Illegal migrants are being given free cooking lessons, sewing machines, and orchestra training for their mental health, GB News can reveal.
Part of the Home Office plans include building an illegal migrant “ensemble” of musicians to create a “new, multicultural sound for 21st Britain”.
A Home Office report, seen by this news channel, promotes various free initiatives for migrants in hotels for their mental health.
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The report, from the Home Office’s Asylum Mental Health and Wellbeing Team, entitled "Workstreams, Tools and Case Studies: 2025 Edition", promotes a series of "good practice" initiatives for migrants, many of whom are housed in taxpayer-funded hotels across the UK.
The document, published on 12 August, raises concerns that offering such free schemes could cause “social backlash in the local communities, in the context of recent social unrest and anti-asylum-seeker rhetoric in social media, as well as community tensions around local resources”.
The memo highlights programmes such as the Community Kitchen Project, where migrants in hotels are given free opportunities to cook meals from their own cultures, complete with ingredients provided, and sessions aimed at "promoting community cohesion" between different ethnic groups.
Over 50 sessions have been held since July 2023 around migrant hotels in Surrey, with nearly 600 residents attending, and the model has been replicated in male-only hotels in West Sussex.
Migrants were also offered the provision of Afghan food as a nod to their cultural heritage, GB News can reveal.
Migrant hotel data has shown that there has been an increase in the amount of asylum seekers in hotels since Starmer came into power | Stand for our Sovereignty / Facts4EU.orgIn response to the report, Robert Bates, founder and Research Director of the Centre for Migration Control, told GB News: “A 'multicultural sound of 21st century Britain' sounds absolutely ghastly - a cacophony of nonsense.”
“The only music these people should be anywhere near is the music of an airport departure lounge.”
He continued: "The Home Office simply does not realise that the British public are sick of this farce. Young men who have broken into our country are being presented with a smorgasbord of benefits that they do not deserve.
“The only thing we should be giving these men is a bed in a detention facility - for a maximum of two weeks - whilst we arrange their deportation.”
“The country is at the end of its tether and this Home Office has no democratic legitimacy to be peddling this nonsense.”
Another initiative, the One World Orchestra, delivers music workshops in hotels, featuring singing, percussion, instrument lessons and recorded music shared by participants.
The Home Office says the objective of the project is “to build a professional ensemble of diverse musicians to bring a higher profile to the wealth of musical talent in the country and to create a new, multi-cultural sound for 21st century Britain”.
Almost 1,200 illegal migrants arrived in the UK after crossing the English Channel on Saturday | GETTYThe report also praises support from groups like the St Vincent de Paul Society, which provides migrants with free mobile phones "to keep in touch with family still in their home countries", clothing, toiletries, pushchairs, suitcases, beard trimmers, shopping vouchers, sewing machines, bicycles and even Afghan food to "recognise asylum seeker heritage".
This is supplemented by English-language lessons, social events, trips, craft meetings and access to cricket, football and sports facilities.
The Home Office document also showcases programmes like EFL in the Community, which leverages football’s popularity to "foster connectedness" between illegal migrants and local communities.
Connor Tomlinson, a commentator and host of Tomlinson Talks on YouTube, said: “Britain's asylum system is already egregiously lenient. Foreign criminals are treated like visiting princes: given hotel rooms, healthcare, and legal aid at our expense.
“The government and civil service are addicted to the ideology of universal human rights: believing that a cricket match, cello lesson, or powerpoint slide on women's rights will make thousands of Afghans indistinguishable from British people.
“They see "social backlash" from the public forced to pay for this as the real problem, but nothing will worsen "community cohesion" more than the number of alleged sex crimes committed against women and girls by unvetted foreign males housed in luxury accommodation.
"Illegal immigrants don't deserve smartphones or discos. They deserve to be detained and swiftly deported."
The report also details tools like the Global Mental Health Assessment Tool (GMHAT), piloted for asylum seekers, and grants for therapeutic support, with the team inviting more "good practice" examples via email.
The revelations come amid soaring costs for migrant hotels, with more than 38,000 asylum seekers housed in them as of December 2024.
The Home Office was approached for comment.