4 Wednesday December 22 2021 | the times
News
The cost of housing and payment al-
lowances for asylum seekers has almost
doubled since 2018, analysis has found.
It now costs £430 million per year to
provide housing and payments to
people who have claimed asylum in the
UK and are waiting for their applica-
tions to be processed.
It could cost a further £100 million
next year, according to analysis of
Home Office documents by Migration
Watch UK, a think tank that campaigns
for lower immigration.
The increasing cost is because of the
number of asylum seekers housed in
accommodation, which reached
64,000 this year, including 16,000 in
costly contingency accommodation
such as hotels.
The number of people receiving asy-
lum-related payments, including via
cash cards, has more than doubled from
23,000 to 52,000.
The Home Office has said that the
number of people housed in asylum ac-
commodation could be as high as
Cost of supporting asylum
seekers doubles in 3 years
80,000 by next spring. This far outstrips
the previous estimate of 70,000 by 2029
in a National Audit Office report.
The NAO’s calculations of the cost of
support suggest that providing housing
and payments to 80,000 people could
cost £537.6 million on an annual basis,
£100 million more than at present.
It did not take into account the extra
cost of keeping people in hotels for
weeks. In one recent example, asylum
claimants were set to be placed in a
historic four-star hotel and what had
been a popular wedding venue in Mil-
ton Keynes. More than 100 asylum
seekers could be housed at the grade II
listed Woughton House Hotel, accord-
ing to the local newspaper.
The rising cost coincides with record
numbers of migrants crossing the
Channel in small boats. Almost 28,
have arrived in this way this year. This
is more than triple the 8,420 migrants
who made the journey last year, then a
record, and 93 times higher than in all
of 2018, when the route first started to
be used in significant numbers.
More than 10,000 migrants havecrossed in dinghies in the past three
months, with 98 per cent of them claim-
ing asylum on arrival.
Alp Mehmet, chairman of Migration
Watch UK, said: “This is another
shocking reminder of the government’s
abject failure to control our borders,
having needlessly allowed the situation
in the Channel to get out of control.
“The costs have skyrocketed in
tandem with the abuse, while the tax-
payer foots the bill. No wonder public
disquiet is growing as border misman-
agement increases. What a mess.”
Priti Patel, the home secretary, has
pledged to build new “reception
centres” to provide cheaper and more
basic accommodation for asylum
seekers as part of her New Plan for Im-
migration.
Asylum seekers would be housed in
the new purpose-built buildings until
their applications have been processed.
There are also plans to process
asylum seekers overseas but the
government has struggled to convince
other countries to sign a deal to take
migrants.Matt Dathan Home Affairs Editor
Dozens of
migrants on
rotting boat
Ross KaniukFour men have been jailed for trying to
smuggle 69 Albanian migrants,
including two pregnant women, across
the North Sea into the UK on a boat
with 20 life jackets on board.
They were planning weekly trips,
with each crossing in the “unseawor-
thy” fishing boat standing to make
them more than £1 million, Chelmsford
crown court in Essex was told.
Officials were first alerted to the boat
when it ran aground off Sweden. UK
Border Force intercepted the crew on
November 17 last year as it sailed
towards Great Yarmouth, Norfolk.
Judge David Turner QC, sentencing,
described conditions on the boat as
“terrifying”. He told the defendants:
“You cared little for safety and welfare.”
Charlene Sumnall, for the prosecu-
tion, said that the trawler had been
“rotting in a dry dock” for years.
Five men were convicted of conspir-
ing to assist unlawful immigration.
Arturas Jusas, 35, of Lambeth, south
London, admitted the offence.
Kfir Ivgi, 39, of Finchley, north
London, Sergejs Kuliss, 32, of Newham,
east London, Igor Kosyi, 57, from
Ukraine, and Aleksandrs Gulpe, 44,
from Latvia, were found guilty.
Jusas and Kuliss were jailed for nine
years and nine months, Ivgi for ten
years and Kosyi for seven years. Gulpe
had his sentence postponed because he
had Covid symptoms. A sixth defen-
dant was cleared.
Separately, four Iranian men who
crossed the Channel in 2019 and last
year had their convictions quashed by
the Court of Appeal because it had not
been proven that they intended to enter
the UK illegally.Quite a buzz The Maker, a two-seater electric aircraft from Archer Aviation in California, has completed its first successful hover flight. It takes off and lands vertically
A French migrant charity has filed a
criminal lawsuit accusing the director
of HM Coastguard of manslaughter in
connection with the deaths of at least 27
migrants in the Channel last month.
The lawsuit filed before Paris crimi-
nal court claims that Claire Hughes
failed in a duty to rescue the migrants,
whose dinghy sank on November 24.
Utopia 56 filed similar allegations
Head of UK coastguard sued over deaths
against Philippe Dutrieux, the interior
ministry official responsible for the
Channel, and Marc Bonnafous, the di-
rector of the Regional Operational Sur-
veillance and Rescue Centre at Gris
Nez near Calais.
The move follows claims by two sur-
vivors that migrants on the boat made
calls to British and French coastguards
but were fobbed off. They claimed that
each country’s coastguard agency told
them to call the other. Le Monde news-paper reported that telephone records
studied by French police substantiated
the survivors’ claims.
The Maritime and Coastguard Agen-
cy declined to comment on the lawsuit
but said it was looking into claims that
distress calls had been received. French
officials have denied receiving distress
calls. Under French law, prosecutors
can decide whether to dismiss the char-
ity’s lawsuit or to order police to investi-
gate it.Adam Sage Paris
£100m abuse payout
Victims of one of Britain’s worst
child abuse scandals have shared
£100 million in compensation
from Lambeth council. Hundreds
of children were sexually and
physically abused in the 1970s
and 1980s in the care of the south
London borough. The council has
paid damages to many of the
1,500 victims who came forward.
The scheme ends on January 1.Website founder quits
The founder of the website
OnlyFans has stepped down. Tim
Stokely, 38, is worth about
£100 million and will be replaced
by the company’s director of
communication and marketing,
Amrapali Gan, 36. In August, the
company had said it would not
host adult sexual content, before
quickly reversing the decision
after widespread opposition.Bikers warned over wire
Cyclists have been warned to stay
vigilant after a mountain biker
suffered injuries from a piece of
barbed wire that was concealed
by trees on a popular trail in the
Rhondda Valleys, in Wales. Tony
Roberts, 39, required 17 stitches
and was left with deep lacerations
after it wrapped around his neck.
He was sent home after a hospital
visit and police are investigating.Campus sex abuse ‘rife’
Sexual abuse is rife on campus
with a culture of predators being
protected, a university staff union
has said. The University and
College Union said in a report
that non-disclosure agreements
should be abolished to foil repeat
offenders. It said that institutions
were reluctant to challenge star
academics. The union warned of
“endemic” violence against staff.Rise in online gambling
There were 624,377 more people
over the age of 65 gambling
online than there were at the
start of the pandemic, the Royal
College of Psychiatrists warned.
This was driven by the closure of
physical betting shops due to
Covid. This year 13.5 per cent of
online gamblers were over 65, a
55 per cent increase compared
with 2019. There was also an
overall rise in the amount of
people gambling online. However,
the number of 16 to 34-year-old
users fell by about 307,000.BBCCDEEE
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