Over 150 local councillors from across the UK and from various political parties are calling on the government to stop outsourcing asylum accommodation to for-profit companies, and instead ensure that local authorities can provide good quality accommodation for people seeking sanctuary.

The call comes after the shocking revelation that 440 unaccompanied asylum-seeking children have gone missing from asylum hotels since July 2021, 200 of whom remain unaccounted for.

Much of the asylum accommodation system is run by private firms like Clearsprings, Mitie and Serco, which often further outsource the provision of essential services to other firms. This complex system often leaves people seeking sanctuary in substandard accommodation, with nowhere to turn for support and being moved from place to place without notice.

Instead, the councillors – who include the Labour Party, the Green Party, the Liberal Democrats and several independents – are calling on central government to increase local authority budgets to ensure that communities have the resources to welcome asylum-seekers.

“As a group of local councillors from across the UK, from different political parties, we are deeply concerned by how accommodation for people seeking asylum in the UK is funded,” the councillors say in their open letter to the Department of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, the government department responsible for deciding how much central government funding is given to local authorities. “Our communities tell us that they want to provide a warm welcome for their new neighbours, and show this in many ways. But the choices that central government makes about asylum accommodation means they cannot.

“The Home Office too often looks for short-term fixes, and spends taxpayer money on unaccountable private companies that are outsourced to provide this essential service. As a result, the accommodation is often severely sub-standard, insanitary and temporary, and people seeking sanctuary are often moved from place to place at a moment’s notice, seemingly at the whim of for-profit companies accountable only to their shareholders.”

Councillor Doctor Hosnieh Djafari-Marbini of the Migrant Champions Network, the organisation supporting the letter, said: “Communities up and down the country want to stand in solidarity with people seeking sanctuary, and provide them a warm welcome. And it’s clear that councillors from across the country are equally committed to making sure that people arriving here have the support they need.

“But decisions taken by central government too often make that impossible. We hope that the Government will listen to the voices of these councillors and equip local communities to provide a warm welcome, instead of pursuing an agenda of hostility and division, and lining the pockets of private companies.”

The full text of the letter, signed by 159 local councillors, is available here.

Image: c/o Mike Phipps