The Channel migrant crisis is costing taxpayers £15-million-per-day, shocking new figures have revealed.
The Home Office is spending £5.4 billion on asylum accommodation and support, estimates from the Treasury show.
Labour has accused the Government of blowing its £1billion budget on “asylum support, resettlement and accommodation” as the backlog of applications soared over the past 12 months.
The Home Office has asked the Treasury for an extra £4.3 billion to cover the cost of the small boats crisis.
The majority, an estimated £2.3bn, is being spent on hotel rooms.
Sir Matthew Rycroft, the top civil servant in the Home Office, told the Home Affairs Select Committee, in a new letter published on Wednesday: “Both the Home Office and HM Treasury recognised that asylum was a volatile area to budget.
“As a result, in subsequent financial years both departments have worked together to manage additional costs through the usual process of Supplementary Estimates.
“The Home Office has also been managing it through efficiency savings.
“Indeed, we are taking steps to ensure the asylum system delivers better value for money for the taxpayer, such as ending the costly use of hotels and looking at a range of alternative accommodation sites.”
The cost of the UK’s asylum system had previously ballooned to £3.96bn – up from £2.11bn.
Tory MPs have warned the immigration system is “not fit for purpose” and called for “root and branch reform”.
Yvette Cooper MP, Labour’s Shadow Home Secretary, said: “This lays bare the complete chaos the Tories have created in the asylum system. They are spending billions on hotel rooms because of their failure to clear the backlog of asylum applications.
“Despite promises of action from the Prime Minister, they have not delivered and now the Home Secretary has been forced to go to the Chancellor with a begging bowl because he’s bust his budget by over £5 billion.
“Families across the country, struggling with the cost of living crisis, will rightly want to know why the Prime Minister and Home Secretary are spending millions of pounds every day on asylum accommodation, rather than getting a grip of the problems they’ve created by letting the backlog spiral out of control.”
But the Tories accused Labour of attempting to distract the British public from the row over Angela Rayner’s tax affairs.
Minister of State for Countering Illegal Migration, Michael Tomlinson MP, said: “Labour have no plan to stop the boats and would take us back to square one meaning unlimited and uncontrolled immigration. This announcement is a poor attempt to distract from Angela Rayner’s refusal to answer questions on her tax affairs.
“Whether it’s campaigning to keep violent foreign criminals on our streets, voting against tougher immigration laws dozens of times or planning to dump the Rwanda plan even when it works – Labour won’t control immigration. In fact, Sir Keir Starmer’s approach to immigration would mean an extra 250,000 migrants a year.
“Only Rishi Sunak and the Conservatives will take the steps necessary to stop the boats, our plan has already seen crossings fall by a third, but we must stick to the plan to go further.”
