Afternoon summary
The first group of asylum seekers due to be housed on the Bibby Stockholm barge in Portland, Dorset, have been taken onboard. Given that polling suggests voters are more likely than not to see this as an acceptable option for single, male migrants, ministers may view the arrivals as a success. But the news coincided with No 10 having to in effect disown reports saying the government was seriously considering sending asylum seekers to Ascension Island, only hours after a Home Office minister claimed this option was on the table. (See 12.31pm.) Labour said the government media strategy for the week was “descending into chaos”. (See 2.48pm.)
Labour has revealed that the number of asylum seekers in hotel accommodation has risen by 25% since Rishi Sunak said, in December, that he wanted to stop the practice. (See 2.48pm.)
Increasing fines for illegally employing migrants 'likely to be counter-productive', says migration expert
Earlier Colin Yeo, an immigration barrister, posted tweets critical of the government’s plan to increase the fines for employers and landlords who employ or house migrants who do not have a lawful immigration status. (See 11.18am.) He has firmed up his view in a post on his Substack account in which he says the proposals are likely to be counter-productive and could have “disastrous consequences”.
You can read the post (for free, or by taking out a subscription) here. And here is an extract.
There is no evidence that the existing system is working or that increasing the level of fines will improve the effectiveness of the system. In fact, there is reason to think that increasing the level of fines might make the system less effective in that good faith employers will not know any better what they are supposed to do and may well end up being closed down by this change. It is unlikely to have any impact on serial offender employers.
If the increase in the level of fines is about raising more revenue, there is reason to think that it will fail at that as well, because the new fines would simply lead a lot of employers to close or go bankrupt. Trying to pay a fine of £15,000 per worker was hard enough for a small employer. Paying £45,000 per worker is simply going to be impossible.
This sort of measure has become the hallmark of this fag-end government. It sounds tough. In reality it is likely to be counter-productive. It may well have unintended and disastrous consequences for individuals and employers acting in good faith but caught out by incredibly complex and ever-changing immigration law requirements.
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Government previously ruled out sending asylum seekers to Ascension Island due to £1m per head cost, Rees-Mogg reveals
Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg, the former leader of the Commons and former business secretary, has said that sending asylum seekers to Ascension Island would be “impossibly expensive”. In an interview with GB News, he said he was involved in the talks on whether this was feasible when he was in government, and ministers concluded it would cost around £1m a head. He explained:
I was involved in some of the discussions looking at this whilst I was a member of the government and unfortunately it would cost at least a million pounds per person you sent there to do it …
You’ve got to send out Portakabin residences for your builders, then you’ve got builders who have to live there whilst they’re doing the building, then you have to build the premises for the migrants to live in, then you’ve got to persuade people that they want to go and live on Ascension Island for long periods to run the centre.
And the costs just went up and up and up and up. And that’s why when I was involved in the discussions, it was just thought to be impossibly expensive to do.
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SNP council leader condemns Home Office plan to put asylum seekers on barge in Glasgow
Susan Aitken, the SNP leader of Glasgow city council, says the UK government wants to put asylum seekers on a barge in her city. The council will not allow that, she says.
The UK government wants @GlasgowCC to give consent to an asylum barge being sited in the city. We will not give it. Glasgow’s communities are proud to be beacons of support and integration for asylum seekers & refugees. This is the polar opposite of that https://t.co/cOyRsowyaD
— Susan Aitken (@SusaninLangside) August 7, 2023
Aitken’s comment has been retweeted by Humza Yousaf, Scotland’s first minister.
As the National reports in its story on this, Edinburgh city council has already told the Home Office that it is opposed to plans to put asylum seekers on a cruise ship docked at Leith.
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Portland town council mayor condemns conditions for people on Bibby Stockholm barge
Carralyn Parkes, the Labour mayor of Portland town council, has condemned the conditions on the barge being used to house asylum seekers in her local port. She told Sky News:
It’s awful to think that this government, in the 21st century, would even consider housing some of the most vulnerable people in the world on a barge in Portland Port.
