Jenrick warns migrants to accept ‘generous offer’ of hotel room or lose asylum support

Officials have been told to take a tough approach after migrants protested against sharing a room

MINISTERS have warned asylum seekers refusing to share hotel rooms to accept their “generous” offer or lose their right to public funding for housing and food.

Robert Jenrick, the Immigration Minister, is understood to have ordered officials to take a tough approach and not back down in face of demands for single rooms by the asylum seekers after they were transferred to a hotel in Pimlico, central London, where they are required to share four to a room in two bunk beds.

The 40 migrants have staged a pavement protest since Thursday and barricaded the door of the hotel with their baggage after refusing to return to their rooms.

They claimed it was nothing like the “nice” accommodation they had seen on Google Maps after they were told they would be moving to it from their hotel in Ilford, Essex, where most had single rooms with en suite bathrooms.

It is understood that Mr Jenrick has instructed officials not to back down and allow migrants to select their hotel of choice or demand individual rooms at extra cost to the taxpayer.

He is said to have told officials the asylum seekers can accept the “generous” offer of accommodation or they will lose their right to support including housing, food or money. Officials have been instructed to send letters to the migrants telling them they will have their support withdrawn if they refuse the offer.

“He is not backing down. This is outrageous behaviour,” said a source.

It was understood last night that most of the asylum seekers had agreed to share rooms after Mr Jenrick’s ultimatum.

It follows a decision by Mr Jenrick for groups of two, three or four single adult male migrants to be required to share a single room rather than have individual rooms.

It has been nicknamed “Operation Maximise” within the Home Office and is designed to reduce the £6million a day cost of housing some 50,000 asylum seekers in hotels and to reduce the “pull factor” to the UK.

It came as Adam Hug, the Westminster city council leader, accused the Home Office of failing to tell the local authority it was transferring the migrants to their area before they mounted their protest. He claimed the hotel conditions defied “common sense and basic decency”. The row came as Mr Jenrick said migrants who get to Britain are young men rich enough to pay the smugglers.

Writing for The Telegraph, he said it was one of the “greatest injustices” of illegal migration that those who could afford to pay the trafficking gangs were prevailing at the expense of those in need who were left behind.

He said it was one of the clearest lessons from his five-day tour this week of North Africa and Europe where he met political leaders and officials to discuss ways to crackdown on people smugglers and stem the flow of migrants upstream. The agreements will emulate deals with Albania with greater intelligence sharing, joint operations to tackle the people smuggling gangs and deployment of National Crime Agency (NCA) officers to advise on counter-trafficking measures.

It came as it emerged this weekend that the Home Office has set up a 400-strong unit to fast track the asylum applications of up to 17,000 Albanians.

It is part of an effort by the Government to remove all Albanians who entered the UK illegally.

‘He is not backing down. This is outrageous behaviour’

Over the five days, Mr Jenrick travelled to Algeria, Tunisia, Italy and France. His trip was part of a co-ordinated move by the Government to focus on the flow of migrants into Europe, with Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister, announcing new deals with Bulgaria, Georgia and Moldova to tackle illegal migration and people smugglers.

Ministers believe they have established effective working relationships with France, Italy and “upstream” countries through which migrants come or originate. They are particularly concerned by the situation in Tunisia fuelling a four-fold increase in the number of small boats leaving for Italy.