Travelodge Given Almost £70m In Public Money Since 2022 Hotel Room Assault
Travelodge has been handed more than £68m of public sector money since the beginning of 2023 (Alamy)
5 min read
There are growing questions over whether Travelodge should continue to receive taxpayers' money after PoliticsHome revealed that the public sector had given the hotel chain over £68m since a woman was sexually assaulted in one of its rooms in 2022.
The amount of money given to Travelodge to provide housing has also put more pressure on the chain to face parliamentary scrutiny after its CEO recently pulled out of a planned meeting with MPs.
Labour MP Matt Bishop told PoliticsHome that "how public money is being used" should be "looked at" in light of the data.
Travelodge has been in the spotlight after a woman was sexually assaulted in one of its hotels in 2022 by a man given a key card to her room by hotel staff.
In February, Kyran Smith was jailed for seven-and-a-half years for sexually assaulting a woman in a Travelodge in Berkshire in December 2022. Smith had attended the same party as the woman and had later acquired a key card to her room after falsely claiming to hotel staff that he was the victim’s boyfriend.
Last month, Prime Minister Keir Starmer led criticism of Travelodge CEO Jo Boydell’s decision, reported by PoliticsHome, not to attend a meeting with MPs to discuss issues of room security.
While Boydell had attended a meeting earlier that week with a number of senior parliamentarians, a larger group of MPs had hoped to speak with the CEO.
Starmer wrote to Boydell last week, saying he was "very concerned" that some MPs had not been able to hear from her directly and urging the CEO to "seriously engage with MPs and my government to address the concerns that remain around best practice interventions for prevention, the training being made available, and the pace of Travelodge’s response".
At the meeting, which took place without Boydell, MPs raised concerns over whether local authorities should continue to use Travelodge to house vulnerable people, given concerns over its ability to provide security.
Now, data compiled by market intelligence provider Tussell and shared with PoliticsHome shows that the public sector has given Travelodge £68.8m since the assault in December 2022, with most of the cost relating to housing.
Taxpayers' money is given to hotel chains to house the homeless or vulnerable in order to support councils with capacity due to a lack of social housing or council-owned housing.
The £68.8m spend is made up of emergency accommodation, homeless accommodation and some staff accommodation. The vast majority (£68.5m) of the total spend was by councils, with the remaining £0.3m coming from elsewhere, including central government, the NHS, and policing.
Tussell said that spending publication is usually delayed by a couple of months, so figures for 2025 and 2026 are likely to be higher than currently reported.
The Prime Minister last week urged Travelodge to "seriously engage with MPs and my government" (Alamy)
Bishop, who has led calls for the hotel chain to be more accountable to Parliament, told PoliticsHome that the data had brought to light “the scale of public money flowing into the company”.
“Given the seriousness of the case that has been brought forward, alongside the scale of public funding involved, this is something that now needs to be looked at properly — both in terms of corporate accountability and how public money is being used.”
Bishop, who is a former police officer and has worked closely with the Travelodge victim as an MP, said that “if a company is willing to accept tens of millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money — often to house some of the most vulnerable people in our society — it must also be willing to be transparent, accountable, and engage openly with public representatives."
The Forest of Dean MP said he would be raising the issue “as part of ongoing parliamentary work and wider scrutiny of the sector”.
PoliticsHome reported last month that Bishop was working on a new law to improve hotel security following the assault, after concerns that any new guidance would not go far enough.
The proposals, set to be introduced as a Ten Minute Rule Bill, would introduce industry standards to ensure the safety of individuals staying in hotels, and it was understood that the government is willing to work with Bishop on the plans.
Boydell previously apologised to the victim and said that Travelodge had done an internal review of its security policies, making "immediate changes to ensure that an additional or replacement room key is only issued with explicit permission from the person, or people, staying in the room".
Travelodge has commissioned an independent review and agreed to work with ministers and MPs to ensure that a leading violence against women and girls expert is appointed who can work closely with the KC leading the review.
Jo Boydell, CEO of Travelodge, said: "The safety and security of guests is extremely important to me and our whole team. Our colleagues care deeply about safety, and we want everyone to be safe and feel safe in a Travelodge hotel."
She added: "We have offered that all MPs interested in this important issue can feed into the independent review in writing so their contributions can be fully taken into account. My focus now, as the CEO, is ensuring that this important work progresses thoroughly and at pace, and that we learn from the independent review and further strengthen our processes.
"We also welcome the opportunity to work with Matt Bishop and MPs, and UK Hospitality, the body for the hotel sector, on his proposed ten-minute rule bill to help strengthen hotel security for Travelodge and also the wider sector. We have written to Matt to confirm that we want to work with him and MPs on his ten-minute rule bill.
"We have a long-standing relationship with a number of local authorities who choose to use Travelodge hotels, and we want to ensure that everyone feels safe when staying with us."
