Migrants cooking meals in dangerous conditions in their rooms and evidence of black market work have been uncovered by the BBC, in rare access inside asylum hotels.

We went into four hotels, witnessing first-hand the lives of asylum seekers - some of whom have been living in cramped rooms for years and, in that time, have given birth to babies.

Migrants who had been moved from one part of the country to another told us they were sometimes forced to travel long distances back to attend NHS appointments in taxis costing hundreds of pounds.

Housing Minister Matthew Pennycook said the BBC's findings confirmed the government must "go faster" in ending the use of asylum hotels, looking at "all options including military sites".

The BBC investigation found:

Our snapshot of conditions inside the four hotels raises wider questions for the government, with a large backlog of asylum claims having led to a reliance on this costly emergency accommodation for tens of thousands of people.

We asked the government how much it spends on taxi travel for asylum seekers through a Freedom of Information Act request, but the Home Office told us it does not keep these figures.

Mr Pennycook told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that it was "questionable" why asylum seekers needed to take such long taxi journeys and said the government would "look into those cases". But he said asylum seekers were not "ordinary citizens just jumping on a bus".

Asked why asylum seekers who had lost appeals still had access to the NHS, the minister said the government was tightening legislation "so that our immigration rules are no longer abused", because some people "cycle regularly" between multiple appeals.

All the names of the hotel residents and staff Sue Mitchell met have been changed to protect their identities

In one of the hotels, as I eat a meal cooked on the floor of a shower, I realise nothing has prepared me for what life is like for the residents of an asylum hotel.

I have been invited to join Kadir and his family for dinner - not in the hotel restaurant, but up in the rooms where he lives with his wife, Mira, and their three children.

An electric cable, covered in thick insulating tape, has been extended into the bathroom. Behind the door, Mira is crouching over a small cooker in the shower tray. Pans are precariously placed on a hob and she is stirring away.

As a pan full of oil starts to spit, I worry about the smoke alarm, but I needn't bother. The sensor in the room has been sealed tight with plastic bags.

This set-up is illegal and unsafe, but Kadir tells me his family would rather take the risk and make their own meals, than settle for the free hotel restaurant fare provided.

He dismisses that as "chips and chicken nuggets" and says hotel residents have complained it makes them feel ill.

The smell of herbs and spices wafting through the corridors seems to suggest they are not the only ones who feel this........

© BBC