She said that the barge was designed to house 220 people, but that it would now be taking more than twice as many people. She went on:
I took a tape measure on board with me when I went on the Bibby Stockholm. I measured three of the cabins and they averaged around 10 feet by 12 feet. They’ve got bunk beds and so you’re talking about two people being accommodated in these rooms.
The rooms are small, the bunk beds are small as well, the mattresses are about six feet long. So if you’re a tall person, you’ve got a problem.
The bathrooms are clearly made for one person. They’re not made for two people.
Originally they were talking about accommodating people between three and six months. Now it’s nine.
So you’re not talking about it being a short-term solution. It’s going to be somebody’s living space for a considerable amount of time.
The corridors are narrow, everything is small.
Parkes also said the port was a secure area, which meant “you can’t just wander in and out of it”. The asylum seekers would have to be bused in and out, she said. And they would have to go through airport-style security. So in practice they would not have complete freedom of movement, she said.
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The Green party says that, instead of having a week of announcements linked to its “stop the boats” strategy, the government should instead make it “welcome refugees week”. Benali Hamdache, the party’s spokesperson on migration and refugees, said:
No barge is a suitable home for refugees. Most people who reach our shores and claim asylum are doing so completely legitimately due to fleeing war, persecution, discrimination or climate breakdown. The vast majority are desperate people who need to be met with compassion. Housing them in a barge is to treat them as prisoners and is heartless.
The Green party would open safe and legal routes for asylum seekers. With such routes many refugees would not be forced into making a dangerous crossing of the English Channel.
We want this week and every week to be ‘Welcome Refugees Week’.
The Greens say they would house refugee families in houses or flats, and single asylum seekers in a room of their own if they were in shared accommodation. The party would also allow them to work while their applications were being processed.
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The British Red Cross has joined Amnesty International UK (see 3.20pm) in putting out a statement today criticising the government’s decision to house asylum seekers on a barge. Alex Fraser, the charity’s UK director for refugee support and restoring family links, said:
We know from our work supporting men, women and children seeking asylum that these sites will be entirely inappropriate for people and will lead to significant suffering.
People who have been forced to flee their homes have already experienced unimaginable trauma. They need stability, support, to be able to maintain contact with their loved ones and to feel safe.
We find ourselves in this position as a direct result of the failure to tackle the asylum backlog, with over 172,000 people living in limbo. We need a more effective and compassionate asylum system, one that supports people to integrate into a community so they can find safety and live in dignity.
Greenpeace accuses No 10 of 'bunker mentality' after it was banned from meetings with Defra over protest at PM's home
Greenpeace has accused Downing Street of a “bunker mentality” after it said the campaign group should not have “a seat at the table in discussions with government” following its protest on the roof of the PM’s home in Yorkshire. (See 1.23pm.) Will McCallum, Greenpeace’s UK co-executive director, said:
Burying your head in the sand isn’t going to make the climate crisis go away.
It’s precisely because the government has effectively shut the door to civil society groups, like Greenpeace, as well as ignoring warnings from the UN, its own advisers and the International Energy Agency, that we need to protest in the way that we do.
The bunker mentality on display from this current government is deeply damaging – cutting ties with Greenpeace isn’t going to help. We represent the views of millions of our supporters and have a mandate to hold the government to account.
A reader has been in touch to point out that, according to the Portland History website, a prison ship was docked in Portland harbour from 1997 to 2005. HM Prison Weare was a category C prison for adult men. It looked very like the Bibby Stockholm.
Amnesty International UK has restated its opposition to asylum seekers being housed in barges. Commenting on the first people arriving on the Bibby Stockholm, Steve Valdez-Symonds, the charity’s refugee and migrants rights director, said:
It seems there’s nothing this government won’t do to make people seeking asylum feel unwelcome and unsafe in this country.
