Overview

• Ministers confirmed the department is examining taxi use after a BBC report detailed a 250-mile trip costing £600 for a hospital check-up.
• An Iraqi man whose asylum claim was rejected said he was given no option other than a Home Office–booked cab and would have preferred to travel by train.
• Clearsprings Ready Homes paid nearly £350,000 a month for about 6,000 journeys with one firm, while transport supplier PTS-247 is suing Clearsprings over £2.75 million in alleged unpaid invoices that Clearsprings disputes.
• Long trips occur because people moved between hotels sometimes retain the same NHS clinicians, with bookings reportedly arranged through automated hotel systems rather than public transport.
• Some hotel residents told reporters they were working illegally despite employment bans, as official data show just over 32,000 people in hotels at the end of June and a record 111,084 asylum applications in the year to June.