We've seen a range of insights from the latest Home Office data. Here are some of the key points:

• Asylum seekers in hotels is up - the number has grown by 8% to reach 32,059
• The number of asylum seekers is at a record high - now 111,000, which is a 14% increase
• "Irregular" arrivals are up - now 49,000, which is a 27% rise
• People waiting for an initial asylum decision is down - now 90,812, almost 24% lower
• People removed by force has increased - now 9,072, 25% higher than last year

And in response to the figures above...

Home secretary Yvette Cooper says: "We inherited a broken immigration and asylum system that the previous government left in chaos," adding that the Labour government has strengthened immigration controls, cut asylum costs, and "sharply increased" enforcement and returns.

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch says: "Labour say the number of asylum hotels has halved. What they aren’t saying is all of that cut happened before the general election last year. If Labour had continued on that trajectory, there would be no asylum hotels today."

Liberal Democrat home affairs spokeswoman Lisa Smart says she's still concerned about the asylum backlog, which "has been far too large for far too long", even though the government has managed to reduce it.

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage notes that under the current government "we have record numbers claiming asylum".

Refugee Council chief Enver Solomon calls for an end to the use of hotels for asylum seekers, saying: "Everyone agrees that hotels are the wrong answer."

And importantly, at the heart of this are many human stories. You can read about Daastan's experience of living in a Yorkshire hotel, or Godgive's struggle living in a house share, after having to leave her young son in Cameroon.

We're closing our live coverage for today. You can catch up on all of today's statistics, and what they mean, in our news story.

Thank you for joining us.

Tom Joyner
Live reporter

Sitting in her bedroom in a shared house, provided by the Home Office in the north-east of England, Godgive says she feels like she has little to look forward to anymore.

In her home country of Cameroon, she left behind her family, including her 6-year-old son, when Godgive fled the violence of the Anglophone crisis - a near-decade-long conflict where fighting has been raging over the independence of the two English-speaking regions in what is a predominantly French-speaking country.

Godgive hasn't seen her son in the three years that she's spent caught in the UK's asylum system. "He's still a child so it breaks my heart every day," she tells me. "I don't know how he's faring. I don't have any means of supporting him."

In the other seven bedrooms of the house are more asylum seekers, each with their own harrowing stories of survival and escape.

Godgive communicates with them by Google Translate, clumsily sometimes, about who will empty the bins or is next to use the bathroom.

A house manager comes regularly to sweep her bedroom and to make sure she has no forbidden items, like a TV. There's little privacy.

After three long years, she considered ending her life.

"I needed to stop living. It was too much," she says. "But I am lucky. The area where I am I have good support. I had the Samaritan helpline."

Unable to work or study, she instead dreams of volunteering or training herself in new skills – anything to give her purpose and a way to contribute.

Instead, she's still waiting on an outcome of her asylum claim.

"I feel like I'm left behind. I have no one. I'm stuck. I don't know where to go and I don't know when it's going to change."

Andrew Picken
Data Journalist, BBC Scotland News

Scotland has proportionately fewer asylum seekers than other parts of the UK but it is still feeling the impact of the wider rise in claims.

The 6,107 asylum seekers now living in Scotland is up from 4,786 in June 2022 - a total of 10 councils were housing 662 people at that time.

But the latest data shows 1,573 people are now in hotels across 13 local authority areas.

Using hotels is meant to be a last resort, but a shortage of social housing, and the impact of accommodating more than 20,000 refugees from Ukraine, has forced Scottish councils to increasingly use this option.

There have been some anti-asylum protests outside hotels in Scotland but they haven't been on the same scale as those in England.

Tom Joyner
Live reporter

Among the backlog of asylum claims waiting to be processed is Daastan's.

The 26-year-old fled Afghanistan two years ago, fearing for his life after his father and brother were targeted by the Taliban.

After arriving in the UK, he applied for asylum and the Home Office found him a hotel room in Yorkshire, where he's been ever since.

Every day, Daastan is given three meals and is allowed to leave for a walk if he signs out with a guard. Other than that, he says he spends most of his time in silence - his only roommate doesn't speak English.

He told me it often feels like he is floating in a hopeless limbo: "You escape one problem and now you're in another problem," he explains, referring to his escape from the Taliban.

