Asylum: Housing
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what internal discussions her Department has had on the publication of data on asylum accommodation sites and occupancy levels; and under what statutory, policy and civil service frameworks decisions are made on the level of transparency applied to such information.
Answered by Alex Norris
The Home Office does not give a live commentary on the number of asylum seekers accommodated at accommodation sites.
The Home Office publishes statistics on a quarterly basis detailing the number of supported asylum seekers accommodated in each local authority area. These statistics can be found in at Immigration system statistics data tables - GOV.UK Asylum seekers in receipt of Home Office support detailed datasets, year ending March 2026.
Official statistics published by the Home Office are kept under review in line with the Code of Practice for Statistics, taking into account a number of factors including user needs, the resources required to compile the statistics, as well as quality and availability of data. These reviews allow us to balance the production of our regular statistics whilst developing new statistics for future release.
Decisions on the publication of data are also taken in accordance with the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007, alongside relevant obligations under the Freedom of Information Act 2000, the Data Protection Act 2018 and UK GDPR. Where information is not routinely published, requests for disclosure are considered on a case-by-case basis, taking account of transparency obligations as well as operational, security, safeguarding and data protection considerations.
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