The Business of Refuge: How UK Hotel Millionaires Profit from the Asylum Support System

A system built for extraction

Successive policies by Labour and Conservative governments have drastically increased the need for the state to support asylum seekers. Policies such as removing the right to work in 2002 and allowing the huge increase in the decision backlog [1] in recent years have resulted in around 90,000 asylum seekers currently requiring accommodation support [2].

Asylum accommodation is primarily delivered by private providers through the Asylum Accommodation and Support Services Contracts (AASC). Home Office spending on asylum accommodation and support has increased significantly in recent years, from £739 million in 2019-20 to £4.7 billion in 2023-4.

The National Audit Office (NAO) reports the Home Office spending on asylum accommodation and support has increased significantly in recent years, from £739 million in 2019-20 to £4.7 billion in 2023-24, this figure includes £3.1bn spent on hotels, after £2.28bn on hotels the year before [3].

Those figures translate into striking nightly costs. The Migration Observatory estimates average hotel outlay at roughly £170 per person per night in 2024/25, only a slight dip from the previous year despite recent attempts at “efficiencies” such as room-sharing and closing some hotels [4].

NAO and Lords Library both note recent plans to reduce hotel use, but the spend has remained vast [5].

Who’s cashing in

Since 2019 the Home Office has outsourced asylum accommodation through the Asylum Accommodation and Support Contracts (AASC) to three private giants: Clearsprings Ready Homes, Mears Group, and Serco.

When the formal estate runs out of space, these providers place people in contingency hotels at block-booked rates. The NAO reports these three companies made a total profit of £383m on the contracts between September 2019 and August 2024.

Specifically, Clearsprings Ready Homes, whose sole business is asylum accommodation, has reported a rapid, sustained surge in profits: around £90m in the year to January 2024 and over £180m across the last three years, after £62.5m the year before.

These profits made the founder and owner of the company, Graham King, a billionaire in 2025 with a fortune of £1.015 billion [6].

Alongside the three AASC contractors, hotel chains themselves benefit from long-term bulk bookings at guaranteed rates including Britannia Hotels. This hotel chain has topped consumer lists for poor guest experience in consumer surveys for over a decade, yet is repeatedly used for asylum accommodation [7].

Alex Langsam, who owns Britannia Hotels and Pontins holiday parks, has an estimated worth of £401 million.

What “exploitation” looks like in practice

Monopoly-style leverage and no choice. Asylum seekers cannot choose their accommodation, negotiate terms, or exit poor conditions without risking their claim for support. Contractors, in contrast, hold multi-year regional monopolies with limited competition [8].
High public cost, low private risk. Hotels are block-booked; occupancy risk is socialised. NAO highlights how the urgent move to hotel accommodation massively inflated costs while leaving value-for-money questions unanswered [9].
Persistently poor standards. Investigations have logged widespread complaints about food quality, staff behaviour and safety; some London borough research linked contractor catering to malnutrition among asylum-seeking families [10].

A better alternative

Let people support themselves. Earlier work permission for asylum seekers would reduce destitution and dependence on asylum support accommodation. The Green Party believes that people seeking asylum, and their dependents, should be allowed to work and start rebuilding their lives immediately on arrival to the UK [11].
Make decisions. Cut the backlog and fund councils to secure proper housing to reduce the need for expensive contingency. Lords Library summaries and NAO analysis both point to this as the only sustainable path off hotels [12].
Phase out hotels. Scale up normal rented housing and council-led schemes; publish transparent rate cards and contract terms. Independent inspection of accommodation should be routine and public [13].
Align incentives. Contractor income should be based on humane outcomes (swift placements into stable housing, resident satisfaction, safeguarding compliance), not simply nights billed and people fed [14].

Conclusion

This summer we have seen an escalation of far right attacks on asylum hotels. Inside these hotels are people fleeing persecution and violence in their own countries, as a result many of whom are already suffering from trauma without having to witness people shouting at them from the street.

Meanwhile the Labour government has learned little from the violent unrest of last summer and continues to use the inflammatory language of the far right when talking about migration [15].

Housing asylum seekers in hotels should not be anything other than a short term solution for a few people, we support the government’s commitment to phasing them out. However, we are frustrated that they refuse to consider solutions, such as right to work, that will allow asylum seekers some dignity in their lives, remove the need for temporary accommodation, and benefit the public purse.

If people want to protest the use of hotels, they should stand outside the Home Office, not shout at vulnerable people. If they want to complain about the costs, they should ask questions of the government and of the multi-millionaires profiteering from this policy..

Migrants have been allowed to become the scapegoats for inequality in our society, for our broken housing system and for the austerity that is dismantling our public services.

This must change, we must do better in holding to account those who seek to simply destroy and divide us. We must not tolerate intolerance.

The Business of Refuge: How UK Hotel Millionaires Profit from the Asylum Support System

A system built for extraction

Who’s cashing in

What “exploitation” looks like in practice

A better alternative

Conclusion

References

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Mythbusting: Migrants and Social Housing

Spain Regularises up to 500,000 undocumented migrants

Response to the Earned Settlement Consultation