Why Ministers Could Be Placed In An Impossible Legal Situation By Asylum Hotel Ruling

Police outside the Bell Hotel, London, Epping Forest.Rachel Reeves was very clear when she set out the government’s plan to end the use of asylum hotels by the next election.“[The Conservatives] left behind a broken system,” she told MPs in June.“Billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money spent on housing asylum seekers in hotels, leaving people in limbo and shunting the cost of failure onto local communities. We won’t let that stand.“Led by the work of the home secretary, we will be ending the costly use of hotels to house asylum seekers, in this parliament.”Her ministerial colleague Dan Jarvis, however, was more equivocal when quizzed on the issue this morning.Asked repeatedly where the government will house asylum seekers if not in hotels, the Home Office minister would only say they were “looking at a range of different contingency options”.The issue has shot back up the political agenda after Mr Justice Eyre ruled at the High Court that Epping Forest District Council could stop the local Bell Hotel from housing 140 asylum seekers there.The hotel in Epping has been the focus of protests in recent weeks after one of the men staying there was charged with sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl.Hadush Gerberslasie Kebatu has denied the charges against him and is due to stand trial later this month.More councils have now announced their intention to pursue similar legal actions about asylum hotels in their areas.More than 32,000 asylum seekers are currently housed in 210 hotels across the UK.Were the government forced by the courts to stop using those establishments to house asylum seekers, it could place ministers in a very difficult legal position.Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights makes clear that asylum seekers cannot be left destitute on the streets, meaning the government must house them somewhere.Ironically, the number of asylum hotels exploded in 2022 precisely because the government faced the prospect of being sued by immigrants facing awful conditions at the Manston processing centre in Kent.The then Conservative government had to remove asylum seekers from the overcrowded and disease-ridden centre to avoid facing legal claims that those living there were having their Article 3 rights violated.Government lawyers plan to appeal against the High Court’s ruling on the Bell Hotel, and are expected to highlight what they see as ministers’ impossible dilemma as they seek to get Mr Justice Eyre’s decision overturned.If they fail to do so, what is currently a major problem for the government will become a full-blown catastrophe.Related...A High Court Ruling Has Thrown The Government's Asylum Policy Into Chaos. Here's HowLabour To Scrap Asylum Seeker Hotels By 2029, Rachel Reeves AnnouncesYvette Cooper Accused Of Echoing Trump's 'Dangerous Rhetoric Of Hate' Over Asylum Seekers

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