Fury as James Cleverly pleads for £2.6billion to plug asylum black hole
The Tories have been blasted after James Cleverly pleaded for an extra £2.6billion to plug a huge Home Office overspend on asylum hotels last year.
The Home Secretary has made a formal request for the funds to be released after the budget black hole came to light. It comes amid heightened anger over the Government's failure to tackle an asylum backlog that stood at 98,599 at the end of 2023. This is 16 times higher than when the Conservatives took power.
Labour's Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said: “The Tories have completely bust the budget of the Home Office through staggering incompetence and chaos, but the taxpayer is paying the price. The overspend this year is significantly worse than last year despite all Rishi Sunak’s promises."
She went on: “Their failure to clear the asylum backlog, end the use of hotels for asylum seekers stuck in their broken asylum system or sort out proper contracts has left them with an eyewatering £2.6billion blackhole that the British taxpayer will need to fill. Time and again they go for gimmicks rather than ever getting a grip."
In a written statement Mr Cleverly said the "net cash requirement" for 2023-24 had exceeded the estimated costs. He said that Parliament would be asked to approved the emergency sum, with advances to be taken from the contingencies fund in the meantime.
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It is understood the extra cash was used for accommodation for asylum seekers - with more than 50,000 living in limbo in hotels last year. Home Office data released last August showed the asylum system now costs almost £4billion a year - up from £500million a decade ago.
Dame Diana Johnson, who chairs the Home Affairs Select Committee, told The Guardian: “The home affairs select committee has raised the issue of missing asylum funding from the department’s main estimate during the course of the year; it appears that this shortfall has now resulted in an emergency cash requirement of £2.6bn.
“I’m concerned that this additional cash requirement has arisen at this point in the financial year. To avoid this happening again, from now on the Home Office must include within its main estimate its best forecast for asylum expenditure. I’ll be writing to the home secretary to request further information and raising it when this is debated in parliament.”
In a written statement Mr Cleverly stated: “Parliamentary approval for additional resources of £2.6bn will be sought in a supplementary estimate for Home Office. Pending that approval, urgent expenditure estimated at £2.6bn will be met by repayable cash advances from the contingencies fund.”
A Home Office spokesperson said: “Financial advances through contingencies funds are planned for each year to enable departments to deliver services with unpredictable final costs, such as the asylum system. This is a routine request and will enable the Home Office to continue to keep the public and the UK’s borders safe.”
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