Rachel Reeves has admitted she won’t provide alternative accommodation for migrants once the use of hotels ends. The Chancellor announced earlier this week that the Labour Government would end the use of hotels to house asylum seekers by the end of this parliament.

But when quizzed over where new arrivals would be housed, Ms Reeves said she wouldn’t be providing accommodation, adding: “That’s for the Home Office to do.” She told Times Radio: “The wasteful spending on the most expensive form of accommodation is a terrible use of taxpayers’ money.”

Ms Reeves appeared to firmly place responsibility for finding alternatives with the Home Office and Home Secretary Yvette Cooper. Meanwhile, the Guido Fawkes website claimed earlier this week that the Government has been buying up hotels to house migrants. The Home Office has rejected the claim.

The latest figures show over 900 people crossed the English Channel in small boats on Friday (June 13). Data from the Home Office shows 919 people made the journey in 14 boats yesterday, taking the provisional annual total to 16,183.

This is 42% higher than at the same point last year and 79% up on the same date in 2023, according to analysis by the Press Association news agency. It is not the highest daily number so far this year, which fell on May 31 when 1,195 people arrived.

Unveiling her spending plans on Wednesday (June 11), the Chancellor pledged to end the use of hotels and set out how funding will be provided to cut the asylum backlog.

She told MPs: “I can confirm today that led by the work of the Home Secretary, we will be ending the costly use of hotels to house asylum seekers in this parliament.

“Funding that I have provided today, including from the transformation fund, will cut the asylum backlog, hear more appeal cases and return people who have no right to be here, saving the taxpayer £1billion a year.”

A Home Office spokesperson said: “We all want to end dangerous small boat crossings, which threaten lives and undermine our border security.

“The people-smuggling gangs do not care if the vulnerable people they exploit live or die as long as they pay, and we will stop at nothing to dismantle their business models and bring them to justice.

“That is why this Government has put together a serious plan to take down these networks at every stage, and why we are investing up to an additional £280million per year by 2028-29 in the Border Security Command.

“Through international intelligence-sharing under our Border Security Command, enhanced enforcement operations in northern France and tougher legislation in the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill, we are strengthening international partnerships and boosting our ability to identify, disrupt and dismantle criminal gangs whilst strengthening the security of our borders.”