Novotel Asylum Hotel to Close

Good news for Stevenage: the Novotel will close as an asylum hotel by the end of this year and return to normal hotel use.

This is something I have campaigned for since before I was elected, and it was a key commitment I made to local residents at the 2024 General Election.

Stevenage Borough Council and I have consistently opposed the use of local hotels for asylum accommodation. The prolonged use of hotels has had an impact on our local services, our economy and our community, as well as on the people being accommodated in them.

We should welcome this news, but it is also important to understand why it is happening.

This is not simply a case of moving people from one hotel to another. The asylum system is being sorted out from end to end, and we are seeing real progress.

The latest figures show that the number of people waiting for an initial asylum decision has fallen by 56% in a year. The number of people in asylum hotels has fallen by 50% in a year and is now 71% below its peak. Asylum claims have fallen by 21%, while more than 40,000 returns were recorded in the latest year.

This has meant fewer people stuck waiting for decisions, fewer people being accommodated in expensive hotels and more people who have no right to remain being returned.

The previous Conservative Government allowed the asylum backlog to grow and relied heavily on expensive hotel contracts instead of fixing the underlying problems.

People in Stevenage don't need more empty rhetoric, anger or misinformation: we need the problem actually solved. That's why I've worked closely with Stevenage Borough Council and the Government to make the case for our community. Through serious and sustained work, we're delivering a practical answer that works for Stevenage and understands the wider problems in the asylum system.

I also want to be clear that getting the asylum system under control does not mean abandoning compassion or decency.

People fleeing persecution and conflict should be treated with dignity and have their claims properly considered. But we can do that while also having a system that is orderly, sustainable and fair to taxpayers and local communities.

I know many people disagree on lots of aspects of our asylum system, but we can all agree that today's news is good for Stevenage. An asylum hotel is closing, the Novotel is returning to normal hotel use, and that is something we've been working towards for a long time.