The federal government is struggling to chop the billions of kilos of international assist partly used to accommodate asylum seekers in lodges, in line with new figures.
The £2.2bn House Workplace estimate to spend £2.2bn of abroad improvement help (ODA) on this monetary yr is simply barely lower than the £2.3bn spent in 2024/25.
The overwhelming majority is used for the lodging for asylum seekers who’ve arrived within the UK, with current figures displaying greater than 32,000 have been being housed in lodges on the finish of March.
Labour has pledged “to end the use of asylum hotels” and the federal government says it has decreased the general asylum help prices by half a billion kilos, together with £200m in ODA financial savings, which had been handed again to the Treasury.
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has stated he’ll reduce the general ODA from its present degree of 0.5% of gross nationwide revenue (GNI) to 0.3% in 2027.
Overseas assist is meant to be spent on offering humanitarian and improvement help in different international locations, however the UK is allowed to depend refugee-hosting prices as ODA underneath internationally agreed guidelines.
Labour MP Sarah Champion beforehand stated a “scandalously large amount” of ODA has been diverted to the House Workplace and has known as for a cap on how a lot could be spent supporting asylum seekers and refugees within the UK.
Asylum seekers and their households are housed in short-term lodging if they’re ready for the end result of a declare or an enchantment and have been assessed as not having the ability to help themselves independently.
They’re housed in lodges if there may be not sufficient house in lodging offered by native authorities or different organisations.
A House Workplace spokesperson stated: “We inherited an asylum system underneath distinctive strain, and are urgently taking motion to revive order, and scale back prices.
“This may finally scale back the quantity of Official Growth Help spent to help asylum seekers and refugees within the UK.
“We are immediately speeding up decisions and increasing returns so that we can end the use of hotels and save the taxpayer £4bn by 2026.”
