Cost of housing one asylum seeker for year jumps £24k

The average annual cost of housing and supporting an asylum seeker has risen by £24,000 per person in the past four years as the Home Office becomes increasingly reliant on more expensive hotel accommodation, according to a new report.

- HOLLY BANCROFT

Analysts at the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) have found that the bill for supporting each asylum seeker has risen from £17,000 on average in the financial year 2019-20, to approximately £41,000 in 2023-24. Both of these figures are adjusted to 2023-24 prices to eliminate the impacts of inflation.

The IPPR estimated that the costs of asylum accommodation and support in 2019-20 were £739m. This has risen to an estimated £4.7bn in the financial year 2023-24. The number of asylum seekers in receipt of support has gone from 51,000 in 2019-20 to 114,000 this year, the report found.