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The Home Office "cut corners" and made "a series of poor decisions", whilst under pressure to stop migrants being housed in hotels, when it paid £15m for an asbestos-contaminated derelict prison, the government's spending watchdog has said.

The Home Office said the report related to the actions of the last government and that it remained "committed to ending the use of hotels and... achieving better value for the taxpayer".

In December 2022, then-prime minister Rishi Sunak delivered a statement in Parliament in which he vowed to end the use of hotels to house asylum seekers, saying that the government would "work to achieve this as quickly as possible".

It added that, the following January, a decision to acquire Northeye was taken by a small group of ministers and officials from across Whitehall, despite the "technical due diligence and approvals process not having been undertaken".

The group included the minister for immigration and the chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, the report said, positions then held by Robert Jenrick and Oliver Dowden.