Inside one hotel, the high price paid by taxpayers and asylum seekers

Hundreds of people given rooms in London have no idea when they can leave or what awaits them outside

- John Simpson Home Affairs Editor

Everyone at the Queens hotel knows the date they checked in. Very few know when they will leave.

Each of the grand Victorian hotel's 331 rooms tells a story of Britain's asylum system, its failed policies, broken promises and wild overspending.

The hotel in Crystal Palace, south London, has been home to many stories since it opened in 1854. Émile Zola lived there in 1898. Kaiser Wilhelm stayed while visiting Queen Victoria, and for two years from 1929 it was home to Lawrence Durrell.

Nowhere in Britain today are policy changes felt more keenly than in this hotel and more than 200 others like it, still housing tens of thousands of asylum seekers across the country. Asylum seekers here have fled Afghanistan, Iran, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Albania, Pakistan, India, China, Colombia, Syria and beyond.

Housing asylum seekers is expected to cost the taxpayer more than £15bn over 10 years. That is more than three times the original projected cost, with much of the money being drawn from the aid budget. Rooms cost up to £148 per person per night, compared with about £14 in community housing.

The system suits the companies making millions from running the hotels - Graham King, the head of Clearsprings, the firm overseeing Queens, this year became a billionaire.