Mohamed Miah | The Narratives
A Girl Behind the Fire Door
She is twelve. Her earliest memories are not of playgrounds or kitchens filled with family smells, but of anonymous hotel corridors, fire doors covered with plastic bags, and bathrooms turned into makeshift kitchens.
Her parents fled war. They thought Britain meant safety. Instead, they have spent years in limbo — unable to work, unable to choose where they live, and unable to build the future they dreamed of.
For the Home Office, her existence is not measured in hopes or human potential but in invoices: £145 a night, every night.
This child is not a burden. She is not a crisis. She is a business model.
The Illusion of a “Broken System”
The headlines are familiar. Britain’s asylum system is “broken.” Hotels are overflowing. Taxi rides to GP appointments cost £600. Politicians shake their heads. The public fumes. Refugees are blamed.
But step back, and the truth looks very different. The asylum system is not broken. It is working exactly as designed: to restrict asylum seekers from working, to force them into dependency, and to monetise that dependency through billion-pound outsourcing contracts.
It is not failure. It is profit.
From Contingency to Dependency
Hotels were once a last resort. Before 2020, they were used sparingly — “contingency accommodation” for temporary overflow.
That changed when Priti Patel, then Home Secretary, leaned heavily on hotels during the pandemic, justifying mass placements when dispersal housing ran out. The emergency became routine.
By January 2025, 222 hotels housed around 38,000 asylum seekers — roughly one-third of all those waiting for decisions. Yet those hotels consumed three-quarters of the asylum accommodation budget, around £1.3bn of £1.7bn in just seven months.
The per-night cost was between £119 and £145 per person — six times the cost of ordinary housing. The more people trapped in hotels, the greater the profits.
Families in Limbo
Numbers alone don’t capture what this means.
- A mother boiling rice in a hotel kettle, ashamed her children no longer know what a family meal looks like.
- A father who once ran a shop, now pacing a car park, unable to provide for his family.
- A young man working illegally for £20 a day, risking exploitation just to pay back debts.
- Children who believe waiting is what life means.
These are not burdens. They are lives being wasted so that invoices can be paid.
The Taxi State
One father described being sent on a 250-mile taxi ride to see a GP. The cost to the taxpayer: £600.
It sounds absurd until you read the fine print. Section 4.3.1 of the Asylum Accommodation and Support Contract (AASC) requires providers to supply transport to medical and civic appointments. In theory, that could be a bus ticket. In practice, hotel staff log into contractor portals, taxis are dispatched, and invoices mount.
Every mile means more money. Every dependency is billable.
The asylum seeker does not choose the journey. The system chooses it — because it pays.
The Outsourcing Empire
How did we get here? The answer lies in two decades of outsourcing.
- 1999: The Immigration and Asylum Act created a centralised system, with accommodation delivered by a mix of councils, housing associations, and private landlords.
- 2012 (Theresa May, Home Secretary): The COMPASS contracts handed asylum housing to G4S, Serco, and Clearsprings. Local authorities were sidelined; mega-contracts became the model.
- 2019 (Conservative government): COMPASS was replaced by AASC, with three giants dominating:
- Mears Group (North East, Yorkshire, Scotland, Northern Ireland)
- Serco (Midlands, East, North West)
- Clearsprings Ready Homes (South, Wales)
Together, these deals were worth £4.5bn over ten years. The National Audit Office (NAO) now projects costs will hit £15.3bn — triple the original estimate.
And then came Corporate Travel Management (CTM), an Australian PLC. In April 2025, it secured a £552m contract to run “contingency accommodation and wraparound services” — allocating hotels and barges, running booking systems, and managing transport and meals. CTM stepped in after Stay Belvedere Hotels (SBHL) was dumped for poor performance.
This is not a system in chaos. It is an empire built on human limbo and misery.
Names Behind the Profits
Behind the contracts are real people.
