The Home Office is to end its contract with a hotel where unaccompanied asylum-seeking children have gone missing, a council leader has said.
The leader of Brighton and Hove City Council, Bella Sankey, has said that the Home Office will end its contract with a Hove hotel to house unaccompanied young people on Thursday 30 November.
Cllr Sankey posted on X: “The Home Office’s contract with a hotel in Hove to house unaccompanied children seeking asylum will end on Thursday.
“This is an important milestone for our council and for our city.
“Because Brighton and Hove Labour and Brighton and Hove City Council took action, this inhumane policy is coming to an end.”
The move comes after the council launched legal action against the government in June after the Home Office planned to reopen the hotel despite 50 children “still unaccounted for”.
Sussex Police confirmed that 139 young people had gone missing from Hove since July 2021, and 90 children had been found.
On 27 July, the High Court ruled that the practice of placing single child asylum seekers in hotels had been unlawful for more than 18 months.
Mr Justice Chamberlain said the practice was unlawful because the power to place children in hotels ‘can be used for very short periods in genuine emergency situations’.
The Home Office maintains that the best place for unaccompanied children to be housed is within a local authority.
A Home Office spokesman said: “Due to the increase in dangerous small boat crossings, the government has had no choice but to urgently use hotels to house unaccompanied asylum-seeking children while they await placement with local authorities.
“We are making every effort to end the use of expensive hotels, which cost the taxpayer £8.2 million a day, including opening ex-military sites and the Bibby Stockholm.”