Shut the migrant hotels down now and deport illegal migrants housed there
The Parliament petitions site records 257,442 signatures for this petition, which closed on 1 October 2025. The Government responded on 23 April 2025. MPs debated it in Westminster Hall on 20 October 2025.
The petition
The petition's creator is not named in the Petitions site's published record. Quoted in full from the UK Parliament petitions site.
Shut the migrant hotels down now and deport illegal migrants housed there
The Labour Party pledged to end asylum hotels if it won power. Labour is now in power.
It has transpired that the migrant hotels may stay open for at least the next 4 years.
We want to see the migrant hotels shut down now and all illegal migrants housed in them deported immediately.
The Government's response
The Government published its response on 23 April 2025; the petitions site lists the Home Office as responsible. Its summary:
We are working as fast as possible to close asylum hotels and increase the removal of people with no right to be in the UK, but we inherited an asylum system in chaos, and we cannot fix it overnight.
The opening 365 words of the 523-word response:
The Home Office has a statutory obligation to support asylum seekers who would otherwise be left destitute on our streets.
Before an individual can apply for that support, they are required to provide information about their personal circumstances which includes declaring all income, assets, and other forms of support available to them. Entitlement to support is kept under review, and failed asylum seekers are expected to leave the UK.
Because of the historically high number of individuals claiming asylum in the UK in recent years, there have been shortages in available asylum accommodation, and that required the previous government to start taking over hotels for that purpose.
At their peak, in Autumn 2023, more than 400 hotels were in use as asylum accommodation, at a cost of almost £9 million per day. That situation was also exacerbated towards the end of the last government when asylum decision-making fell into steep decline, and the asylum backlog rose accordingly.
As a result, the new Government inherited an asylum system under unprecedented strain, and due to the size of the backlog that has to be cleared, we have been forced to continue with the use of hotels for the time being, although it should be noted that the number in use now is lower than it was before the election and is around half the peak level that was reached in 2023.
However, this Government is absolutely clear that hotel use is not a permanent solution, and we remain determined to end hotel usage entirely, as part of our objective to cut the costs of asylum accommodation.
A key element of this is clearing the asylum backlog. Compared to the last few months of the previous government, when asylum decision making collapsed by more than 70%, we have spent the last nine months doing the opposite, increasing asylum decision making by 52% in the last three months of 2024 alone.
Another key element of ending hotel use is increasing the removal of people who have no right to be in the UK, including failed asylum seekers. After coming to power, this Government reallocated significant additional resource into immigration enforcement and returns, and again, that has delivered significant results.
Read the full response on the petitions site.
Where the signatures came from
Signatures came from 650 constituencies. Measured against each constituency's electorate at the 2024 general election, the most came from Aberdeen North, with 35.8 signatures per 1,000 electors (2,715 in all).
255,874 of the signatures were from the UK and 1,568 from elsewhere, by the location signers gave.
| Constituency | Signatures | Electorate, July 2024 | Per 1,000 electors |
|---|---|---|---|
| Aberdeen North | 2,715 | 75,925 | 35.8 |
| Aberdeenshire North and Moray East | 2,299 | 70,058 | 32.8 |
| Aberdeen South | 1,835 | 77,328 | 23.7 |
| Gordon and Buchan | 1,561 | 69,605 | 22.4 |
| West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine | 1,529 | 72,994 | 20.9 |
| Falkirk | 918 | 73,584 | 12.5 |
| Poplar and Limehouse | 1,024 | 84,116 | 12.2 |
| Brentwood and Ongar | 899 | 75,352 | 11.9 |
| Epping Forest | 837 | 72,229 | 11.6 |
| Hornchurch and Upminster | 858 | 75,438 | 11.4 |
| Region | Signatures |
|---|---|
| South East | 33,861 |
| North West | 32,751 |
| Scotland | 29,335 |
| East of England | 26,902 |
| West Midlands | 22,653 |
| South West | 21,358 |
| Yorkshire and The Humber | 21,002 |
| East Midlands | 18,712 |
| London | 17,122 |
| North East | 13,913 |
| Wales | 11,809 |
| Northern Ireland | 4,620 |
Debate in Parliament
MPs debated the petition in Westminster Hall on 20 October 2025. Read the debate in Hansard. House of Commons Library debate pack.
Source and receipt
- https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/718406.jsonUK Parliament Petitions API · read 2026-10-15 · SHA-256
641def32a9c5853f… - The petition on petition.parliament.uk
The petition's words are its creator's and the response is the Government's; this site quotes both and gives no view on either. Signature counts can still change while a petition is open. To report an error, send a correction request.