Asylum Seeker Hotel Bill Leaves Tory Council in £17 Million Deficit
Conservative-led Hillingdon council has been forced into a £17 million deficit after the Government failed to provide adequate funding for the migrants it houses in hotels there. The Telegraph has more.
Hillingdon council, responsible for the area around Heathrow airport, is in discussions with the Government to receive exceptional financial support (EFS) to deal with a £17 million deficit.
According to the local authority, there are almost 3,000 asylum seekers in the borough, with around 2,800 currently housed in hotels near the airport.
This is twice the recommended amount under the Home Offices fair shares scheme, which attempts to proportionally allocate asylum seekers based on local population numbers.
Last year, Hillingdon received only £2,278,000 from the Government to house claimants locally, despite costs exceeding £4,000,000 over the same period.
Chris Philp, the Shadow Home Secretary, criticised Labour for letting councils go “bankrupt” trying to “mop up” the Government’s mess.
Hillingdon council also expects a cost of £1.2 million to house Chagossians, following Sir Keir Starmer’s deal to pass the islands to Mauritius.
Since the deal, which is set to cost at least £30 billion, Hillingdon has seen a significant number of families from the Chagos Islands arriving at Heathrow and seeking housing support.
In one week in July, 120 Chagossians arrived, with the council claiming that the cost was not being “fully met by the Government”. …
Migration Watch, a think tank calling for lower migration criticised the Government’s “abject failure” to deal with the crisis, with Alp Mehmet, the Chairman, saying: “This is another shocking consequence of the Government’s abject failure to deal with this growing crisis.
“Migrants and their traffickers know that once here they’ll be looked after royally at taxpayers’ expense and few will ever be removed.”
Worth reading in full.
Stop Press: The four-star Britannia International Hotel in Canary Wharf has been earmarked by the Home Office to house migrants. What was Macron saying about pull factors? Protesters have already begun to gather.
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Looks like a modernist Colditz.
You can visit the real Colditz – it’s a museum these days. I went there a few years ago.
How long before our rulers decide that anyone with a spare bedroom in their home will be forced to house an illegal migrant?
its what their communist idols did in the USSR. Nothing would surprise me now
Ireland may be leading the way! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=764AA3UB_JI
I think the plan is to levy Council Tax according to the number of unused bedrooms you have.
If you take in lodgers, you’ll get a reduction and some rent. Apparently it will be company, and therefore beneficial, for the vulnerably elderly to have a couple of Eritreans or Afghans living with them.
how many of those who have to commute to London, to earn money which then a large percentage is taken to house these invaders, can afford to stay in a 4star hotel in Canary wharf?.
I think if Germany declared war tomorrow on us, our Government would welcome them, put them up in palaces, and would introduce a law preventing the mocking, or saying anything hurty about Germans.
But who’s the leader of Hillingdon Council? Another ”DEI hire” here, do you reckon? After all, I just see another white man doing another splendid job as leader, don’t you? ”Another scandal that isn’t getting near enough air-time… This is Ian Edwards. He is the Conservative leader of a council that genuinely censored Christians. The council in question? Hillingdon, London. In August 2023, the council quietly imposed a Public Spaces Protection Order (PSPO)—a measure typically reserved for anti-social behaviour like drinking or drug use. But what did they include in the order? “Preaching with amplification, handing out leaflets, and displaying posters.” In effect, they banned Christians preaching and sharing their message. If members of the local churches continued, they faced fines of up to £1,000. Worse still? The police backed the council. Members of a local church reported being approached by officers in Uxbridge and told to cover or remove signs with messages like Jesus Christ is Lord of Lords and King of Kings. In response, the church took the council to court. By December, Hillingdon Council backed down and agreed to pay the church’s legal costs—using public funds, naturally. It’s thought to be in region of £20,000. The council… Read more »
The legal obligation on Councils to house people, probably questionable in itself, was never intended to cover the situation we have now.
Are they protesters or are they staff who have been sacked.
Re Hillingdon – why would a coiuncil build an office that looks that bad. The shape would not have been cheap to build and maintenance must be a nightmare.
All for staff WFH?
WFH isn’t all bad. Hertfordshire CC has moved out of their lovely HQ in Hertford and are making decent money hiring it out as a film set while they try to sell it – should shore up the finances for a while. Shame to an extent for those who worked in that building, I doubt the one in Stevenage is as nice, but I don’t really want my council employees driving all over the county to get to some office when they can be doing work at home, subject to them being properly managed wherever they are.
I have some sympathy for Hillingdon Council. However, they need to get the right mind-set: They are government. I do understand that they’re complaining about Central government but they are part of the government machinery. If they’ve spent money they didn’t actually have then they’re lacking in probity.
This is not a local problem – it is a national problem that the national government has to deal with. The Uniparty just dumps these knuckle-dragging low IQ third world rapist scum on the councils that have no facilities for them. Detention camps with electric fences, dog runs and machine gun towers is where they should be taken.
Yes. So why has local government spent money it did not have? Presumably it (this particular branch of government) expected to be reimbursed from the centre. That’s why I have a little sympathy for them. But when the reimbursement didn’t materialise further spending should have stopped immediately. They are government – it’s their job to make hard decisions.
I thought councils had a legal obligation to house the homeless.
Yes. Then something else has to be cut – and make it clear why.
Yeah because Heathrow airport hotels are famously cheap…
For goodness’ sake, what are there morons thinking?
Simple answer for such counsels is don’t pay the bill and let government pick up the mess.
There’s no legal obligation for ratepayers to foot the expenses for illegals.
As ToF points out above, there may well be a legal obligation… The upshot is that something else has to be cut.
However, as Jack the Dog points out, why do homeless people have to be accommodated in hotels near Heathrow? Why not temporary barracks near Northwood – maybe near the RAF base?
Contrary to Gezza England’s post, forget the ‘electric fences, dog runs and machine gun towers’. If they want to abscond then fine – we’ve offered them accommodation while we consider their asylum applications – clearly they don’t want either. When they turn up in the criminal justice system then they’re dealt with accordingly.
Bed, board and soap… and security from each other. That’s it.
Take these people direct to their embassy of origin