A hotel chain repeatedly voted “the worst in the UK” is dedicating many of its rooms to asylum seekers – and raking in thousands of pounds of taxpayer cash. Figures from the Home Office show nearly 400 hotels are now giving refuge to some 51,000 migrants instead of selling rooms to paying guests.
Almost one in 10 of those asylum seekers are staying in some of the 10,000 rooms owned by the Britannia Hotel Group, the Sun on Sunday reports.
In all, more than a quarter, 2,619, of the company’s rooms are currently occupied by people who have made desperate journeys across the English Channel.
According to an investigation by the newspaper, 17 of the company’s often iconic buildings have now been block-booked on behalf of the Government.
Hotels in Nottingham, Blackpool, Stafford, Hale in Greater Manchester, Birmingham, Wolverhampton and in London are just some of the locations used for asylum seekers. Other hotel groups doing the same include Novotel, Mercure and Holiday Inn.
At present the British taxpayer is footing a bill of around 6.8million a day for the hotel migrant scheme, which works out at around £117.64 a migrant according to The Sun.
The Britannia Group has suffered from repeated bad reviews from paying patrons with bed bugs, dirty carpets and stained bathrooms cited by unhappy guests.
The Home Office currently pays contractors to source accommodation for illegal migrants arriving in the UK. Firms such as Serco are paid up to £150 million a year to complete the task.
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Both the Home Secretary Suella Braverman and the Prime Minister Rishi Sunak had pledged to end the use of hotels to house migrants with the new Illegal Immigration Bill.
The legislation will aim to remove those crossing the Channel from the UK and place them in holding countries, such as Rwanda.
Critics of the current hotel housing policy say it is leading to tensions in communities and there have been protests and clashes between far-right demonstrators and anti-fascists in places like Liverpool and Cornwall.
Peter Bone, Tory MP for Wellingborough, Northants, said: “We must stop this horrendous waste of money and get these economic migrants out of hotels and into camps or ships.
“It’s right the Government is working to solve this problem by stopping them from crossing the Channel, and sending them back home or to Rwanda if they do get here.”
There are currently 350 migrants at the Britannia Metropole in Blackpool which have been housed there since September 2021.
Paul Maynard, MP for Blackpool North and Cleveleys, said: “I’ve always made the point to ministers that it is simply not the right place to house migrants.
“To put vulnerable people arriving in this country in the middle of so much social deprivation is not in their interest, nor the town’s.”
