Plan to fast-track asylum seekers' appeals risks court challenges, ministers concede

A plan to fast-track the appeals of asylum seekers living in government-funded hotels could face multiple legal challenges on the grounds of discrimination, the government has admitted.

- Daniel Boffey

A 24-week legal deadline on appeal decisions for those staying in hotel rooms is being introduced in an attempt to fulfil a Labour manifesto pledge to end a practice which costs the taxpayer billions of pounds a year.

More than 38,000 asylum seekers are currently housed in 222 hotels and a further 66,000 migrants are in "dispersal accommodation" such as large houses, bedsits and flats.

The government has said it wants to stop using hotels by 2029 through a series of policies, including a quicker appeal process for those living in such accommodation whose initial asylum application has been rejected.

But officials have conceded in a legal memorandum to the border security and immigration bill that the new deadline could be challenged under the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) by both those staying in hotels and living without government support.