Government plans to cut millions spent every day on hotels for illegal immigrants will see landlords exempt from adhering to basic housing requirements.
The temporary move—expected to be passed almost immediately by Parliament—will mean landlords will no longer legally need to stick to stringent housing regulations, including those on safety.
The changes will allow landlords to house illegal immigrants for two years without getting the property recognised as a house in multiple occupation (HMO).
The exemptions would include regulations governing electrical safety and minimum room sizes in such accommodations.
The statutory instrument, which will bypass the normal Lords consultation process, has been described as “appalling” by refugee representatives who said it will allow “rogue landlords” to house vulnerable men, women, and children.
‘Potential Catastrophe’
Details of the HMO changes were brought before peers during a motion on Tuesday by Baroness Jane Scott, parliamentary under-secretary of state for the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities.She told the Lords Grand Committee that presently, more than 50,000 illegal immigrants are being housed in UK hotels at a cost of “millions” a day.
She said hotels are “neither intended nor adequate to be used as long-term accommodation” and that a range of “short and longer-term measures” were needed to ease the housing problem.
The changes to HMO licences would mean less paperwork and bureaucracy meaning immigrants could be housed quicker within communities.
“It is not right that the country is spending millions of pounds a day on hotels, and we are determined to put the asylum accommodation system on a far more sustainable footing,” Scott told peers.
“This reform is one of the many measures being taken to provide adequate and cost-effective accommodation in line with our statutory duty.”
Responding, Lord Scriven said he felt, “This is yet another chapter in a book that is about dehumanising some of the most vulnerable people in the world seeking asylum in this country.”
Describing the plans as “another potential catastrophe” for government, Baroness Taylor said the Home Office “once again rides roughshod over the asylum seekers directly affected.”
She said: “I agree with Lord Scriven about the dehumanising effect of successive actions that have been taken in this regard—the neighbours and communities of the housing this impacts and the local councils and other agencies that will once again be left to pick up the pieces.
“Why should our communities be subject to this turbulence because the Home Office has abysmally failed to tackle the weaknesses in its asylum processing capacity and capability?”
Cash for Councils
Responding to the concerns, Scott said the regulatory change is “a necessary step” to accelerate illegal immigrants into suitable accommodation.“This is not dehumanising; this is actually giving them a better place to live, and trying to get people out of hotels as quickly as possible,” she told peers.
“We are doing it because the asylum accommodation service people are telling us that they have identified that the whole process of licensing requirements is really a challenge to swiftly bring on board the properties that we need in order to get people out of the hotel system.”
Scott said financial incentives for local authorities to help house illegal immigrants would increase.
Councils are receiving £750 per person for each and every existing immigrant bed, and £3,500 for each new dispersal bed that becomes available.
In addition, Scott said, councils will receive a further incentive payment between £2,000 and £3,000 where a bed is brought online within an expedited timeframe as part of a four-month pilot.
She added, “I want to make it very clear that we are doing it to speed up the movement of these people from what the House has clearly said many times is unsuitable hotel accommodation, which is not right over a long period.”
The plans have already received a furious backlash from refugee and immigrant supporting groups.
Enver Solomon, CEO of the Refugee Council, told The Epoch Times: “To strip away the very basic protections currently in place is appalling, allowing rogue landlords to house vulnerable men, women, and children in dangerous accommodation.
“It will result in more hardship for refugees, negatively impacting their mental and physical health as well as putting them at great risk of harm.
“They deserve to live safely and with dignity as they wait to be granted protection.”
‘Utter Mess’
Labour MPs also condemned the plans, with Kim Leadbeater branding the statutory instrument “another clear example of the utter mess” the government has made of the immigration system. MP Matthew Pennycook warned it would mean “no minimum standards whatsoever” apply to asylum housing.He said, “Of course, it will be cheaper to house asylum seekers in accommodation without gas safety certificates, without safe electrical appliances and furniture, without working smoke and carbon monoxide alarms and without shared amenity facilities that meet minimum standards.”
A government spokesman said the use of expensive hotels to house the “unprecedented number of asylum seekers crossing the Channel” is unacceptable and must end.
“By temporarily removing this licensing requirement, we will be able to acquire more suitable long-term accommodation while continuing to meet our legal duty of care,” the spokesman said.
“This will not compromise standards and all properties will be independently inspected for quality to ensure they continue to meet national housing quality requirements.”
The plans are expected to be approved by Parliament in the coming days.
