9,000 asylum seekers living in 91 UK hotels

More than 9,000 asylum seekers are living in 91 hotels across the country after a record year for Channel crossings, MPs have been told.

Home Office officials told the Public Accounts Committee 9,500 people have been put up in almost a hundred hotels in around 50 local authority areas.

The department's permanent secretary Matthew Rycroft told the committee: 'There are more people coming into the aylum system at the moment than are leaving it and that is because of Covid'.

Second permanent secretary Shona Dunn couldn't tell MPs how many people are waiting to be deported and how many have been granted asylum but are yet to be given permanent accommodation. 

Hotels in Hull, Birmingham, Nottingham, Southport and Glasgow were used amid a shortage of permanent accommodation for newcomers to live while their asylum claims were assessed.