Reminiscent of the prison hulks from the Victorian era, the Bibby Stockholm is an utterly shameful way to house people who’ve fled terror, conflict and persecution.
Housing people on a floating barge is likely to be re-traumatising and there should be major concerns about confining each person to living quarters the typical size of a car parking space.
Labour’s shared values with Democrats will aid UK-US trade deals, says shadow minister
Labour’s ideological closeness to the Democrats puts the party in an ideal position to sign trade deals with the US should both parties win their elections next year, Nick Thomas-Symonds, the shadow trade secretary, has said. Kiran Stacey has the story here.
Labour says hotel use by asylum seekers has risen by 25% since Sunak said in December he would stop it
The Labour party has just put out a news release claiming that the government’s small boats media week is “descending into chaos”. The statement is mostly about figures showing that hotel use for asylum seekers has gone up since December, when Rishi Sunak said he wanted to end the practice, but Labour is also citing the duff briefing about Ascension Island (see 12.31pm) as evidence of “chaos”.
In December, as part of a package of measures intended to “stop the boats”, Sunak said: “It’s unfair and appalling that we are spending £5.5m every day on using hotels to house asylum seekers. We must end this.”
But Labour says Home Office figures show that on 30 June there were 50,546 asylum seekers in hotel accommodation, which it says marks a 25% increase on the figure for December (around 40,000).
Yvette Cooper, the shadow home secretary, said:
Rishi Sunak is failing to fix the Tories’ boats chaos and the Conservatives are just flailing around chasing headlines rather than getting a grip.
The prime minister admitted last December that hotel use was a serious problem and promised to end it, but instead since then it has gone up by a truly shocking 25% with more asylum hotels still opening, and the taxpayer having to pay billions more pounds as a result. This is the direct consequence of Tory mismanagement and their disastrous failure to speed up asylum decisions or clear the backlog which is still at a record high.
On Ascension Island, Labour said:
With no workable plan, the government has resorted to reheating proposals that were floated – and abandoned – three years ago to send asylum seekers to the Ascension Island. Despite clear briefings to the media yesterday, the Home Office already seem to be retreating from this this morning.
Labour is assuming that the government wanted the Times and the Daily Mail to splash on the Ascension Island story this morning. Perhaps it did. But it is equally possible that this was just a cock-up. Lobby journalists do publish stories that have not been sanctioned by No 10, and when Sarah Dines, a junior minister, confirmed the stories this morning (see 9.33am), maybe she just did not know what she was meant to say.
Labour is also criticising Dines for confirming that section of the Illegal Migration Act saying the home secretary is under a duty to remove migrants who arrive in the UK illegally to a third country has not yet come into force. Originally this law was meant to apply to people arriving from 7 March. But No 10 has defended this delay, on the grounds that until the supreme court says people can be deported to Rwanda, detaining people and removing them, using the terms of the Act, won’t be possible.
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GB News faces four more Ofcom investigations over impartiality rules
GB News is being investigated for four further potential breaches of impartiality rules, as the media regulator, Ofcom, struggles with the rightwing channel’s willingness to push the boundaries of British broadcasting rules, Jim Waterson reports.
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Harry Cole from the Sun says the government did take advice on whether it could send asylum seekers to Ascension Island, but was told this would be unworkable.
Right some clarity, of sorts, on Ascension Islands.
Advice sought at HO on using it since change of government last October.
That has come back – and by all accounts says its unworkable and not going to happen.
Not formally been ruled out at ministerial level - but see above.
Right some clarity, of sorts, on Ascension Islands.
— Harry Cole (@MrHarryCole) August 7, 2023
Advice sought at HO on using it since change of Government last October.
That has come back - and by all accounts says its unworkable and not going to happen.
Not formally been ruled out at ministerial level - but see above.
Officially No10 will not comment on ongoing discussions about any other Rwanda style agreements elsewhere.
