'Appalling' plans to temporarily remove housing protections puts asylum seekers 'at great risk', charities say

New plans to temporarily remove housing protections from asylum seeker accommodation in the UK will put refugees at “great risk of harm”, charities have warned.

The government is considering changing accommodation rules so that landlords will be able to house asylum seekers for two years without getting their property recognised and licensed as a ‘house in multiple occupation’ (HMO), The Guardian has reported. This plan would exempt landlords from adhering to certain regulations, such as those relating to electrical safety and minimum room size.

Ministers have said the measure hopes to “speed up” moving asylum seekers out of hotels, which is currently costing the taxpayer £6 million a day. A huge backlog in the processing system has led to more than 50,000 migrants being housed in hotels across the country, which Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Home Secretary Suella Braverman have pledged to bring an end to.

But refugee charities have insisted that “removing basic safety rules” and driving asylum seekers to “rogue” landlords in the private rented sector is not the answer.

A spokesperson for the British Red Cross told NationalWorld: “The UK government’s reported plan to remove basic safety rules for landlords renting to people seeking asylum is extremely worrying. These safeguards protect against fires and carbon monoxide poisoning, so removing them could potentially put people’s lives and safety at risk.”

The charity argued that hotels, barges, and HMOs “do not offer the environment that men, women, and children seeking asylum desperately need”, particularly as “many are coping with trauma having fled war and persecution.”

Meanwhile, Enver Solomon, CEO of Refugee Council, slammed the government’s new plan - which he said amounted to “stripping away the very basic protections currently in place” and “allowing rogue landlords to house vulnerable men, women and children in dangerous accommodation” - as “appalling”.

“It will result in more hardship for refugees, negatively impacting their mental and physical health, as well as putting them at great risk of harm,” he added. “They deserve to live safely and with dignity as they wait to be granted protection.”

Tim Naor Hilton, Chief Executive of Refugee Action, added that “ministers must stop this race to the bottom to see how badly they can treat refugees who come to the UK for help.” He also warned that “tearing up” HMO licensing removes safeguards which allow people to “alert their council when their homes became infested with rats or mould, or if landlords failed to install smoke alarms.”

All three charities said that the government’s priority should be tackling the backlog in asylum seeker cases, which the British Red Cross suggested could be done by “speeding up processing of claims” and “prioritising those from children and people who have waited for over three years for their claim to be decided.”

The government however has defended the plans, insisting that standards will not be compromised. A spokesperson said: “The use of expensive hotels to house the unprecedented number of asylum seekers crossing the Channel is unacceptable and must end.

“By temporarily removing this licensing requirement, we will be able to acquire more suitable long-term accommodation while continuing to meet our legal duty of care. This will not compromise standards and all properties will be independently inspected for quality to ensure they continue to meet national housing quality requirements.”

Transport Minister Richard Holden also told Sky News that “[asylum seekers] are stuck in hotel accommodation for far too long” and getting them into longer-term housing has “got to be the right way forwards”.

Meanwhile, the Labour Party has condemned the plans, with shadow housing minister Matthew Pennycook pointing to the concerns of charities - and warning it could mean asylum seekers being housed in accommodation “without gas safety certificates, without safe electrical appliances, without working smoke and carbon monoxide alarms, and without shared amenity facilities that meet minimum standards”.

“It’s not bringing down the standards in HMO asylum accommodation to the minimum, it’s exempting them entirely,” he told Sky News.