Migrants Entering the UK, Migrant Accommodation

Thank you for your message about migrants attempting to reach the UK in small boats. These crossings are illegal and dangerous, and have sadly increased in number due to unusually calm seas and to people traffickers attempting to exploit the pandemic.

It is extremely important to discourage and prevent these crossings, both to protect our borders and to avoid people smugglers putting more lives at risk in unsafe small boats. I have been pleased to see that the Home Secretary has recently appointed Dan O’Mahoney, a former Royal Marine, to step up work to tackle these crossings in collaboration with the French. Mr O’Mahoney will be working to build stronger enforcement measures that meet the increased scale of the problem, including the use of naval vessels to make interceptions at sea and direct the return of boats.

I know that there has also been some concern about reports of asylum seekers being housed in hotels while their cases are being processed by the authorities. The UK does have a statutory obligation to provide destitute people claiming asylum with temporary accommodation. However, it is important to note that the use of hotels is an extraordinary measure that has been adopted because of the special situation with COVID-19. The overriding need to protect public health during the pandemic has required extra capacity to be made available at short notice to make sure migrants can socially distance. The intention was also to avoid placing pressure on local authorities at a time when they were working to temporarily house UK rough sleepers during the lockdown.

There have been figures circulating online about this that are inaccurate - the proportion of asylum seekers housed in hotels is in fact very small, and the provision (while of course meeting essential needs) is basic, and certainly not the same as if a member of the public were to stay in a similar hotel! 

There is a wider issue here with the returns process governed by the Dublin Regulations, which the Prime Minister has said can make it very difficult to deport illegal migrants, especially where the current legal framework is intentionally exploited. I welcome his commitment to look again at this legal framework, which will be open for renegotiation and replacement once we have fully left the EU at the end of the Transition Period.