Asylum seekers living in hotels in Scotland: FOI release

Information requested

Could you supply all documentation held by the Scottish Government, including correspondence sent and received to/from Scottish councils, minutes/notes from meetings, briefings and analysis, about Asylum Seekers living in hotels in Scotland, from the last month?

We then requested clarification from you on 2 October 2025 to potentially narrow down the scope of the request to avoid the request reaching the upper cost limit as per your previous FOI 202500482142.

You then responded to the clarification request on 2 October to advise:

Can I get correspondence with councils about this issue, and internal correspondence which provides briefings or advice. If this is still too much, I'll just go with correspondence with councils.

Response

It may be helpful to explain that under current constitutional arrangements in the United Kingdom (UK), asylum and immigration are reserved to the UK Parliament and handled by the Home Office. Asylum and immigration are matters reserved to the UK Parliament and handled by the Home Office. This includes provision of asylum support and accommodation, decisions relating to asylum applications and no recourse to public funds conditions, as well as the design and operation of UK refugee resettlement programmes. The Scottish Government has no control over these processes.

In the UK, the term person seeking asylum, or asylum seeker, refers to someone who has lodged an application for international protection under the United Nations (UN) 1951 Refugee Convention or Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights, and is waiting for a decision from the UK Government. An asylum application is therefore a process to determine whether someone is recognised as a refugee.

Asylum is the process by which someone applies to the UK Government to have their refugee status recognised.

The Scottish Government holds some information in relation to your request. Some of this information is shared for operational planning purposes. We have reviewed this and while some of the information does relate to asylum seekers living in hotels, on this occasion an exemption under sections 28(i), 30(i) section 30(ii) and section 30(iii) of FOISA applies to that information. This is because there is significant risk that releasing the data we have would damage the Scottish Government’s relationship with local authorities in Scotland, as well as the UK Government. This could potentially result in the Scottish Government being excluded from future information sharing at meetings. The significant risk of Scottish Ministers being excluded from future information sharing would inhibit the provision of free and frank advice to Ministers and officials and impact the effective conduct of public affairs.

Under section 25(1) of FOISA, we do not have to give you information which is already reasonably accessible to you. If, however, you do not have internet access to obtain this information from the website(s) listed, then please contact me again and I will send you a paper copy. Some of the information you have requested in relation to information sent and received to/from Scottish councils, minutes/notes from meetings, briefings and analysis, about Asylum Seekers living in hotels in Scotland, from the last month has been published online and is the final version of the Minister for Equalities, Kaukab Stewart MSP response to the below debate, parliamentary questions and newspaper article request.

1. Please see the below link to the Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party Debate: Impact of Accommodating Asylum Seekers on Scottish Local Government on 10 September 2025. Minister of Equalities, Kaukub Stewart MSP provided a statement:

Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party Debate: Impact of Accommodating Asylum Seekers on Scottish Local Government | Scottish Parliament TV

2. Please also see the below link to two following parliamentary questions requested by Carol Mochan MSP which discusses asylum accommodation. The published response from the Minister for Equalities, Kaukab Stewart MSP was provided on 23 September 2025. provide written answer which can be found below:

Written question and answer: S6W-40508 | Scottish Parliament Website
Written question and answer: S6W-40509 | Scottish Parliament Website

3. On 9 September 2025, the Minister for Equalities provided a statement to the Daily Record in response to the Home Office halving the amount of time asylum seekers can remain in UKG asylum accommodation. The response is provided below:

Crackdown on asylum seeker hotels could force thousands of refugees to Scotland - Daily Record

About FOI

The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at https://www.gov.scot/foi-responses.