But off the record the Ascension Islands is in the bin, yet bizarrely government won’t just say that.
A cynic would suggest they are happy to let the hollow threat run.
Officially No10 will not comment on ongoing discussions about any other Rwanda style agreements elsewhere.
— Harry Cole (@MrHarryCole) August 7, 2023
But off the record the Ascension Islands is in the bin, yet bizarrely Government won't just say that..
A cynic would suggest they are happy to let the hollow threat run..
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Photograph: Finnbarr Webster/Getty Images
The refugee charity Care4Calais, which is supporting some of the asylum seekers who have been told they are being moved to the Bibby Stockholm, says it has stopped around 20 people being moved on to the barge, Sky News reports.
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No 10 confirms government still talking to some other countries about taking asylum seekers from UK
Here are more lines from the Downing Street lobby briefing.
The PM’s spokesperson confirmed that the government is talking to other countries to see if they would be able to take asylum seekers arriving in the UK, as Rwanda says it will. The Times claims there have been talks with Ghana, Nigeria, Namibia, Morocco and Niger. The spokesperson would not confirm those names, or say what other countries were being considered. But he did say some EU countries were also engaged in similar talks. Asked specifically about Niger, where they has recently been a coup, he said that any agreement would have to be with a safe third country.
The spokesperson said it was wrong to say that Rwanda has said it could only take 200 asylum seekers from the UK. He said that report just referred to a specific site, and that Rwanda was “more than capable” of taking more people.
The spokesperson said the government was keeping dangerous dogs legislation under review. That was in response to a question about the Daily Mirror’s campaign calling for the laws to be tightened.
The spokesperson backed the decision by the environment secretary, Thérèse Coffey, to stop her department engaging with Greenpeace after it staged a protest at the PM’s home in Yorkshire. “We don’t think that people accused of breaking the law should have a seat at the table in discussions with government,” the spokesperson said.
The spokesperson would not confirm a claim from Sir Iain Duncan Smith, the former Tory leader and China hawk, that China installed a tracking device in at least one official government car. But the spokesperson said “very comprehensive security measures” were in place.
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This is what the PM’s spokesperson said at the Downing Street lobby briefing when asked if Sarah Dines, the Home Office minister, was right to say this morning that 500 asylum seekers could be on the Bibby Stockholm barge by the end of the week. (See 9.33am.)
My understanding, and I think the Home Office have sought to clarify, that is about the upward capacity of the Bibby Stockholm rather than the numbers we are looking to get in by the end of the week.
Numbers will increase over time as you would expect for any new asylum facility.
Asked whether the minister misspoke, the spokesperson replied:
All I would say is that my understanding is that the Bibby Stockholm has an upward capacity of 500.
We are looking to [reach] that number over time – I don’t think we are aiming to do it by the weekend.
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Pro-migrant campaigners in Portland have been delivering welcome packs to the Bibby Stockholm barge for asylum seekers.
Photograph: Finnbarr Webster/Getty Images
No 10 says minister wrong about 500 migrants being on barge by Sunday, and implies Ascension Island proposal not serious
That didn’t take long. While the No 10 “small boats week” media operation seemed to be going quite well at 8am this morning, by noon it was looking less of a triumph.
In her media round this morning Sarah Dines, the Home Office minister, confirmed in effect that the government was considering sending asylum seekers to Ascension Island (see 9am) and said that the Home Office hoped to have 500 migrants on the Bibby Stockholm by the end of the week (see 9.33am).
The Downing Street lobby briefing has now finished, and on both these points No 10 was in corrective mode.
The PM’s spokesperson made it clear that the government does not expect to have 500 asylum seekers on the Bibby Stockholm by the end of the week. Asked about background briefing from the Home Office saying Dines misspoke (see 11.24am), the spokesperson said the 500 figure referred to the “capacity” of the barge, not the number of people expected to be in it by Sunday. Asked when it would be full, he replied: “I don’t think we are setting a deadline for that.”
