- EXCLUSIVE: Debbie Hoban was paid £2.19million in 2022, almost 10 times the £230,000 in 2021
- She now lives in a £3million farmhouse and enjoys a series of exotic travels
A former travel agent that got government contracts to house migrants in hotels during Britain’s migrant crisis is now making millions from the taxpayer – and enjoying a luxurious globetrotting lifestyle, MailOnline can reveal.
Debbie Hoban, chief executive of Leeds-based Calder Conferences, was paid £2.19million last year alone, almost 10 times that of just £230,000 in 2021, and is now one of the most prominent private company bosses to make huge sums off the UK crippling asylum seeker crisis.
She now lives in this magnificent £3million farmhouse and enjoys a series of exotic trips to events including the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix after her company was awarded a state asylum seeker deal.
And the main reason Calder Conferences’ profits tripled to more than £6million last year was the lucrative Home Office contracts awarded to Calder Conferences and other companies – which now cost taxpayers £6million a day.
Calder is among a number of companies now being paid to accommodate small boat arrivals and other asylum seekers in nearly 400 hotels across the UK.
The news came as Home Office data uncovered by the BBC showed the sheer scale of the migrant accommodation crisis, as a total of 395 hotels across the country are being used to house 51,000 asylum seekers due to a severe shortage of official accommodation.
The total bill to taxpayers is more than £6.8million a day.
According to recent reports, at least 42 of England’s 48 counties have hotels housing migrants.
The number has risen by more than 10,000 in less than three months after the Home Office cleared the Manston processing center in Kent and dispersed thousands of Canal migrants to hotels across the country.
In November, Manston, a former RAF base, became dangerously overcrowded with 4,000 migrants – more than double its capacity – after more than 30,000 migrants crossed the Channel in the last five months of 2022.
Official documents show Ms Hoban’s company received £20.6m from the Home Office in 2021, rising to £97m in 2022. Revenue for the year ending February 2022 increased to £23.66m from £5.98m and pre-tax profit tripled to £6.3m.
The deal represents a big payday for Ms Hoban, a mother of three who ran a low-key independent travel agency for the past few years before building this business.
Ms Hoban, 63, now lives with her husband Peter, 60, in a sprawling converted flour mill in West Yorkshire.
The huge and spectacular home – with a triple garage and screened with extravagant wrought iron gates – has been remodeled by the couple, with four bedrooms, a swimming pool and hot tub and a wine cellar in the basement.
The couple also connected an adjoining mill owner’s cottage to the house via a spiral glass staircase – with the finished project winning an award at the 2018 ICF Builder Awards.
Steve Bailey of builders Landmarks (UK) Ltd said of the 2018 development: “A once damp, cold, drafty and structurally unstable building of the past is now a safe, warm, cosy, sumptuous home and will be for generations to live in the future.’
Social media shows Ms Hoban enjoying lavish travel including feasting on oysters and champagne, placing her at the Abu Dhabi F1 Grand Prix.
She has also jetted to Dubai, Bhutan and India’s Taj Mahal on family trips.
She and her husband jointly own Calder Conferences Ltd through another company called Depho Estates Ltd, which, like the couple themselves, lists their son Freddy, 26, and daughter Harriet, a 24-year-old paralegal, as co-directors.
Elder son Jack, 28, resigned as director in 2019, Companies House records show.
A Home Office spokesman said: “The number of people arriving in the UK and needing accommodation has reached record levels, putting an incredible strain on our asylum system.
“The use of hotels to house asylum seekers is unacceptable – there are currently more than 51,000 asylum seekers living in hotels, costing UK taxpayers £6million a day.
“The Home Office is committed to making every effort to reduce hotel occupancy and limit the taxpayer’s burden.”
Home Office sources have indicated that Calder’s income came primarily from finding bridging hotels for Afghan refugees arriving after the Taliban takeover in 2021.
It comes as Suella Braverman, the home secretary, visited Rwanda over the weekend as she tried to restart her deadlocked plan to send Channel migrants into the country.
It’s not the first time Calder has been involved in government affairs.
In 2020, they are said to have held secret talks on behalf of the Justice Department to help house up to 2,000 prisoners at a Butlin holiday camp in Skegness to help ease the prison crisis during the pandemic.
On behalf of the MoJ, Calders representatives met with Butlin’s superiors and discussed a £10m scheme to house the low-risk prisoners in the recreational shelter.
But senior government officials scrapped the plan before it went much further.
MailOnline contacted Calder Conferences but was told: “We decline to comment.”
