markedly," she said. "Small boats numbers are also now falling, but we are not complacent and there is more we must do."

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There has been a significant fall in the use of hotels to house asylum seekers waiting for a Home Office decision. In June 2025 there were more than 32,000 people in hotel rooms, but by June this year it had halved to more than 16,000.

A total of 85,891 people applied for asylum in Britain in the 12 months to the end of June, down 21 per cent year-on-year and the lowest total since the year to June 2022, according to interior ministry statistics. About half of those applications came from people who were already legally in the UK, rather than having arrived on a small boat.

Migrants who had crossed the English Channel in small boats — a highly contentious route that has fuelled the rise of the UK far right — accounted for 40 per cent of the applications in the most recent period. Some 38,000 illegal arrivals were detected in the year to June, 33,000 of them on small boats across the sea from France. Small boat arrivals dropped by 23 per cent across the same timeframe, with the ruling centre-left Labour Party insisting that shows the success of its policy of trying to disrupt the crossings "upstream" in Europe.

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Applicants waiting for a first decision dropped 56 per cent in the year to June, to 40,168 — the lowest number since March 2019, and down from the peak of 175,000 in June 2023. Some 40,000 people found not to have a reason to be in the UK were removed from the country in the year to June 2026, an 8 per cent increase on the year before, with about a third of them failed asylum seekers — the highest number for 16 years.

The number of people in houses around the country paid for by the Home Office has gone up from 65,000 at the end of 2024 to 69,000 in June this year, arrangements that are part of a decade-long standing contract with private providers.

Government spending on asylum, including direct cash support, accommodation, staffing and some border enforcement activity, fell 8 per cent in 2025/26, to £4.36 billion ($5.91 billion), the second consecutive annual fall.

Shadow home secretary Chris Philp said Labour was "moving illegal immigrants out of hotels and into flats in your building." He said a Conservative government would deport every illegal immigrant and leave the European Court of Human Rights. "The surest way to empty the accommodation is to make plain that nobody who crosses the Channel gets to stay," he added.

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Reform UK said Britain was at "breaking point". Its shadow home secretary Zia Yusuf said: "Under Reform, illegal boats in the Channel will be stopped by our Navy, and all those here illegally will be detained and deported."

Separately, the Equality and Human Rights Commission said the government had scored its lowest ranking with its policies for migrants and asylum seekers, citing "inconsistent action" and failures to protect people from poverty and destitution.