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Britain spent just under five billion pounds on asylum in a single year.

Very little of it went on deciding who can stay. Most of it went on housing people while nobody decided. An asylum appeal now takes seventy-two weeks.

This episode starts with who is actually arriving, and finishes with who is being paid. It reads the National Audit Office report, the Home Affairs Committee report, and the transcript where a member of Parliament asks a director of Mears how much money the company has handed back, and the man says: no.

Along the way: why the published crime figures cannot answer the question people ask of them, what the government's own research says about why people come here, and the contract clause that let providers keep more profit the dearer the housing got.

Every source is listed below. All of them are free to read.

CHAPTERS

00:00:00 Cold open

00:00:36 Welcome

00:01:14 Who is on the boats

00:04:37 How does anybody know that is true

00:10:56 Why here

00:14:04 What happens once they are here

00:19:07 The bill

00:22:24 Who owns the somewhere

00:30:08 What you do with it

00:32:59 Sign-off

SOURCES

Every document below is free.

National Audit Office, An analysis of the asylum system, HC 1517 — published 10 December 2025

Home Affairs Committee, Asylum accommodation, HC 580 — published 27 October 2025

Home Affairs Committee, oral evidence, HC 580 — 13 May 2025 (the exchange with Mears and Clearsprings)

Home Affairs Committee, Government Response, Third Special Report — published 22 January 2026

House of Commons Library, Small boat Channel crossings CBP-10590 — published 2 September 2026

House of Commons Library, Asylum statistics SN01403 — published 1 September 2026

Home Office, Immigration system statistics, year ending June 2026 — published 27 August 2026

Ministry of Justice, Tribunal Statistics Quarterly, April–June 2026 — published 10 September 2026

Ministry of Justice / HMPPS, Offender management statistics — published 30 July 2026

Information Commissioner's Office, Decision Notice IC-416928-D9J8 — 22 June 2026

Border Security Commander, annual report 2025–26 — published 6 August 2026

Home Office research, Asylum seeker decision-making in journeys to the UK — published 22 May 2025

Migration Observatory, Why do asylum seekers come to the UK? — 23 June 2026

Home Office guidance: Asylum screening and routing v12.0 (24 July 2024); Nationality: doubtful, disputed and other cases (24 October 2024); Permission to work and volunteering v18.0 (26 March 2026); Allocation of asylum accommodation v16.0 (29 July 2026); Charging procedures: a guide for carriers

DWP, Benefit and pension rates 2026 to 2027