The spokesperson played down suggestions that the government was seriously considering sending people to Ascension Island. Asked about these reports, the spokesperson said the government was “confident” it would win its case at the supreme court and be allowed to remove migrants to Rwanda. Asked specifically about the Ascension Island proposal, the spokesperson refused to discuss the story, claiming it was not appropriate to discuss specific other country options. But he did not repeat what Dines said about “all possibilities being considered”, and reporters at the briefing came away with the clear impression that this is not a proposal being taken seriously within government.
I will post more from the lobby briefing soon.
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First asylum seekers confirmed to have arrived on Bibby Stockholm barge
Here is Rajeev Syal’s story about the first asylum seekers arriving on the Bibby Stockholm.
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The first asylum seekers have arrived on the Bibby Stockholm barge in Portland, Ali Fortescue from Sky News is reporting.
Breaking: Understand the first of the migrants have arrived on the Bibby Stockholm barge in Portland. More are expected to arrive later today.
— Ali Fortescue (@AliFortescue) August 7, 2023
BREAKING: Sky News understands the first migrants have arrived on the Bibby Stockholm barge in Portland, and more are expected to arrive later today.
— Sky News (@SkyNews) August 7, 2023
Sky's @AliFortescue has more on the story👇
Latest: https://t.co/Vc9cs8Ew1Z
📺 Sky 501, Virgin 602, Freeview 233 and YouTube pic.twitter.com/D9rcXT9WTz
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According to a report in the Times, Liz Truss named 16 people on her original honours list – four for peerages, and 12 people getting other honours. Two people have declined, but there are still 14 names on the list, the Times says, one person for every four days she was in office.
The Labour MP Chris Bryant says resignation honours lists should be abolished.
Why on earth do we have ‘resignation honours lists’ ?
— Chris Bryant (@RhonddaBryant) August 7, 2023
At least two people said to have declined resignation honours from Liz Truss https://t.co/50hpvBwPBC
Diane Abbott, who is currently suspended from the parliamentary Labour party, says it is “outrageous” that Truss gets to give out honours.
Outrageous that Liz Truss gets an honours list after only 55 days as PM and will shamelessly dish out completely undeserved honours to her friends pic.twitter.com/0yLDcPO9WE
— Diane Abbott MP (@HackneyAbbott) August 7, 2023
And the Lib Dem peer Paul Tyler says it would make more sense to let the lettuce produce an honours list instead.
The Lettuce would have a better right to hand out honours ...... and would choose better legislators! https://t.co/a1UHbxc1Ci
— Paul Tyler (@PTylerLords) August 7, 2023
The Home Office’s rebuttal team have been busy this morning. According to Harry Cole, the Sun’s political editor, they are privately briefing that the reports about people possibly being sent to Ascension Island are nonsense.
Bit of an awkward morning for the Home Office... Junior minister on the radio saying they are “looking at everything” when quizzed on Ascension Island migrant yarn But spin-doctors trying to kill the story saying its nonsense and never going to happen and was abandoned in 2020
Bit of an awkward morning for the Home Office...
— Harry Cole (@MrHarryCole) August 7, 2023
Junior minister on the radio saying they are "looking at everything" when quizzed on Ascension Island migrant yarn
But spin-doctors trying to kill the story saying its nonsense and never going to happen and was abandoned in 2020
Cole says they are also saying Sarah Dines, the Home Office minister, misspoke when she said the Bibby Stockholm could be housing 500 asylum seekers by the end of the week.
Home Office minister said there could be 500 migrants on the Bibby Stockholm by the weekend.. Dines: “Yes, quite possibly it will be 500. We are hoping.” Now told by the Home Office that she “misspoke” and the 500 target is not this week but overall.
Oh dear.. it continues
— Harry Cole (@MrHarryCole) August 7, 2023
Home Office minister said there could be 500 migrants on the Bibby Stockholm by the weekend..
