MPs ‘optimistic’ Royal Hotel will soon stop housing asylum seekers

DAMAGE: The Royal Hotel in Ferensway with boarded up windows after it was attacked by rioters in 2024

By Simon Bristow, Co-Editor

Hull MPs say they are “very optimistic” The Royal Hotel will soon stop housing asylum seekers after the Home Office announced the closure of a further 20 asylum hotels across the country.

The Home Office posted on X: “20 more asylum hotels have shut to illegal migrants and are being handed back to communities. This follows the 11 hotels already closed in April, saving taxpayers over £170 million this financial year.”

The Royal, which began housing asylum seekers six years ago, was attacked and had to be guarded by police during anti-immigration riots in summer 2024.

City MPs Diana Johnson and Emma Hardy say they are now confident the hotel in Ferensway will soon be able to return to its original function following the announcement on closures and after a meeting with Home Office Immigration Minister Alex Norris.

The Hull Labour MPs said: “This week Hull MPs had the latest in a series of meetings with Home Office Immigration Minister Alex Norris to make the case for ending the use of Hull’s Royal Hotel for asylum seekers.

“The Labour Government has committed to closing all asylum hotels opened by the Conservatives by the end of this Parliament. We have already seen the closure of one asylum hotel in Hull [The Dorchester] and we are committed to also ending the use of the Royal Hotel as soon as possible.

FLASHPOINT: Police and protestors at The Royal Hotel in August 2024

“At a Home Affairs Select Committee hearing on 9 June, Minister Alex Norris referred to the Hull Royal Hotel as an example of an hotel that is in the wrong place for accommodating asylum seekers and poorly suited for the purpose. This was an acknowledgement of the case that we have been making ever since the hotel began being used to house asylum seekers under the Conservatives in 2020.

“Action by the Labour Government has resulted in asylum seeker numbers falling overall, a reduction in the asylum backlog built up under the previous government and an increase in the removal of those with no right to stay in the UK.

“With the Home Office announcement today showing clear progress on closing further asylum hotels, we are now very optimistic that an early decision will be announced that will return Hull Royal Hotel to its original use as an iconic venue in Hull City Centre.”

At the Select Committee, Mr Norris, Minister for Border Security and Asylum, was asked whether he considered housing asylum seekers at a former military base at Crowborough in Sussex represented value for money, and said he did.

He continued: “…Value is more than the pound per night. Value is the ability to make the things stand up safely. Value is the impact of the Royal Hotel in Hull. I think of the Cladhan Hotel in Falkirk. I think of the Cresta Court Hotel in Altrincham, near to where I grew up.

“Those are places where people – in my case, everybody from my town – went to christenings, where you went after weddings for a knees-up, where you went for funerals, school balls, all those things. The impact of taking them out of communities is huge economically but also culturally as well.”