Ministers spent £26m on hotels for Afghans in Pakistan due to UK housing shortage
The Government has spent more than £26m on hotels in Pakistan for Afghans eligible to move to the UK due to the backlog in the UK’s refugee and asylum system.
Approximately 3,250 Afghans who are eligible for resettlement in the UK are stuck in accommodation in Pakistan, the Government said this week.
The hotel bill has totalled approximately £26.7m between the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan in August 2021 and September 2023, according to a response from the Foreign Office to a written question from an MP published on Wednesday.
Many Afghans who worked with the British or in fields such as human rights – and were thus at risk of retaliation from the Taliban when they seized power two years ago – fled over the border to Pakistan to escape.
From there, they could apply for resettlement in the UK under two schemes: the Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy (ARAP) for those who worked with the British, and the Afghan Citizens Resettlement scheme (ACRS) for at-risk civilians.
But the Government has been unable to bring thousands of them to the UK, understood to be due to a lack of accommodation for them once in Britain.
i understands that the Ministry of Defence (MOD) is using spare capacity at its sites as a temporary measure, before moving individuals and families on to pre-approved accommodation across the UK.
Government admitted ‘temporary delay in travel’ due to accommodation pressures
There are widespread housing shortages across the UK, with local councils struggling to accommodate all those who need support with homes.
More than 24,600 Afghans have already arrived in the UK, and thousands had been stuck living in hotels for up to two years because local councils do not have enough housing stock to accommodate them, and many do not have the money to rent independently.
And separately, thousands of asylum seekers who are waiting for their claims to be heard are still living in hotels across the UK, with the Home Office spending £8.2m a day on the hotel bill.
Government guidance confirmed that there would be “temporary delays” in bringing people to the UK due to a lack of “suitable accommodation”.
“The UK government will only arrange travel for eligible ACRS and ARAP people to the UK when suitable accommodation has been secured. This means that there will be a temporary delay in issuing new visas and facilitating travel until suitable accommodation is in place,” read the guidance from June this year.
Afghans are able to travel to the UK independently and arrange their own accommodation, the guidance states, but this depends on them having the money, documentation and possibly British family links to support them.
Johnny Mercer, minister for veterans’ affairs, confirmed earlier this year that there was a “block in the pipeline” of the UK’s refugee accommodation system, blaming Afghans already in the UK for not moving out of their hotel accommodation.
He also claimed that it was difficult to find appropriate accommodation because of the “specific challenge of massive families in this cohort”.
Flights continuing to bring Afghans to UK ahead of possible deportations
The pressure to bring Afghans to the UK increased this month when Pakistan announced it would begin deporting those without visas at the end of the month.
This has led to fears that vulnerable Afghans whose Pakistan visas had expired while waiting for British resettlement may be returned to the Taliban.
Flights are continuing to bring eligible Afghans from Pakistan to the UK, i understands, but the number of flights being made is not clear.
The Government is planning to charter “several” flights in the coming months, according to the BBC, which reports that the requirement to have accommodation sorted before travel could be dropped in a bid to get Afghans out before Pakistan’s 1 November deadline.
But Afghans who have not been confirmed as part of the schemes are being advised not to travel to the airport in Islamabad, Pakistan’s capital.
Government sources said that departments were working at pace to secure accommodation for Afghans in the UK.
Labour’s shadow Defence Secretary, John Healey MP, described the treatment of Afghans by the Government as a “saga of shameful failure”.
“From failing to deal with a ballooning backlog of ARAP applications to spending millions on hotels in Pakistan, Afghans have been left in limbo, sometimes in fear for their lives,” he said.
“Our moral duty to Afghans is felt most strongly by the British forces they served alongside. Ministers must fix their failing Afghan schemes.”
But a Government spokesperson said the UK’s commitment to at-risk people in Afghanistan was “ambitious and generous”, saying: “So far, we have brought around 24,600 people to safety, including thousands of people eligible for our Afghan schemes.”
“We continue to honour our commitments to bring eligible Afghans to the UK, with new arrivals going directly into settled accommodation where possible.”
