Serco, one of the three private contractors working for the Home Office, has offered landlords five-year guaranteed full rent deals at the taxpayers’ expense if they agree to house asylum seekers, according to reports.
The initiative is part of Labour’s pledge to crack down on people-smuggling gangs, after Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer in March admitted that combating the small boats crisis had become “very challenging”.
“Our operating model is based on leasing properties from a wide network of landlords, investors and agents with Serco acting as a Tenant,” the website page states.
Serco said: “We are confident that our lease provision offers an attractive and competitive proposition within the industry.”
Housing migrants in private rented accommodation is dramatically cheaper than in hotel accommodation. The Institute for Public Policy Research think tank estimated a hotel stay costs the taxpayer £145 per night on average, compared to £14 for private rented accommodation.
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer at the Organised Immigration Crime Summit at Lancaster House last month (Photo: Stefan Rousseau/PA Wire)Contractors, meanwhile, are currently responsible for housing 65,700 asylum seekers, more than double the 31,000 in 2014.
“We are restoring order to the asylum system and cutting costs to taxpayers by reducing the number of people we are required to accommodate through a rapid increase in asylum decision-making and the removal of more than 24,000 people with no right to be in the UK.”
The problem facing Starmer
The Prime Minister has repeatedly said his Government would “smash the gangs” smuggling people across borders to travel to the UK, but has stopped short of setting any targets.
But more arrivals have been recorded in January to April 2025 than in the equivalent four-month period in any year since data on Channel crossings began in 2018.
A group of people thought to be migrants are brought in to Dover, Kent, onboard an RNLI Lifeboat following a small boat incident in the Channel, 15 April (Photo: Gareth Fuller/PA)In a boost to Labour’s plans, the EU Commission earlier this year proposed allowing EU members to set up so-called “return hubs” abroad. Italy has already started sending migrants with no permission to remain in the country to Italian-run migration detention centres in Albania.
He told reporters anything that will be looked at has got to be “consistent with international law” and “cost effective”.
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Read MoreThe United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) last week endorsed “return hubs” in a boost to the potential Government plans and set out how the hubs could work while meeting its legal standards.
The agency recommended monitoring to make sure human rights standards are “reliably met” at any hubs.
It said there has been “increasing attention” on the concept of return hubs and the role they may play in supporting returns.
Serco and the Home Office has been approached for comment.
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