Overview

• Serco, a Home Office contractor, is recruiting landlords in the North West, Midlands, and east of England to lease properties for asylum seekers under five-year guaranteed rent deals.
• Small-boat arrivals across the English Channel have surged 44.5% compared to last year, with 9,638 people arriving illegally so far in 2025, the highest on record.
• Private contractors now manage accommodations for 65,700 asylum seekers, double the number housed in dispersal accommodation in 2014 and a ten-year high.
• The initiative aims to reduce reliance on hotels, which housed 38,000 asylum seekers as of December 2024 at a daily cost of £5.5 million.
• Critics argue the plan exacerbates local housing shortages and raises taxpayer burdens, while Labour defends the move as necessary to address an inherited asylum backlog and rising arrivals.