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The capital has been accommodating increasingly more claimants and the Epping ruling might see that development develop stronger
On the time of writing, no London borough has formally introduced plans to problem asylum seekers being housed in resorts. And whereas there have been latest protests at resorts in Canary Wharf and Islington, protestors objecting to “asylum resorts” within the capital have typically been outnumbered by counter-protestors.
This may appear typical of a metropolis characterised by variety, one which has welcomed folks fleeing persecution by way of the ages – from Huguenots, to Jews, to Ugandan Asians, to Vietnamese “boat folks”. London is already doing its bit, and extra in addition to, in accommodating asylum seekers. However any shift in nationwide coverage in response to this week’s Epping courtroom ruling might have huge impacts.
In accordance with a Migration Observatory briefing issued final week, the variety of asylum seekers in London grew greater than fourfold between 2018 and 2024. Its share of the UK whole rose from 9 to 19 per cent, a part of a broader shift to southern England from the remainder of the UK. Any connection to the distribution of marginal seats could also be coincidental.
Use of resorts and different short-term “contingency lodging” (fairly than “dispersal lodging”, together with rented homes and flats) elevated from 5 per cent to 45 per cent of asylum seekers from 2019 to 2023, however has fallen again since then, to 30 per cent on the finish of final yr. The massive exception is London, the place resorts nonetheless housed roughly 12,000 asylum seekers, 60 per cent of town’s whole, in early 2025.
Each the overall variety of asylum seekers and the proportion housed in resorts are highest in Hillingdon and Hounslow. They’re the London boroughs closest to Heathrow Airport, one of many UK’s most essential ports of entry (although much less common than the Kentish shoreline as a location for performative blimpism by the likes of Robert Jenrick, Nigel Farage and Rupert Lowe). These boroughs are two of the six within the UK the place the variety of asylum seekers housed domestically is greater than the utmost laid out in nationwide agreements.
So London, as ever, is one thing of an outlier. In the meantime the federal government is clearly in a repair. It has pledged to part out the usage of resorts to accommodate asylum seekers and could also be compelled to hurry up the method in response to courtroom instances and protests. What half is London prone to play of their pondering?
The federal government might determine that “London can take it”, and cargo extra asylum seekers into town. This is able to encourage those that need bother to stir it up, not helped by the truth that the Epping courtroom judgement took (cautious) account of native protests. Alternatively, the transfer away from resorts might be accelerated, elevating questions of the place 12,000 short-term Londoners are to dwell.
The issue is that till claims are processed housing asylum seekers actually is a zero-sum train. If they aren’t accommodated in resorts, the place do they go? Navy camps have been tried however proved controversial, as did the now-abandoned Bibby Stockholm barge. Apart from elevating questions on their humanity or lack of it, such proposals are advanced to put in force – camps should be fitted out and barges should be procured. There are few apparent fast fixes.
Exterior London and the broader south, the final two years have seen a shift away from resorts in the direction of longer-term “dispersal lodging”, typically non-public rented sectors houses in a number of occupation (HMOs). However these are briefly provide in London. Asylum seekers can be lining up alongside homeless households, who quantity 70,000 (half of the English whole) within the capital. It is usually notable that some native authorities (exterior the south east) are already reported to be tightening controls on utilizing HMOs on this means.
So the danger is that native authorities, already battling the prices of homelessness, can be left to help any asylum seekers evicted from lodge lodging. Hillingdon Council has already written to MPs to protest in regards to the Residence Workplace planning to “evict 2,300 asylum seekers into the borough with out secured lodging or help” and has claimed that supporting asylum seekers is including £5 million a yr to already-stretched budgets. The BBC has reported an increase in tough sleeping and a variety of tented encampments within the borough, and Hillingdon is now reported to be reviewing the Epping determination.
London has the capability to welcome and soak up 1000’s of individuals, and it does so, yr after yr. I don’t suppose the capital is about to erupt in protest. However there’s a query of how a lot the nation asks of it. London is the financial engine and the fiscal float for the UK. Ought to its boroughs even be anticipated to help an ever-growing share of individuals in pressing housing want, whereas funding is diverted to different elements of the nation?
Comply with Richard Brown on Bluesky.
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