Fact-checking Rylan’s small boats claims
What Rylan said:“This country is built on immigration… [Doctors and nurses] from other countries are living a great life, they’re paying into this tax system, they’re helping this country thrive.”
True. One in five NHS staff in England (20.4%) are non-UK nationals, according to the most recent 2023 figures. Migrant workers also make up nearly a third of the adult social care workforce.
“It’s not just the NHS. It’s also education, it’s house building, it’s roads, it’s everything,” explained Daniel Sohege, director of Human Rights consultancy Stand For All and a specialist in refugee law. “Without the immigration workforce, we cannot provide the infrastructure for anyone to use.”
What Rylan said: “How can it be that if I turn up at Heathrow Airport as a British citizen and I’ve left my passport in Spain, I’ve got to stand at that airport and won’t be let in. But if I arrive on a boat from Calais, I get taken to a four-star hotel?”
False. While some asylum accommodation sites were once commercial hotels with four-star ratings, those ratings cease to apply when the Home Office takes over.
Conditions in many of these facilities are dire. A 2023 Migrant Voice report described “filthy, windowless rooms,” “rancid-smelling meat,” and extreme overcrowding of up to 11-to-a-room. One resident said 24 people had to share a single toilet.
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“These are not luxury hotels by any stretch of the imagination, whatever the TripAdvisor rating might have been previously,” Sohege told Big Issue.
Lauren Starkey, an independent social worker who works with NGOs to arrange care for asylum-seeking children and young people, echoed this.
“These hotels may have been four-star when in use for the public, but when they’re taken over for asylum accommodation, all of the facilities that gave them that star rating are stripped away,” she told Big Issue. “You’re not even allowed to have a kettle in your room. I’ve worked with young people who are victims of trafficking and torture who’ve been terrified to find themselves suddenly sharing bedrooms with strangers.”
“People talk about asylum seekers getting hotels as if it’s a holiday. The reality is many are stuck there for over a year, sometimes nearly two, crammed in shared rooms with no freedom or privacy.”
What Rylan said:“When [people crossing the channel] get here, it does seem: welcome… here’s the iPad. Here’s the NHS in reception of your hotel. Here’s three meals a day. Here’s a games room in the hotel. Have a lovely time and welcome.”
False. The Home Office does not provide iPads or mobile phones to asylum seekers. Sohege dismissed this as a “complete myth.”
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Asylum seekers are entitled to free NHS care, but as Sohege points out, this is “basic medical treatment.” They cannot legally work and have no access to public funds. Those in full-board hotels receive just £9.95 per week. If in self-catered accommodation, the allowance is £49.18.
The food provision in hotels is often completely inadequate, warned Starkey.
“There are three meals a day, but the food is abominable,” she said. “I’ve worked with young people who have lost significant amounts of weight because they can’t eat it. And if you’re out at college, trying to learn English, you simply don’t eat – the hotel doesn’t hold meals back.”
What Rylan said:“You can be pro-immigration and against illegal routes.”
Misleading. Under international law, anyone has the right to claim asylum in a country signed up to the 1951 UN Refugee Convention, and remain there while their application is processed.
There is no such thing as an ‘illegal’ asylum seeker, said Sohege.
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“If Rylan would like to name the routes that people can enter the UK to seek asylum, which are approved by the government, then he would see that they really aren’t that many. People don’t have alternative routes.”
In recent years, the UK has also closed down many of the limited “legal” pathways that once existed. The Syrian resettlement scheme has ended, the Afghan scheme is no longer running, and family reunion routes have been scaled back. With no visa available for people to travel to Britain specifically to claim asylum, campaigners argue that ministers have effectively forced people into the very irregular journeys they condemn.
“Seeking asylum is not illegal under international law, regardless of your manner of entry,” Starkey added. “There is no visa to come and seek asylum, so you can’t apply to come here with that intention. People have no option other than one of these irregular routes at the moment.”
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