Robert Jenrick also criticised the UN secretary-general for trying to justify Hamas terror attacks
THE Government is making good progress in moving migrants out of hotels and into more basic accommodation, according to Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick MP.
He told GB News: “When I took the job a year ago, I said that it was completely unacceptable to be housing asylum seekers, illegal migrants in hotels. We want them to be used by businesses, tourists, your or I for weddings or birthdays, not illegal migrants at huge cost to the taxpayer.
“We've worked hard over the last year to put in place simpler, more appropriate forms of accommodation, like disused military sites and barges. And it's to that kind of accommodation that the illegal migrants will now be moved.
“And so we can close the first 50 and I hope, if we can keep making progress with stopping the boats, there'll be more closures to come in the months ahead.”
In a discussion with Stephen Dixon and Ellie Costello, he continued: “I could not have been clearer from the minute I took this job that using asylum hotels was wrong and I wanted to end it.
“We've been working extremely hard to reach that point. We are there now. We'll be closing them as fast as we possibly can and we want to close all hotels, regardless of where they are, and return them to their proper use by local communities.
“The hotels that were closing in this first set are in all four nations of the UK and a whole range of different places. But the key thing is that it's not right that the British taxpayer is paying for illegal migrants to be living in these comparatively luxurious locations. We want people to be in decent but not luxurious accommodation.”
Asked about the UN Secretary General’s criticism of Israel’s actions in Gaza, Jenrick said: “Well, I thought the Secretary-General's comments were wrong. They were unacceptable and they were undiplomatic. He implied that there was a justification for what happened to Israel two weeks ago.
“There is no justification for murderous barbaric terrorist attacks on innocent civilians, children being killed, burned, kidnapped. Nobody should be trying to make a justification for that.”