The nightly news coverage of protests against asylum seekers has only made things worse. One day, through his window, he watched as guards and police surrounded the hotel and stopped protestors from getting any closer to him.

"All we asylum seekers wanted was a shelter so the government put us in a hotel. That wasn't our choice," he says. "We haven't done anything!"

Daastan's mental health has taken a heavy toll, and he now takes antidepressants.

Around a year after he arrived in the UK, Daastan found out that his claim had been denied. With the help of a solicitor, he lodged an appeal, and is now awaiting news of the outcome.

Last year, he joined a local cricket team near his hotel, eager to play the game he loved back home in Afghanistan. But one day, his teammate made a comment about Daastan's status as an asylum seeker.

"They didn't know I understand English and they were talking about me using a lot of bad words. They gave me lots of depression," he says.

"Because of one title: asylum seeker."

Image source, PA Media

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has responded to the latest Home Office migration figures.

"Labour say the number of asylum hotels has halved. What they aren’t saying is all of that cut happened before the general election last year," she says. "If Labour had continued on that trajectory, there would be no asylum hotels today."

"Instead, progress has stopped. The number of asylum hotels has remained constant, the number of small boat arrivals has hit record highs, and they voted against our Deportation Bill that would bring in a proper deterrent and ensure we deported illegal arrivals asap."

The Deportation Bill, external, introduced earlier this year, includes measures such as "automatic deportation for anyone who arrives in the country illegally", and "introducing an annual cap on migration".

As of June 2025, 32,059 asylum seekers were housed in hotels. That’s down about 1% on March but 8% higher than at the end of June 2024 just before the general election, according to the Home Office figures.

The fall follows higher-than-usual levels of small boat crossings of the English Channel this year.

The government has pledged to end hotel use for asylum seekers by 2029. It says this will be done by cutting crossings and opening new government-run accommodation.

Asylum seekers who cannot financially support themselves are placed in housing while their claims and appeals are considered. While awaiting the outcome of their application, asylum seekers cannot work.

Most live in self-catered properties such as houses in multiple occupation (HMOs), but hotels have been used since 2020 when regular supply ran out.

Image source, PA Media

The UK's "broken" immigration system is causing tensions in Northern Ireland's communities, Stormont's education minister Paul Givan says.

In reaction to today's Home Office figures, Givan says the UK government has "failed Northern Ireland" and the current immigration system doesn't "protect the integrity of our borders".

Givan says the government's plans to house asylum seekers in hotels and "buying up properties in working class communities" creates more tensions.

"I have constituents who have grown up in these areas and they are not able to get houses," he says.

As we've just reported, one of Northern Ireland's councils is also considering the legal planning status of hotels to house asylum seekers in their community.

The issue of hotels being used to house asylum seekers is also being considered in Northern Ireland - where, earlier this week, Antrim and Newtownabbey Borough Council said it had started an enforcement investigation into the legal planning status of a County Antrim hotel being used to house migrants.

It followed unionist politicians raising questions after the Epping court ruling.

You can read more in our story here.

Some Labour councils have joined Conservative and Reform-run authorities in looking at legal challenges over housing asylum seekers in hotels.

This now includes Wirral Council, whose councillors say in a social media post that "external legal advice is being taken".

Last week, the Merseyside Council asked the Home Office to review its decision to house single male asylum seekers - rather than families - in the former Holiday Inn Express in Hoylake.

Stevenage Borough Council in Hertfordshire has also said that it "takes breaches of planning control seriously and we're actively investigating alleged breaches relating to the operation of hotels in Stevenage".

Meanwhile, Carol Dean, Labour leader of Tamworth Borough Council, said yesterday that in light of the Epping case, "we are closely monitoring developments and reviewing our legal position".

As a reminder, earlier this week the High Court granted Conservative-controlled Epping Forest District Council a temporary injunction to stop 140 asylum seekers living at the Bell Hotel in Essex.

• You can read more about these latest developments in our story

Image source, PA Media

These latest figures have been released at a time of heightened tensions surrounding immigration, especially the issue of hotels housing asylum seekers.

