Portsmouth council slams Home Office over 'secret asylum housing' with Suella Braverman also criticised
Portsmouth City Council has criticised the Home Office, saying it was kept in the dark while more than 58 HMOs were used to house asylum seekers.
At a recent community forum hosted by the city’s Labour MPs, Amanda Martin revealed that 58 homes were used as dispersal accommodation in August last year, compared with just 10 in December 2019.
The Home Office is responsible for housing asylum seekers while claims are processed as part of a long-standing policy to distribute temporary accommodation across the country rather than in one area of the UK. This can include hotels or dispersed accommodation such as HMOs. In Portsmouth, housing company Clearsprings Ready Homes manages the provision under contract.
The council said it had not been “aware of the number of properties being used” until last week, when it was told there are now 55 HMOs, two of which came into use in the last two years.
A spokesperson said: “Portsmouth has a housing crisis and already more than fulfils its fair share of supporting people seeking asylum. We expect the government to consider other areas before placing more people in Portsmouth.
“We’ve raised concerns with the Home Office’s agents, Clearsprings Ready Homes, and made it clear their processes are not adequate. They should be formally notifying a suitable senior officer.”
Political fallout
The issue has reignited debate over the handling of asylum accommodation under former Conservative Home Secretary Suella Braverman who has been vocal in her objections to plans for temporary accomodation in both Fareham and Waterlooville.
Former Portsmouth North Conservative MP Dame Penny Mordaunt said she was not told about the rise in asylum HMOs at the time, despite assurances from Braverman and the Home Office in 2023.
Meanwhile Braverman described plans to house asylum seekers in Waterlooville town centre as “inappropriate” in a letter to the current Home Secretary, Labour’s Yvette Cooper earlier this year. She also criticised Havant Borough Council for not objecting to the proposals - though it later transpired that it was not correctly consulted, prompting a second consultation where it did object resulting in the plans being dropped.
She also objected to plans to use a block of flats in Fareham as temporary accommodation, with Fareham Borough Council also opposed to the plans which were then scrapped.
Braverman defended her record of providing temporary accommodation to asylum seekers in Portsmouth while in government, and said that most of those people seeking asylum were from Afghanistan and had fought alongside the British armed forces
She said: “I inherited a crisis in September 2022 with rising numbers of illegal migrants arriving in our country.
“Let me also be clear about Portsmouth. Between 2014 and 2023, just 88 asylum seekers were resettled here – almost all of them (79) were through the dedicated Afghanistan scheme, for families who had risked their lives serving alongside our Armed Forces.
“Portsmouth has a proud history of defending our armed forces. But the numbers being waved through illegally now by Labour’s Home Office are of an entirely different order.”
Amanda Martin, Labour MP for Portsmouth North, said Braverman and the Conservatives “broke the asylum system and ground it to a complete standstill.”
She said: “The local Lib Dems don’t appear to have a clue what is happening, and Nigel Farage’s Reform are standing on the side lines with no solutions.
“Suella Braverman should stop trying to gloss over her abysmal record as Tory Home Secretary and apologise to the people of Portsmouth for handing over the border to the people smuggling gangs.
“Only Labour is serious about securing our borders. We’re investing an extra £100m in border security and we’ll end the use of asylum hotels by the end of this Parliament.”
The Home Office and Clearsprings Ready Homes were approached for comment.