Asylum seekers could return to the Bibby Stockholm barge within days after a Legionella scare forced its evacuation, a Conservative minister has suggested.
Will Quince, the health minister, said officials would ensure the barge was safe before any asylum seekers returned to it.
His comments come after 39 people were evacuated from the vessel, in Portland, Dorset, last week after tests results showed traces of the potentially dangerous bacteria that causes Legionnaires’ disease in the barge’s water system.
The evacuation took place just days after the first migrants boarded the controversial barge, which is designed to accommodate 500 people.
“Of course public health and safety is key, but we hope in the next few days we will be able to start getting people on to the Bibby Stockholm,” Mr Quince told LBC Radio on Tuesday morning. “It is absolutely the right thing to do but public health and safety is always our paramount concern.”
However, reports suggests it could be weeks before the Home Office attempts to place migrants out of hotels and onto the barge again. Home secretary Suella Braverman’s department has launched an internal inquiry into what went wrong.
The first migrants being housed on the barge entered the vessel on 7 August – the same day the Legionella was discovered – and remained onboard for several days, sparking a major row over the government response.
Dorset Council said it informed the contractors responsible for the barge – who are employed by the Home Office – of the test results on the same day. But the Home Office said it was not formally made aware of the results until 9 August and ministers insisted they were not told until the following day.
Rishi Sunak says putting people on barges remains ‘fair’— (PA Wire)
The fiasco prompted one former Tory minister to call for Ms Braverman to be sacked for “losing control” of the Channel crisis, while another joked: “Is the government cursed?”
Bloomberg, citing government sources, said UK health authorities and civil servants repeatedly warned the Sunak government about the potential for an outbreak of an infectious disease outbreak on the barge prior to last week’s row.
Rishi Sunak avoided a question about whether he was personally warned about potential health risks for asylum seekers on board the Bibby Stockholm when asked about the mess during a hospital visit in Buckinghamshire on Tuesday.
The PM told broadcasters: “What has happened here is it is right that we go through all the checks and procedures to ensure the wellbeing and health of the people being housed on the barge.”
Mr Sunak insisted that using barges was “fair” on taxpayers, even though the cost benefit of moving people out of hotels into barges is disputed. “It is about the unfairness, in fact, of British taxpayers forking out £5m or £6m a day to house illegal migrants in hotels up and down the country.”
On small boats, he added: “I know there is a long way to go on this but I’m determined to fix this problem and we are making progress and people can be reassured we will keep at it.”
Labour also sought to make political hay out of the incident, with Stephen Kinnock, the shadow immigration minister, claiming the “Tories’ asylum chaos is going from bad to worse”.
The assistant general secretary of the Fire Brigades Union, Ben Selby, said wider safety concerns over the vessel remained, with more than a week having passed since the union asked for a meeting with Ms Braverman.
But No 10 defended the government’s handling of the incident and insisted that the barge remains an “appropriate way to find alternative accommodation to hotels”, despite condemnation from opposition parties, refugee charities and medical groups.
“We will be communicating with all relevant groups to see if there are any lessons that can be learned, as you would expect in any public health situation,” a No 10 spokesperson said. “We remain confident that we have acted quickly once informed.”
The Bibby Stockholm accommodation barge is docked at Portland Port in Dorset (PA)— (PA Wire)
In a separate interview with Sky News on Tuesday morning, Mr Quince said the Home Office and its contractors, Corporate Travel Management [CTM] and Landry and Kling, would examine why migrants remained onboard the barge for several days after the Legionella bacteria was discovered.
Mr Quince said the Home Office was on top of the issue, telling Sky News: “It is important we should always prioritise public health, that is without question.
“But that is now being addressed and I hope that we will be able to, in the coming days, address that issue and then people will be able to embark back on to the Bibby Stockholm.”
Following claims the Home Office was informed days before ministers were told about the issue, Mr Quince said: “No doubt the Home Office, alongside their contractors, will want to look at the timeline of that.
“But what I do know, as soon as ministers were made aware an immediate decision to disembark was made on public health grounds. I know that there won’t be anyone going on to the Bibby Stockholm until it’s totally safe.”
