The top mandarin at the Home Office gave the game away. At a somnolent session of the Commons home affairs committee, Sir Matthew Rycroft revealed that Labour had dropped a key pre-election pledge, made just 72 hours before polling day. Instead of moving all asylum seekers out of hotels ‘within 12 months’, as the party had promised, it would take up to five years.
‘The overarching aim continues to be to exit hotels by the end of the Parliament,’ Sir Matthew told MPs last month. The permanent secretary’s casual use of the term ‘continues’ suggested a process potentially concluding in the summer of 2029 had always been the plan – but it was a well-kept secret if it was: that date had never been publicly mentioned before.
In opposition, Labour had calculated that dispensing with hotels could be done in a year by stopping the costly Rwanda scheme. They would use the money saved to recruit over 1,000 Home Office asylum caseworkers and a further 1,000 staff for a new returns unit to resolve cases more quickly.
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