A British billionaire dubbed the ‘migrant hotel king’ sees his firm rake in £3.26million of taxpayer money every day from putting up asylum seekers.
Graham King’s company Clearsprings Ready Homes is one of three providers tasked by the Government to house the wave of migrants arriving in the UK during the small boats crisis.
The lucrative contract brought the Essex-born businessman considerable wealth and last year made him Britain’s first asylum hotel billionaire.
King, a former caravan park and disco owner, is not afraid to flaunt his riches either, splashing out on a luxury London pad and a home in Monaco.
A push to move asylum seekers out of hotels and into more basic military barracks has threatened this status, causing the number of ‘service users’ in Clearsprings accommodation to plummet from 39,919 in 2025 to 29,995 this year.
But the firm’s profits are still holding strong at £37.7million in 2026 – a small drop from £44.145million last year, suggesting there’s still money to be made from migrant arrivals.
Much of this is coming at the taxpayer’s expense with thousands of asylum seekers each year requiring Government-funded accommodation.
Hundreds of migrants have crossed the English Channel in just the last few days – taking the total to 23,129 people making the journey so far in 2026.
Graham King, pictured, a British billionaire dubbed the ‘migrant hotel king’, sees his firm rake in £3.26million of taxpayer money every day putting up asylum seekers
Mr King spends a lot of his time on luxurious holidays with his Latvian girlfriend Lolita Lace
On Wednesday it was revealed that 10,136 migrants had crossed during Mr Burnham’s premiership – shredding claims that the Labour PM has a grip on the crisis.
An average of 96.5 migrants entered Britain per day – higher than the recorded averages under Rishi Sunak, Boris Johnson and Theresa May.
And companies like Clearsprings are cashing in, with the company earning £3.26million per day housing new arrivals, The Sun reports.
The firm, along with Mears and Serco, are responsible for housing Britain’s asylum seekers. Its taxpayer-funded contract is thought to be worth around £7billion.
Based in Essex, it achieved a turnover of almost £1.2billion and now has assets totalling a whopping £89million.
The company said: ‘There has been a decrease in the requirement for asylum accommodation, including contingency accommodation such as hotels, despite continued political and economic upheaval in a number of countries contributing to high levels of asylum applications in the UK during the year.’
Chris Philp MP, Shadow Home Secretary, said: ‘Labour should be removing illegal immigrants within a week of arrival, not accommodating them in hotels and flats at great expense to the British taxpayer who are shelling out more than £1 billion a year to house these illegal immigrants.
‘The Labour Government is only removing seven per cent of small boat arrivals, which means private contractors continue to profit from this failure to secure our borders. Enough is enough.
‘It’s time for the Conservative Borders Plan – leave the ECHR and then the illegal immigrants can be rapidly deported, not accommodated at extortionate cost. We must put the British taxpayer first, not illegal immigrants.’
Last month it was revealed that landlords are being offered thousands of pounds more in rent to house asylum seekers than they would receive for accommodating British families facing homelessness.
Clearsprings is offering property owners lucrative three-year deals worth more than double the amount paid by local councils, raising fears that vulnerable tenants could be priced out of homes.
In one case, a landlord in south London was offered £4,500 a month for a three-bedroom flat he was already renting to Southwark Council for just £1,790.
The bumper deal would have left him £32,520 a year better off, with the contractor also offering to cover bills, council tax and maintenance costs.
A Clearsprings site in Wethersfield, Essex, pictured, houses 800 guests and boasts a gym and a football pitch
But the landlord refused, warning that accepting the offer would mean terminating his agreement with the council and putting families at serious risk of homelessness.
The revelations have sparked fury among opposition politicians, who accused Labour of presiding over a system that puts migrants ahead of vulnerable Britons.
Shadow home secretary Chris Philp said it was a ‘day of shame’ for the Government.
Last year it was reported Clearsprings had made nearly £187million in profits since being handed a lucrative taxpayer-funded contract.
The contract runs until September 2029 and is estimated to be worth £7.3billion, having previously been valued at £1billion before a jump in small boat arrivals.
Mr King’s wealth has soared as a direct result of Britain’s ballooning asylum backlog, with the 57-year-old last year thought to have amassed a staggering £1.015billion after a 35 per cent rise in his fortune made him Britain’s first asylum hotel billionaire.
The tycoon and his Latvian girlfriend, Lolita Lace, divide their time between a luxury home in the UK and a pad in Monaco, while enjoying lavish holidays to the Caribbean and French Alps.
The former caravan park and disco owner, who grew up in Canvey Island, was first catapulted onto the Sunday Times Rich List last year after cashing in on the small boats boom.
He was last year ranked 154th in the 2025 list of the UK’s wealthiest people – rising from 221st place last year when he made his debut on the index with £750million.
A group of people thought to be migrants are brought in to the Border Security Command compound in Dover, Kent, on Friday
The migrant crisis which has engulfed Britain in recent years is showing no signs of relenting despite Labour claims that the party has a grip on numbers entering the country.
The latest arrivals come amid growing concerns over violence on the French coastline, where extraordinary footage has captured migrants punching and shoving each other in frantic attempts to board boats bound for Britain.
It comes as Shabana Mahmood on Monday unveiled her new immigration rules, which have been significantly watered down following a highly damaging battle within the Labour Party.
The Home Secretary’s proposals to make low-skilled foreign migrants wait far longer for ‘settled’ status in Britain have been rewritten after strident opposition from her party’s Left wing.
