Number of migrants in asylum seeker hotels falls to lowest level in 18 months as Labour Minister tells GB News: 'We are restoring order and control at our border'

However, the total number of small boat arrivals was 41,472, a 13 per cent increase from the previous year.

There were 64,426 people waiting for an initial decision on an asylum application in the UK at the end of December 2025, the lowest number in more than five years.

This is down 20 per cent from 80,841 at the end of September 2025 and a drop of nearly a half (48 per cent) from 124,802 a year earlier at the end of December 2024.

Reacting to today's figures, Minister for Border Security and Asylum Alex Norris, told GB News: "If you have no right to be in this country, you must leave.

"This country is fair, but we are firm and we enforce our rules.

"These figures show removals and deportations of illegal migrants are now at record levels.

"Nearly 60,000 people with no right to be here have been removed under this government, including the deportation of 8,700 foreign criminals.

“This includes returning people to countries that we have rarely been able to before, with a significant rise in returns to Afghanistan, Eritrea and Sudan.

"Now, we will go further. We will continue to impose visa sanctions on countries that do not accept their citizens back, and we will introduce domestic law to ensure human rights laws cannot block a legitimate removal.

"This Government is restoring order and control at our border."

It comes as the Home Office revealed Channel migrants entering the UK via small boat crossings are being waved on to British soil without strict security checks when they disembark from the new port, ushered through border security faster than you can get to work.

This is down four per cent from 104,764 in 2024, which was the highest for a calendar year since current records began in 2001.

In October, Labour announced that barracks in Scotland and southern England would be used to house around 900 men temporarily, as part of Government efforts to stop using hotels to temporarily house asylum seekers.

The number of asylum seekers in hotels peaked at 56,018 at the end of September 2023 under the then-Conservative government but dropped to a record low of 29,561 at the end of June 2024 just before the General Election.

The latest data from the Home Office showed December levels were 15 per cent lower than the previous quarter at the end of September when there were 36,273 people in hotels.

The number of work visas issued in 2025 stood at around 168,000, around a fifth lower than 2024.

Numbers have fallen following restrictions introduced by both the previous Conservative Government and the current Labour Government.

The number of refugee family reunion visa grants in the last quarter of 2025 nearly halved compared to the previous quarter, following restrictions introduced in September.