KB-2025-002908 - [2025] EWHC 2937 (KB)

The Home Secretary has a statutory responsibility to provide accommodation and other support to asylum seekers who would otherwise be destitute. Support for destitute asylum seekers is provided under s.95 of the 1999 Act. Temporary support can be provided under s.98 of the 1999 Act while a decision is made on whether a person qualifies for support under s.95. Support is generally available until a person’s asylum claim, and any appeal, is finally determined. If the claim is rejected and any appeal dismissed and the individual has dependent children in their household, section 95 support continues to be available until the individual leaves the UK or their youngest child leaves the UK.

Asylum accommodation is intended for those who would otherwise be destitute and have no other viable accommodation open to them, for example through friends or family. Section 97 of the 1999 Act provides that, in exercising the power to provide accommodation for those on section 95 support, the Home Secretary must have regard to the desirability, in general, of providing accommodation in areas in which there is a ready supply. Accommodation is provided in all areas of the UK where there is a supply of accommodation available and ready to use. The overriding principle when allocating asylum accommodation is that it is offered on a ‘no choice basis’. It is only in exceptional circumstances that it would be appropriate for the Home Secretary to agree to a request from an asylum seeker for accommodation to be allocated in a specific location.

Since 2019, all asylum accommodation has been procured and provided by the Home Secretary through arrangements with four third party service providers under contracts for accommodation and transport. They include CTM and CRHL.

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, asylum seekers with emergency accommodation needs could expect to be placed in one of eight “Initial Accommodation (IA)” sites across the UK pursuant to the powers under s.98 of the 1999 Act while their eligibility for section 95 support was being assessed. Initial accommodation generally takes the form of a full board multi-person hostel or accommodation retained by the Home Office for the long term (known as ‘Core IA’) where food, toiletries and other assistance is provided on site. Core IA is a small part of the overall asylum accommodation system (often referred to as the asylum accommodation estate) and has a fixed capacity. Individuals would normally remain accommodated in Core IA for only a few weeks whilst their section 95 support application was assessed. The grant of section 95 support then acted as the ‘trigger’ for the Home Secretary to issue an instruction to her accommodation providers to source and put forward a proposal for suitable longer term “Dispersal Accommodation” (‘DA’) for an individual, which was (and still is) usually in the form of self-catered flats or houses and which, again, is retained for such use by the Home Office in the long term. Once an individual was granted section 95 support, they could expect to be moved from Core IA to DA fairly quickly, typically within around 35 days of first being accommodated.

DA was (and is) intended to be a more dynamic and elastic capacity within the system. Accommodation providers generally source and secure new DA on an exclusive use basis from the available property market in line with demand. Given the potential vulnerabilities of many asylum seekers, all forms of asylum accommodation are secured on an exclusive use basis and premises are not shared with non-asylum seekers.

It was and remains the case that, once the asylum claims of those in DA are resolved, their eligibility for section 95 support comes to an end and they leave the asylum accommodation estate, thereby freeing up spaces for other asylum seekers to move from Core IA to DA. Overall, this process was intended to ensure the limited and fixed capacity within the Core IA estate maintained sufficient ‘turnover’ (i.e., in terms of asylum seekers leaving to move to DA accommodation) to ensure bedspace was always available for new asylum seekers entering the system. In turn, the DA estate, whilst more flexible (not least because dispersal properties are, by their nature, procured across the UK), was (and still is) similarly reliant on ‘turnover’.

During and since the COVID-19 pandemic, demand for asylum support and accommodation has risen significantly. A range of factors have contributed to an exceptional level of growth in overall demand for asylum support accommodation. In particular:

Collectively, these factors have resulted in a significant increase in the demand for asylum accommodation. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, the numbers of those requiring asylum support and accommodation had been increasing modestly at an average rate of approximately 4,000 per year since the previous low point of approximately 25,000 in 2011. However, since 2020, the rate of growth has increased significantly. The level of growth has significantly exceeded the fixed capacity of Core IA and the available timely supply of DA (i.e., as it was provided before the COVID-19 pandemic). As a result, the Home Office has needed to seek to mitigate the emergency through use of short-term contingency accommodation sourced by the accommodation providers to fulfil the Home Secretary’s statutory duties, whilst necessary longer-term accommodation is secured. Contingency accommodation is usually secured in the form of full-board hotels because that is the most readily available form of full-board accommodation.

Because of its nature as short-term accommodation to address peaks in demand while longer term DA accommodation is secured, contingency accommodation tends to be procured on an urgent basis, which can limit the options of accommodation available. In contrast, Core IA and DA are procured by the accommodation providers within longer time frames, which allows for greater engagement with local authorities and enables the Home Secretary to be more selective about where accommodation is procured (geographic location as one example).