Dines: "Yes, quite possibly it will be 500. We are hoping."
Now told by the Home Office that she "misspoke" and the 500 target is not this week but overall. https://t.co/EBB91IZHvy
We will get the on the record line from No 10 at the lobby briefing, which starts shortly.
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Plan to allow barn conversions without planning permission ‘would destroy England’s national parks
England’s national parks would be “destroyed” by proposed government rules that would allow landowners to convert barns into houses without planning permission, critics have said. Helena Horton has the story here.
Colin Yeo, a barrister specialising in immigration law, has posted a good thread on Twitter on the government’s plans to increase the fines for employers or landlords who employ or house people without a lawful immigration status.
He says that, even at their current levels, many of these fines never get paid, because businesses just close instead, and that a report from the independent chief inspector of borders and immigration four years ago suggested that fines should be decreased, not increased, to improve compliance.
Excellent article from 2020 by @john_vassiliou1 on why the current system of fines for employers doesn't work and (implicitly) why massively increasing the fines is a bad idea: https://t.co/SBImzdAu6m
— Colin Yeo (@ColinYeo1) August 7, 2023
Analysis from 2019 by @mckinneytweets on the fact that around half of existing employer fines go uncollected. Increasing the level of fines seems likely to reduce that percentage further as many businesses will simply close or fold in response https://t.co/GnF7tCnaED
— Colin Yeo (@ColinYeo1) August 7, 2023
The last @IndependentCI report looking at Home Office enforcement on illegal working activities, from 2019, was damning. https://t.co/y9wjUQ4Edi pic.twitter.com/Lf26GnYRN6
— Colin Yeo (@ColinYeo1) August 7, 2023
I'd like to know if the Home Office actually followed through on any of the six recommendations made by @IndependentCI back in 2019. One of which was to consider *lowering* the level of the fees because they might be having a perverse effect: pic.twitter.com/wsRIf7RNfJ
— Colin Yeo (@ColinYeo1) August 7, 2023
Here is an extract from the report cited by Yeo.
Inspectors heard different views from IE [immigration enforcement’ senior managers about whether the current level of a civil penalty was appropriate. Some thought it acted as a definite deterrent, but others said it was too high, as having to pay £15,000 to £20,000 would bankrupt many companies. Companies that were already largely compliant needed the “nudge” of a smaller fine rather than a large penalty, and the latter should be reserved for those companies that consistently and knowingly flouted the immigration laws.
Labour shadow ministers have not found it easy to explain their policy on housing asylum seekers on barges. In an interview yesterday Stephen Kinnock, the shadow immigration minister, said that if migrants were housed in barges or former army camps when Labour took office, it would not be able to remove them immediately, but that it would hope to end the practice quickly, as it tackled the backlog of asylum claims. With the nuance missing, this became a splash headline in the Metro saying: “Labour – we’ll use migrant barges too.”
METRO: Labour- we’ll use migrant barges too #TomorrowsPapersToday pic.twitter.com/tCiGCczlG5
— Neil Henderson (@hendopolis) August 6, 2023
Nick Thomas-Symonds, the shadow international trade secretary, gave an interview to the Today programme this morning and he was evasive when asked if Labour was in favour of asylum seekers being housed on the Bibby Stockholm barge today or this week.
But he did say that, in principle, Labour was not in favour of an asylum system that required the use of barges as accommodation. He said:
We do not wish to run and will not run an asylum system that requires the use of bases, barges or indeed of hotels. Those are being used as additional accommodation because of the failure of the Conservatives to run our asylum system properly over many years.
Thomas-Symonds claimed that these forms of accommodation were being used because of the government’s failure to process asylum claims swiftly.
Sunder Katwala, who runs British Future, a thinktank focusing on migration and identity issues, says there is no realistic prospect at all of the government sending asylum seekers to Ascension Island, at least before the general election. He posted this on what most of us still call Twitter.
