Hull’s duo of current Labour MPs have said they are “very optimistic” that an early decision will be made to stop using a prominent Hull city centre hotel to house asylum seekers. Their statement comes as the Home Office announced a further 20 hotels are no longer used for such a purpose.
Dame Diana Johnson and Emma Hardy said Hull’s MPs met Immigration Minister Alex Norris this week to again press the case for Royal Hotel Hull to no longer be used for asylum seekers. They said it was the latest in a series of meetings with Mr Norris on the issue.
“The Labour Government has committed to closing all asylum hotels opened by the Conservatives by the end of this Parliament,” said Dame Diana (Hull North and Cottingham) and Ms Hardy (Hull West and Haltemprice). “We have already seen the closure of one asylum hotel in Hull and we are committed to also ending the use of the Royal Hotel as soon as possible.”
The pair said the Home Office announcement on Thursday, June 25, of a further 20 hotels to no longer be used for asylum accommodation showed “clear progress on closing further asylum hotels”. They added, “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.”
The hotel has been used to house asylum seekers for six years. The duo also noted the Immigration Minister’s reference to the Royal Hotel Hull in a recent parliamentary committee. “At a Home Affairs Select Committee hearing on 9 June, Minister Alex Norris referred to the Royal Hotel Hull 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.”
During the hearing, Mr Norris referred to the hotel along with others when discussing the value of continuing asylum seeker accommodation at a military barracks in East Sussex. “The impact of taking them out of communities is a huge one economically, but also culturally as well. We think that this type of site is a better use of that,” he said, referring to the East Sussex location. The Royal Hotel Hull is one of the largest hotels in the city, with 190 bedrooms.
Home Office announcement
The Home Office confirmed 20 more hotels that are no longer housing asylum seekers. This is in addition to 11 that were removed from providing such accommodation in April.
It also detailed its intention to accelerate the use of former military sites to house asylum seekers. Discussions have begun on three former MoD sites that together could house up to 3,750 asylum seekers, and it is seeking to extend the use of two such existing sites.
Mr Norris said: “We promised to close every asylum hotel and hand them back to communities, and that is exactly what we are doing. Twenty more hotels have closed, and hotel numbers have more than halved since their peak.”
He added the asylum seeker system was “being brought back under control” and the Government “will not stop until the job is done”.
The number of hotels used to house asylum seekers is now at 170, well below a peak of over 400 under the previous Government. The number of asylum seekers in hotels, as of March 2026, has also fallen to now just under 21,000, down 35 per cent compared to the same time the year before, according to Home Office statistics.
The Home Office also highlighted much-improved rates of processing asylum applications. Asylum decisions are being made at four times the rate seen under the previous government, and there have been almost 70,000 individuals deported since July 2024.
By: Ivan Morris Poxton, LDRS
