UK Minister says he wants to see Falkirk asylum seeker hotel closed
The UK’s Minister for Border Security and Asylum has said he wants to see a former Falkirk hotel being used as asylum accommodation closed.
Alex Norris MP, Minister of State for Border Security and Asylum at the Home Office, said in parliament this week, while responding to a question from Falkirk MP Euan Stainbank, that he wants “to see that hotel closed”.
The local Labour MP had questioned when the next phase of the asylum hotel exit plan will begin, particularly urging quicker action on closing asylum hotel accommodation in Scotland.
Responding in parliament, Mr Norris said: “I am conscious of this issue, and think also of the Cladhan hotel in Falkirk and the impact on the local community, because my hon. Friend is rightly very dogged in raising this with me.
"I want to see that hotel closed. We are, of course, in the slightly better weather of the year, which puts pressure on services. “Nevertheless, we want the hotels closed. We have made a commitment to do that within this Parliament, but I say to colleagues that they will not be open a minute longer than they have to be.”
The former Cladhan Hotel in the town’s Kemper Avenue was opened for asylum accommodation by the Home Office in 2021 as part of a hotel system created under the previous Conservative government.
At one time up to 400 hotels were being used to house asylum seekers across the UK.
The current Labour government says it has begun to turn that around with the asylum backlog falling by 55 per cent in a year. They say it is now at its lowest level since 2019.
The number of people living in asylum hotels has fallen from 56,000 in September 2023 to around 20,000 as of the end of March 2026.
In Falkirk, the Cladhan has been the focus of many protests and counter protests over asylum hotels since last summer.
Mr Stainbank has welcomed the statement made in parliament by the minister.
He said: “This is a clear and welcome commitment from the Home Office minister: he wants to see the Cladhan Hotel closed.
“People in Falkirk deserve honesty about the Cladhan — how it started, what went wrong, and what is now being done to fix it.
“The use of the Cladhan did not appear out of nowhere. It was opened under the Conservative Home Office in 2021 as part of a failing response to an asylum system that they had allowed to spiral out of control.
“The contracts behind these hotels were signed off by Conservative ministers. They lost control of this system, left communities like Falkirk to live with the consequences, and now many of them are trying to rewrite history.
“Labour has inherited a broken asylum system, but we are starting to turn it around. The backlog is down, hotel use is down, costs are down, and millions in excess profits have been recovered from contractors.
“But I have been clear and consistent with ministers that national progress to bring control back to the system must mean progress for Falkirk.
“The Cladhan has had a real impact on the local community. It is wrong for those who live there and wrong for communities like Falkirk.”