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THE Home Office is ending the contract for a major provider of asylum-seeker accommodation after a review raised concerns about the company’s performance and behaviour.
Stay Belvedere Hotels Ltd (SBHL) provided a quarter of the department’s accommodation across 51 hotels in England and Wales.
It also operated Napier Barracks in Kent, which houses people awaiting asylum decisions and is due to close in September.
SBHL is a sub-contractor of a wider Home Office agreement with provider Clearsprings, awarded in 2019 and worth around £2 billion a year.
Asylum-seekers currently living in SBHL sites will be moved to other housing across the “asylum estate.”
Housing minister Matthew Pennycook told Times Radio: “We did need to review these disastrous contracts on asylum accommodation we inherited.
“We’re doing so to improve management and guarantee value for money for the taxpayer.”
Refugee Council CEO Enver Solomon said that the use of hotels has become a symbol of government failure, a flashpoint for community tensions and cost the taxpayer a fortune.
“Far better to give local councils the responsibility and resources to house people in a suitable and dignified way in local communities that ensures value for money for taxpayers,” he added.
Care4Calais CEO Steve Smith said: “From former military camps to mould-infested homes, Britain’s for-profit asylum accommodation model is plagued with sub-standard accommodation.
“Until asylum accommodation is delivered based on need, not private profit, people seeking safety in the UK will continue to be housed in substandard accommodation.”
SBHL’s latest published accounts show it made a record profit of more than £50 million.
One Life to Live founder Nicola David said: “We should not just be cancelling contracts, we should be moving people out of hotels and giving them greater autonomy and supporting them into education, training and employment.”
Sile Reynolds, asylum advocacy head at Freedom from Torture, added: “For too long, private companies have profited from the misery endured by often vulnerable people who have come to the UK seeking only safety from unimaginable horrors.
“This government has taken some positive steps towards ending the use of inhumane and unsafe housing, but this latest scandal reinforces the need for fast action to end the corporate exploitation of our asylum accommodation system.”
