Member of Parliament for Windsor, Jack Rankin has secured a Westminster Hall debate on the re-opening of asylum hotels, scheduled for Tuesday 21st January at 4.30pm – 5.30pm.
It comes after The Manor Hotel, located in the small village of Datchet in his constituency, began housing migrants at the end of October 2024, having been opened back up to the public by the previous Conservative government at the start of that year.
Residents were given less than 24 hours’ notice by the Home Office before a group of 65 migrants were moved into the hotel, which had previously been open to the public.
Businessowners in the village have felt the knock-on impacts of the hotel’s closure on their income from tourists and, as reported by The Daily Mail, some residents have decided to sell up altogether.
Rankin has raised the case with both the Home Secretary and Border Security Minister who failed to provide any further clarity on how long the hotel would be used for this purpose. He has also met with Home Office officials and is scheduled to visit the hotel at the end of the month.
Rankin is set to discuss the wider issue of asylum processing and the impact of shifting the costs of housing illegal economic migrants onto cash-strapped local authorities. With the government setting a March target to close nine hotels, he will question how this will happen while over 23,000 small boat crossings have taken place since Labour took office.
He will also take aim at Labour’s “incentive system” having scrapped the deterrent plan, and failing to so far get a grip of the issue, with the summer months still to come.
Jack Rankin MP said:
“This debate will shine the spotlight on the government’s manifesto pledge to end the use of hotels, and how they have handled the issue of illegal migration during their first six months in office.
“Since The Manor Hotel in Datchet was filled with ‘single adult male’ migrants, there has been a lack of transparency from Ministers about how long they will be housed there – or their impact on local services like GPs – when I have questioned them. My constituents need answers.”