- Graham King, founder of Clearsprings Ready Homes, has made a personal fortune. His firms reported £180m+ profits over three years, with reports raising questions about offshore arrangements.
- Rupert Soames, then CEO of Serco, once called outsourcing a “cash machine.” Serco now runs two asylum regions.
- David Miles, CEO of Mears Group, turned a repairs company into a government dependency.
- Jamie Pherous, CEO of CTM, runs the Australian travel firm now pocketing half a billion pounds from UK asylum logistics.
The names change, but the model does not: public money flows upward, while refugees remain stuck.
Councils Push Back — For the Wrong Reasons
Some councils are now resisting.
- Epping Forest won a High Court injunction to block the Bell Hotel, arguing planning law.
- Broxbourne sought legal advice to do the same.
- Wirral and Tamworth explored challenges.
- Reform UK councils boasted they would resist placements altogether.
But let’s be clear. Most of these moves are not driven by compassion for refugees. They are political theatre. Right-wing councils especially feed off resentment, weaponising the “costs” for headlines while ignoring the profiteers who built the system.
They care about votes and headlines, not the families living behind those fire doors.
Canada’s Different Choice
It doesn’t have to be this way. Canada proves it.
In Canada, asylum seekers can apply for a work permit as soon as their claim is filed. Within weeks they can earn, rent, pay taxes, and live with dignity.
Government money goes into initial processing and temporary shelters, not years of hotel bills. Refugees become contributors, not commodities.
Canada treats asylum seekers as potential citizens. Britain treats them as cash cows tethered to contracts.
The Political Game
For years, Conservatives entrenched this system. Theresa May’s COMPASS, Priti Patel’s Covid hotels, Suella Braverman’s failed dispersal schemes — each step tightened the grip of outsourcing.
Labour inherited the mess in 2024. To their credit, they trimmed nightly hotel costs, ended one failing operator, and ordered a review into the £600 taxi scandal. But the core structure remains.
Asylum seekers are still banned from working. Hotels are still in use. Contracts still funnel billions to private firms.
Until the structure itself changes, nothing fundamental will.
A System Built on Vulnerability
Walk inside these hotels and you see the reality.
Children growing up in limbo. Mothers cooking in sinks. Fathers stripped of dignity. Families reduced to balance sheets.
The scandal is not the taxis. It is not the hotels. It is a system that deliberately keeps people idle so companies can profit from their suffering.
Refugees are not the problem. They are the product.
Canada chose integration. Britain chose monetisation.
Until we admit that truth — that this is a business model built on human vulnerability — we will keep paying for hotels and taxis while lives are wasted and contractors thrive.
People must wake up and see through the racist lies peddled by the elite. Division is their weapon, profit is their goal. While communities are turned against one another, the greedy grow rich by feeding off human suffering. These companies are making unsustainable profits year after year,
If we stand together for the right reasons, we can strip away their power. The fight should not be against the vulnerable — it should be against those who exploit them.
© Mohamed Miah | The Narratives
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References (for readers who want to explore further)
- National Audit Office (2025): Home Office’s asylum accommodation contracts – £15.3bn projected costs; 76% of spend on hotels.
- House of Commons Library: Asylum accommodation and support – use of hotels – background and statistics.
- BBC News (2025): £600 taxi for GP appointment sparks review – case triggering the taxi scandal review.
- Corporate Travel Management – Home Office award notice (April 2025) – £552m contingency contract to 2029.
- Migration Observatory: Asylum and refugee resettlement in the UK – asylum work restrictions, hotel costs.
- The Guardian (2025): Profits from asylum housing contracts – Clearsprings’ profits.
- Durham University (2025): How the UK became dependent on asylum hotels – academic perspective.
- Commons Library: Planning law and asylum hotels – Epping Forest case and council resistance.
- The Guardian (2025): Labour-run councils consider legal challenges to close asylum hotels – Wirral and Tamworth examples.
The Narratives - Mohamed Miah 
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