• As we've been reporting, the number of asylum applicants housed in taxpayers-funded hotels has increased 8% on the same point in June 2024 to 32,059. It's however slightly dropped since March 2025, when the number was 32,345

Earlier this week, a High Court judge ruled that asylum seekers staying at a hotel in Essex should be removed. The injunction granted the Epping Forest District Council permission to stop migrants being housed at The Bell Hotel, and therefore, everyone must be moved out by 16:00 BST on 12 September.

Thousands of people have been protesting around the hotel in recent weeks after an asylum seeker living there was charged with sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl in the town.

Essex Police said that, at times, the protests became violent, and Conservative council leader Chris Whitbread said the demonstrations were escalating tensions in the area and risked causing "irreparable harm".

Similar cases in the past have seen judges refuse to intervene. However, Epping Forest told the court that its case was different because use of the hotel had become a public safety risk, as well as a breach of planning law.

The High Court's decision could be a headache for the Home Office - while it will not suddenly end the use of hotels to house asylum seekers across the UK, similar decisions could now follow elsewhere.

You can read more about the wider implications of the issue in this story.

The number of people allowed to come and stay in the UK for humanitarian reasons under four separate schemes has been largely falling, the new data show.

According to the Home Office, there was an overall one-third reduction in such visas in the year to June 2025 compared to the previous year:

• Ukrainians fleeing war: There were 14,216 visas issued under the Ukraine Scheme, continuing a gradual decrease since its peak when the scheme began in 2022 following the full-scale Russian invasion
• Applicants from Hong Kong: The British National (Overseas) visa was introduced in 2021 for people from Hong Kong with a connection to the UK from before the 1997 handover to China. Only 11,804 were granted, continuing their fall since 2021

• Refugee resettlement: The number of refugees transferred from other countries to the UK for resettlement has fallen since its peak in 2021. There were 7,445 people resettled, 10% fewer than the previous year. Nearly all were Afghan

• Family of refugees: 20,817 people were granted refugee family reunion visas in the last 12 months, the highest period on record, and 30% more than in the year ending in June 2024. The visas allow the partners and children of refugees in the UK to join them

Image source, PA Media

Latest figures show a drop in the number of work and study-related visas granted to people hoping to move to the UK.

For work-related visas, the headline figure is that 182,553 visas were granted in the year to June, marking a 36% drop.

For nursing professionals, the number of people able to get visas to work in the UK fell by 80% in the year to June, which the government says may be due to "the end of the centrally supported nurse international recruitment programme and changes in demand for international staff".

In the year to June 2025, there was an 18% drop on the number of sponsored study visa grants compared to the previous year, the latest Home Office figures say.

However, the number of study visas - 431,725 - remains higher than in 2019 - 52% higher, in fact.

Image source, Getty Images

Home Office figures show that government spending on asylum in the UK in the year to March was down 12%.

The total figure, £4.76bn, covers Home Office costs related to asylum, including direct financial support and accommodation (such as hotels). It does not cover costs relating to intercepting people crossing the English Channel on small boats.

The sum is down from a record £5.38bn the previous year. Specific costs for hotels were not published in the latest figures from the Home Office.

In July, figures released by the Home Office showed that the government spent nearly a third less on hotels to house asylum seekers between April 2024 and March 2025.

The Home Office's annual accounts, external show £2.1bn was spent on hotel accommodation - an average of about £5.77m per day, down from £3bn or £8.3m per day, the previous year.

Jack Fenwick
Political correspondent

A senior Home Office source has said it’s time for the Ministry of Justice “to step up” and process asylum application appeals more quickly.

Data released today shows the government has been able to speed up the processing of initial asylum application claims.

But there is now a concern about a backlog in the appeals courts.

Madeleine Sumption, Director of the Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford, says: “Although the initial decision backlog is down since Labour came to office a new backlog has built up in the courts due to appeals against unsuccessful decisions.”

The Home Office source says “courts are definitely a pinch point and we do need the MoJ to step up and help us with that”.

They also say that the government had been able to speed up the processing of initial claims by moving civil servants away from the Rwanda scheme.

Home Office accounts released last month showed the Conservative government had around 1,000 civil servants working on the Rwanda scheme.

Labour scrapped it when it came to power and the source says “we moved a lot of those people back to dealing with initial decision claims”.

Image source, Getty Images

Government statistics also show thousands of children have crossed the Channel - many of them alone.

