Hotels across the UK being used to house asylum seekers have been instructed to accommodate convicted foreign criminals, including arsonists, according to documents reported by The Telegraph.
The Home Office documents, believed to have been issued to firms contracted to secure accommodation and services, state that providers must “acknowledge and agree” that some residents may be “ex-foreign national offender[s] released on criminal bail.” It also warns that housing individuals convicted of arson could increase insurance premiums and require “more robust furniture.”
The 117-page document with the header “asylum accommodation and support” and “statement of requirements” refers to migrants as “service users.” A section under “general principles” states that, “The provider acknowledges and agrees that service users will need to be managed with sensitivity, compassion and respect, and that they may: ... be complex bail cases; defined here as a service user who is an ex-foreign national offender released on criminal bail, or similar special cases.”
“Additional stipulations or limitations” for such cases include “specialist training for staff to provide a higher degree of risk awareness.”
The documents also require hotel staff who interact with migrants to undergo annual training, including sessions on “unconscious bias” and “ethnic diversity and cultural awareness.”
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage commented on this revelation, stating that it is no surprise local residents have expressed security concerns about the young men who are being housed in these hotels.
“In my opinion, none of them should be free to walk the streets,” said Farage. “The Government tries to hide the truth from us all the time, but piece by piece – as with this story – we are beginning to learn the full story, we are beginning to learn the full scale of the horror.”
The number of asylum seekers housed in hotels has risen by 8 percent in the past year under Labour leadership, with more than 32,000 placed in hotels as of the end of June. During the same period, the UK received a record 111,000 asylum applications.
Last week, the High Court issued an interim injunction preventing a hotel in an Essex town from housing additional asylum seekers ahead of a full hearing later this year. The decision followed allegations that a 14-year-old schoolgirl was sexually assaulted by an Ethiopian asylum seeker at the Bell Hotel, which sparked local protests.
Public demonstrations against the government’s handling of asylum housing and wider immigration policy continue to grow in the UK, with opposition intensifying over the use of hotels to accommodate migrants.
