Alastair Campbell corrects claim about asylum hotels following Full Fact request

Former Downing Street communications director and host of The Rest Is Politics podcast Alastair Campbell has corrected a claim he made about Labour’s record on closing so-called ‘asylum hotels’, after being contacted by Full Fact.

In a post shared on X (formerly Twitter) on 12 August Mr Campbell said: “Amazing how neither @KemiBadenoch or @RobertJenrick objected when part of the government opening up 400 asylum hotels but somehow find time to jump on the Farage bandwagon when Labour has managed to cut the number in half.”

But as we explained in a fact check earlier this week, while it is true that the number of hotels being used to house asylum seekers has decreased from a peak of over 400 in summer 2023 to 210 as of July 2025, almost all of this reduction took place before Labour came into government.

In July 2024, when Labour took office, there were 213 hotels in use, meaning that during Labour’s first year in government a net three hotels were closed.

We’re grateful to Mr Campbell for promptly correcting his post. He said: “As a strong supporter of @FullFact happy to correct this.”