According to the latest figures, 5,011 children - those under 18 years old - crossed by small boat to apply for asylum in the year to June 2025.

Of those, 2,721 cases have been labelled as UASC - Unaccompanied Asylum-Seeking Children - which accounts for 54% of the children arriving by small boat.

A charity says unaccompanied children seeking asylum often turn to smugglers, risking exploitation, to reach family in the UK.

“This government says it’s aiming to stop Channel crossing yet it’s working to shut down family reunion even further, which will only push more refugee families into taking dangerous journeys to reunite in safety,” says Donna Covey, chief executive at Safe Passage International.

She adds that the new scheme from France, part of the recent one-in-one-out deal, "offers a limited pathway" to refugees - and excludes unaccompanied children.

“The government must urgently rectify this,” Covey says, adding that “the best way to save lives in the Channel, stop the smugglers trade and protect refugees is to open safe routes”.

There's been a flurry of new stats and figures released today by the Home Office relating to the way it handles people coming to the UK.

It's easy to get lost in the numbers, so here are five big takeaways from the year to June 2025:

• Asylum seekers in hotels: More people awaiting a decision on their asylum claims are being housed in hotels than the previous year, with the number growing 8% to reach 32,059
• Claim backlog: The government has managed to reduce the backlog of asylum claims by a quarter on the previous year, something that's been welcomed by refugee advocates
• Record asylum claims: However, the number of people applying for asylum in the UK hit a record high, with 111,000 claims. That's a 14% increase on the previous year and a near doubling since 2021
• Small boat arrivals: About 38% more small boats landed on UK shores than the previous year. They remain the most common type of "irregular" arrival
• Forcible removals: There was a 25% increase in the number of people forcibly sent back from the UK compared to the previous year. Romanians and Albanians made up about half of them

The Refugee Council, which advocates for asylum seekers and refugees in the UK, says today's data show "mixed progress" under the Labour government.

On the one hand, it says it welcomes the reduction of the backlog in asylum claims, and that the government deserves credit for bringing the asylum system "back from the brink".

But it adds there are still far too many people awaiting the outcome of their asylum claim from a hotel.

"Everyone agrees that hotels are the wrong answer," says the charity's chief executive Enver Solomon.

"Getting decisions right first time is vital so refugees who need protection can move out of hotels and start rebuilding in safety."

Image source, PA Media

If someone who's arrived in the UK doesn't have the right to stay, the Home Office tries to return them to another country.

Returning people usually leave in three ways: either they are removed by force, they leave of their own accord, or they are stopped upon entry to the UK and turned around.

There's new data on people returned over the year to June 2025 in today's release:

• There were 9,072 people removed from the UK by force, 25% higher than the previous year. People from Romania and Albania make up around half that total
• There were 26,761 people leaving voluntarily, up by 13% compared to the previous year. Indians (7,617), Brazilians (4,810) and Albanians (2,198) accounted for just over half of that total
• There were 20,728 people stopped and turned around upon entry, 13% fewer than the previous year

Increase in asylum seekers in hotels doesn't tell the whole picturepublished at 10:57 British Summer Time 21 August

10:57 BST 21 August

Jack Fenwick
Political correspondent

Image source, Getty Images

We now know that the number of asylum seekers being housed in hotels went up during Labour’s first year in power.

But that doesn’t tell the whole picture.

Today’s figures show that as of June there were 32,059 people in hotels, 8% up on the June 2024 figure of 29,585 – and down slightly since March.

That’s still comfortably below the record number from June 2023 when the Conservatives were in power and there were more than 56,000 people in hotels.

As we’ve been reporting all morning, this new data is the first to take into account the massive increase in small boat crossings that we’ve seen since spring.

Some in the Home Office were nervous that those crossings could mean the numbers in hotels went up between March and June – but that hasn’t happened.

Ministers have been trying to find alternative sources of accommodation, like regular houses and flats within communities.

But those numbers haven’t gone up either. The overall number of asylum seekers in accommodation was 106,771 in March and 106, 075 in June.

Opposition parties like the Conservatives and Reform will of course point to the numbers in hotels being up since Labour came to power.

But by processing claims more quickly, the Home Office has been able to ensure that the big rise in small boat crossings hasn’t had much of an effect on asylum accommodation.

Ministers will see that as evidence that their strategy is working.

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