Public Law Advent Calendar #4: R (Coventry City Council) v Secretary of State for the Home Department

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R (Coventry City Council) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2025] EWHC 2929 (Admin)

In recent months, there has been a renewed focus on challenges, brought by local authorities, to the procurement by the Home Office of accommodation for asylum seekers. However, whereas cases such as Epping Forest DC v Somani Hotels Ltd [2025] EWHC 2937 have been brought on grounds relating to planning law and the need for planning permission, in November the High Court handed down its long-awaited judgment in proceedings brought by Coventry City Council where – although sparked by the Home Secretary’s particular decision to procure the Ibis Hotel in Coventry - the Council’s core complaint was based on wider public law grounds concerning the Home Secretary’s approach to dispersal, and the continuingly high number of asylum seekers being accommodated in its area.

In a decision handed down a matter of days after the Court of Appeal’s decision in Epping Forest, Eyre J (whose first instance judgement in that case the Court of Appeal had overruled) dismissed the claim on all grounds.

Background

The Immigration and Asylum Act 1999 (“the 1999 Act”) creates a variety of obligations on and powers for the Secretary of State in respect of the provision of asylum accommodation. Most relevantly, this includes the powers in sections 95(1) and (3) to provide or arrange for the provision of support to asylum seekers who appear to be destitute or who appear likely to become destitute.

Regulation 5 of the Asylum Seekers (Reception Conditions) Regulations 2005 (“the 2005 Regulations”) converts the power in section 95 into a duty:

“5.—(1) If an asylum seeker or his family member applies for support under section 95 of the 1999 Act and the Secretary of State thinks that the asylum seeker or his family member is eligible for support under that section he must offer the provision of support to the asylum seeker or his family member.”

The Secretary of State performs her obligations under the 1999 Act and the 2005 Regulations to arrange accommodation for asylum seekers through contracts with private suppliers. The evidence before the High Court was that the number of asylum seekers being accommodated under these powers had risen from 42,017 in December 2005 to a peak of 119,010 in September 2023, with 106,181 asylum seekers being accommodated in September 2024.

Historically, the Home Secretary has sought to limit the number of asylum seekers being located in any one authority’s area by reference to a maximum ratio of 1 asylum seeker for every 200 residents. However, there are a number of authorities (of which Coventry was one) where this ratio has been exceeded for some time. Following the introduction of Full Dispersal in 2022, the Home Office has been seeking to achieve a fairer distribution through the use of two additional concepts, namely:

1. The Service User Demand Plan (“the SUDP”): introduced in June 2024, this is a figure representing the number of asylum seekers that need to be accommodated in each local authority area for the total number of asylum seekers present in England, Wales and Scotland to be accommodated.
2. The Bedspace Demand Plan (“the BDP”): this figure is calculated by reference to the SUDP and is an uplift of 25% from the latter figure. It is the number of bedspaces which need to be provided in the area of a local authority so that the number of asylum seekers represented by the SUDP can be accommodated.

The issues

Against this backdrop, Coventry City Council (“the Council”) challenged the Secretary of State’s decision to procure further accommodation at the Ibis Hotel in Coventry in circumstances where it said it was already accommodating more than its fair share of asylum seekers. The challenge was brought on six grounds:

1. The Secretary of State’s representations and actions gave rise to separate substantive legitimate expectations that the number of asylum seekers accommodated in Coventry would not exceed a ratio of 1:200. It was further argued that the Council had a substantive legitimate expectation that the number of asylum seekers accommodated in Coventry would not exceed the SUDP figure, and that the number of bedspaces for asylum seekers procured in Coventry would not exceed the BDP figure for Coventry.
2. There was a procedural legitimate expectation that the Secretary of State would consult the Council before procuring accommodation in Coventry for asylum seekers in excess of the 1:200 figure of the SUDP figure.
3. The Secretary of State breached the Padfield principle in that an object of the 1999 Act was the dispersal of asylum seekers throughout the country, meaning that continuing to procure accommodation in Coventry in excess of the 1:200 ratio and the SUDP figure was ultra vires.
4. The Secretary of State breached the Public Sector Equality Duty under the Equality Act 2010.
5. The Secretary of State acted irrationally generally and in respect of the procurement of places at the Ibis Hotel.
6. The Secretary of State further breached the Council’s substantive legitimate expectations in that the Secretary of State adopted policies to the effect that the number of asylum seekers accommodated in a local authority area should not exceed either the 1:200 Ratio or the SUDP figure for that area and that bedspaces in excess of the BDP figure for any local authority area would not be procured.

Rejecting these arguments, Eyre J held that:

1. The statements about the 1:200 ratio, though repeated, were not “clear, unambiguous, and unqualified” assurances that the ratio would never be exceeded. In any event, those statements had to be seen in the context of the Home Secretary’s duty to provide accommodation for asylum seekers who were at risk of destitution. There could be no legitimate expectation that the Home Secretary would act in breach of that duty.
2. The fact that the Home Secretary had no control over the number of asylum seekers requiring accommodation was a “potent factor” against reading statements as a representation that there were fixed proportions which would not be exceeded.
3. There were a number of authorities in which the 1:200 ratio was exceeded at the date when statements about the ratio were made. It was not realistic to regard those statements as indicating that the position would change immediately.
4. Although the statements gave rise to a legitimate expectation that the Home Secretary would work towards the 1:200 ratio, the Home Secretary had not committed herself to achieving full dispersal by any particular date.
5. The SUDP and BDP were planning figures which should be seen as targets. Any legitimate expectation or policy in relation to them was at most one that the Home Secretary would genuinely seek to move to the position where the figures were not exceeded.
6. Coventry’s complaints about lack of consultation prior to the decision to stand up the Ibis Hotel were academic, given that the use of the Ibis had ceased.
7. Although it was desirable, the dispersal of asylum seekers was not an object of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999. There was, therefore, no breach of the Padfield principle.
8. Coventry’s complaint that the Home Secretary was in breach of the Public Sector Equality Duty was artificial and unrealistic. In any case, earlier equality impact assessments conducted in 2022 were sufficient to discharge the duty.

Key takeaways

The decision resolves a long-standing confusion over the legal status of the 1:200 ratio and is likely to be an important reference point for future public law disputes concerning the placement of asylum accommodation going forward. The ratio cannot be seen as an enforceable ceiling: the Secretary of State has a broad discretion to locate asylum accommodation where needed in order to meet her overarching statutory duties. A political commitment to ensuring that accommodation was distributed evenly, giving each local authority its “fair share”, cannot displace those duties, or the broad discretion conferred on the Secretary of State in deciding how to meet them in challenging circumstances.

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This article was written by Paul Brown KC.