A private company that helps find hotels for asylum seekers has tripled its profits to more than £6m.
Leeds-based Calder Conferences received £20.6m from the Home Office in 2021, rising to £97m in 2022, official documents show.
Turnover for the year ending February 2022 rose from £5.98m to £23.66m and pre-tax profits tripled to £6.3m.
Meanwhile, company director Debbie Hoban saw her annual remuneration increase almost tenfold to £2.2m.
Data from the Ministry of the Interior discovered by the BBC showed that a total of 395 hotels are being used to house 51,000 asylum seekers due to a shortage of official accommodation.
The total bill for taxpayers amounts to more than £6 million a day.
The four-star Novotel in Ipswich, operated by Serco, is among the hotels being used to house asylum seekers.
Of these hotels, the majority (363) are in England, 20 in Northern Ireland, 10 in Scotland and two in Wales.
Outsourcer Serco offers around 109 hotels in England, mainly in the Midlands, East and North West.
Another company, Gloucester-based Mears Group, operates 80 hotels in the north-east of England, Northern Ireland and Scotland.
The company increased its annual revenue by 22 per cent in 2021, and its annual report says this was “largely driven” by its work accommodating asylum seekers.
Asylum applications hit a nearly two-decade high of 74,751 last year, according to Interior Ministry data.
The interior of the Novotel in Ipswich. The city council lost an appeal to prevent immigrants from being accommodated there
The restaurant and breakfast area inside the Novotel
Overall, people arriving in small boats accounted for 45 percent of applications.
There have been numerous guest complaints about hotel reservations being canceled at short notice after venues were awarded government contracts.
Earlier this month, the Best Western Premier Yew Lodge Hotel in Kegworth, which includes New York Italian restaurant Marco Pierre White, was closed to the public in order to offer accommodation to 250 asylum seekers.
Locals protested the plans, claiming they were only told about the site’s closure days before the asylum seekers moved in.
There have been numerous guest complaints about hotel reservations being canceled at short notice after venues were awarded government contracts. Pictured: The Best Western Premier Yew Lodge Hotel in Kegworth, which closed earlier this month.
Rita Pearson, 75, has lived in the town for 42 years and took part in the protest with her husband Tony.
The retired administrator and grandmother of four said: ‘I feel like we are too small a town to accommodate 250 asylum seekers.
‘We know a lot of people who used to work at Yew Lodge who have been made redundant.
“We were barely notified of their arrival, so we couldn’t do much about it before they arrived. That’s why we complain now.
‘The village of Quorn in Leicestershire went through something very similar a couple of months ago when one of its hotels was taken over to house asylum seekers, but as they had Jane Hunt, the MP living in the village, the decision was overturned.
“We don’t have an MP or anyone who lives here to help us like they did, so we at Kegworth feel aggrieved by the situation.”
Leeds-based Calder Conferences received £20.6m from the Home Office in 2021, rising to £97m in 2022, official documents showed.
A Home Office spokesperson said: “The number of people arriving in the UK in need of accommodation has reached record levels and has put our asylum system under incredible pressure.
‘The use of hotels to house asylum seekers is unacceptable – there are currently over 51,000 asylum seekers in hotels costing the UK taxpayer £6 million a day.
“The Home Office is committed to making every effort to reduce hotel use and limit the burden on the taxpayer.”
Home Office sources suggested that the income earned by Calder mainly came from finding bridge hotels for Afghan refugees who arrived after the Taliban takeover in 2021.
It comes as Suella Braverman, the home secretary, visited Rwanda at the weekend as she attempted to restart her stalled plan to send Channel migrants into the country.
Home Affairs Minister Suella Braverman visited Rwanda at the weekend as she attempted to restart her stalled plan to send Channel migrants into the country.
Earlier flights were blocked by judges but hopes of a breakthrough were raised last night when Ms Braverman said she had been “encouraged” by discussions with the European Court of Human Rights.
Sources said the talks could “remove a key barrier to flights taking off” and eventually see migrants by boat sent to the East African nation.
The Interior Ministry’s inaugural flight to Rwanda was blocked at 11am by Strasbourg judges who issued an injunction, known as a ‘Rule 39’ order.
The government’s illegal migration bill sets out plans to allow ministers to ignore Rule 39 measures unless Strasbourg agrees to curb its use.