Home Office spending on asylum has surged by more than a third in a year to nearly £5.4billion to hit the highest figure since records began – with 66 per cent arriving on small boats being granted leave to remain. The eyewatering bill includes all the department’s costs related to asylum, including direct cash support and accommodation, but excludes costs relating to the interception of migrants in the Channel. One factor fuelling it is the number of asylum seekers staying in hotels while they wait for their claims to be processed. An additional 6,000 migrants are in hotels since Labour entered government, with the total reaching 35,651 by the end of September.

BBC presenter Gregg Wallace will be stepping away from MasterChef while complaints from 13 people about historical allegations of misconduct including alleged inappropriate 𝑠e𝑥ual comments and jokes are investigated, it was revealed today. Wallace, 60, is ‘committed to fully cooperating throughout the process’, the show’s production company Banijay UK said. Already recorded episodes of MasterChef: The Professionals, which is currently on BBC One and featuring Wallace, will transmit as planned into December.

Sir Keir Starmer has described the UK’s net immigration reaching a new record as a ‘different order of failure’ as he accused the previous Conservative government of ‘running an open borders experiment’ in Britain. The Prime Minister held a Downing Street press conference in which he responded to shock data showing an extra 906,000 people have been added to the population in a year. Sir Keir said the previous government presided over a ‘complete loss of control’ and vowed to bring down the numbers by stopping an ‘overreliance’ on foreign workers through building up the skills of British ones.

Gregg Wallace allegedly wandered into the MasterChef studio ‘completely naked’ apart from a ‘sock pulled over his penis’ before throwing himself into a ‘silly dance’, a report claims. Wallace, 60, is also accused mimicking a 𝑠e𝑥 act in front of a member of the show’s production staff who was kneeling down to clean his trousers during filming, according to the lurid and so-far unsubstantiated allegations. The Daily Telegraph says it has spoken to a witness who claims to have seen both these alleged incidents. Gregg was also ‘very touchy feely’, the newspaper quotes the witness as saying.

A British beautician accused of smuggling £15million worth of cocaine in her suitcases, has said she accepted a free holiday to Cancun because it would be a ‘breath of fresh air’ during a difficult time at home — as she faces 60 years in jail. Kim Hall, 28, from Middlesbrough, was stopped at Chicago’s O’Hare airport as she prepared to board a connecting flight to Manchester on August 18. Homeland Security investigators found 43kg of cocaine packed in two suitcases and detained the young woman, who is being held in a safe house before her trial.