Migrants to spend years in hotels as backlog persists

Migrants could be housed in hotels for up to three more years because of the asylum backlog, it has emerged. Since Labour's general election win, home secretary Yvette Cooper is said to have realised that clearing the backlog of asylum seekers will take longer than she had hoped.

- ARCHIE MITCHELL

The process could now take as long as three years to deliver on her promise to "end asylum hotels" made during the campaign, with Whitehall sources saying the picture is "much worse than we thought". One told The Times: "It's going to take a lot longer to clear than we anticipated. It certainly won't be cleared in a year."