Home Office cut free access to toiletries and medication for asylum seekers in bridging hotels

The Home Office has told asylum seekers staying in hotels it will stop providing them with free access to non-basic toiletries and “over the counter medication”, according to a letter seen by the PA news agency.

The letter, which states that the measures will come into effect on February 11, comes after it was revealed that the Government is spending £4.7 million a day housing asylum seekers in hotels, an estimated £127 per person.

Faiz Mohammad Seddeqi, a former guard at the British Embassy in Kabul, has been staying in a hotel for almost six months after being evacuated to the UK from Afghanistan in August with his wife and son.

The 30-year-old received the letter on Thursday and, speaking via an interpreter, told PA: “When we see this kind of reaction and decision from (the) Home Office, it means ‘from onward we don’t care about you and we are not concerned about you – you need to manage everything by yourself.”

Mr Seddeqi and his family are staying at a hotel in Watford which he described as “not very clean.”

The letter, addressed from the Afghanistan Resettlement Arrivals Project at the Home Office, reads: “Until now, in addition to your Universal Credit payments and the accommodation and meals provided in the bridging hotels, we have also provided some additional items.

“I am writing to inform you that from 11 February we will no longer provide those additional items and you will need to purchase these for yourself using your Universal Credit payments.”

The letter states the asylum seekers will continue to receive “main meals”, including “baby food and baby milk” but will no longer receive “complimentary snacks, toiletries (aside from basic toiletries) or over the counter medication”.

“You will need to pay your own transport or taxi fares to appointments,” the letter adds.

Mr Seddeqi said he knows other refugees staying in his hotel also received the letter.

There are currently 25,000 asylum seekers and 12,000 Afghan refugees in hotels, a total of 37,000, the Home Office told the Home Affairs Committee on Wednesday.

At Wednesday’s committee session, MPs were told that the Government is “optimistic” it will find a new way of working with councils “on how we manage these costs”.

Home Secretary Priti Patel said the policy is “thoroughly inadequate”, adding: “We do not want people in hotels.”

She also said the Government and local authorities are “absolutely struggling” to move Afghan refugees into more suitable, permanent accommodation as the country does not have sufficient infrastructure.

PA has approached the Home Office for comment but it had not responded at the time of publication.

Copyright (c) PA Media Ltd. 2022, All Rights Reserved. Picture (c) PA.