Police have been guarding the Bell Hotel in Epping as locals protest. (Image: Getty)
A Labour minister has reacted after a landmark court ruling to prevent asylum seekers from being housed at a hotel. Epping Forest District Council asked a judge to issue an interim injunction stopping migrants from being accommodated at the Bell Hotel, which was then granted.
The building has been at the centre of a series of protests in recent weeks after an asylum seeker who was staying there was charged with sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl. He denies the alleged crime. 32,000 asylum seekers are living in 210 hotels across the UK. The Bell Hotel, which is housing only male asylum seekers, has to close down within weeks due to the legal decree, as its owners had not applied for planning permission to change the building's use, according to the Town and Country Planning Order of 1987. Now, other councils may take the same action.
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Dan Jarvis is a minister at the Home Office. (Image: Getty)
Home Office minister Dan Jarvis told Radio 4's Today programme this morning that the Government will "see where we get to" as regards the ruling, adding that it does not believe housing migrants in hotels is a sustainable, nor long-term solution.
"That's why we pledged to phase out the use for accommodating asylum seekers by the end of this Parliament," Mr Jarvis said.
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"Looking very closely at the legal ruling that was handed down, we are identifying contingency options for what is going to happen to those people who are currently accommodated in that particular hotel.
"But I think it is worth understanding the specific context that exists in this particular location."
A court ruling means asylum seekers currently housed in the Bell Hotel must be moved. (Image: Getty)
He also admitted that the High Court decision "could" substantially impact the Government's ability to houses asylum seekers in hotels across the UK.
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Mr Jarvis then emphasised that Labour had managed to increase asylum decision making by 116%, and returned more than 35,000 people since taking office last year. But he failed to say definitively that hotels will stop being used to house migrants by 2029, as Ms Reeves promised.
Mr Jarvis said "we're committed to phasing out" the use of asylum hotels by the end of this Parliament.
The minister was also unable to detail the nature of "alternative accommodation arrangements" to hotels, stating they will be "more appropriate".
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