Any commentator who treats the ludicrous Ascension Island “proposals” as having even a 1% chance of happening before general election shows themselves to be either entirely unserious (if actually believed that) or deeply cynical (if just pretending it could happen)
Any commentator who treats the ludicrous Ascension Island "proposa)s" as having even a 1% chance of happening before General Election shows themselves to be either entirely unserious (if actually believed that) or deeply cynical (if just pretending it could happen)
— Sunder Katwala (@sundersays) August 7, 2023
SD may be (a) https://t.co/B1IjHgxsDu
He also says the last time this proposal was floated in the media, three years ago, there were claims it might have been leaked to discredit the then home secretary, Priti Patel.
In Autumn 2020, @conhome suggested this highly implausible brainstorm had been leaked to discredit Patel and the Home Office. Maybe was then. Its clear that this new Mail splash & Times story in August 2023 are government’s idea with Home Office quotes
In Autumn 2020, @conhome suggested this highly implausible brainstorm had been leaked to discredit Patel and the Home Office. Maybe was then. Its clear that this new Mail splash & Times story in August 2023 are government's idea with Home Office quoteshttps://t.co/vbowU4vAIc
— Sunder Katwala (@sundersays) August 6, 2023
Prof Dame Jenny Harries, chief executive of the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA), told the Today programme that her organisation has a migrant team that expects to visit the Bibby Stockholm barge once the first asylum seekers have been moved there. Most of them would have a health assessment before they arrived, she said. She went on:
We know the accommodation complies with marine standards, which is what’s been agreed is correct for the particular accommodation.
Generally respiratory infections, as we’ve all learnt through the pandemic, are at higher risk in confined settings with poorer ventilation, so the sorts of things we look at is what the ventilation is like.
We will actually have a visit, and I know the Home Office have agreed to that, once the migrants are there to check out some of the infection prevention control.
Up to 500 asylum seekers could be on Bibby Stockholm barge by end of week, says minister
In her interviews this morning Sarah Dines, the Home Office minister, was asked about the asylum seekers who will be placed on the Bibby Stockholm barge in Portland. Here are the main points she made.
Dines refused to confirm that the first asylum seekers would be moved onto the barge today, although she would not deny that either. On the Today programme she said they would be moving in “pretty soon, imminently, this week, in the coming days”. Asked why she could not just say it would be today, she told LBC she could not be specific “for security and operational reasons”.
She said the Home Office hoped to have 500 asylum seekers on the barge by the end of the week. On the Today programme, asked if 500 people would be on the Bibby Stockholm by the end of the week, she replied:
Yes, quite possibly it will be 500. We are hoping.
She said the government was putting asylum seekers on a barge because it wanted to show that people coming to the UK on small boats would not end up in “luxurious” accommodation. She told Sky News:
[Using a barge] sends is a forceful message that there will be proper accommodation but not luxurious.
Luxurious hotel accommodation has been part of the pull, I’m afraid. There have been promises made abroad by the organised criminal gangs and organisations which have tried to get people into the country unlawfully and they say: ‘You will be staying in a very nice hotel in the middle of a town in England.’
That needs to stop and the barge is just one of a wide range of other measures.
She said people on the barge would have “some free movement”. Asked if they would be able to travel off the boat and onto the isle of Portland, where the barge is docked, she told LBC:
They’re going to have some free movement. You know, we’re a democratic country, of course. But there are going to be some parameters to that.
They’ve got medical supplies on board. They’ve got a gym on board and various activities to keep them occupied.
But of course, they’re going to be able to stretch their legs, get some air, get out and about, but within proper parameters.
She insisted the barge was “a safe place for people to live and stay”.
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Minister says Home Office considering sending asylum seekers to Ascension Island if Rwanda policy ruled unlawful
Good morning. Downing Street has reportedly decided that today marks the start of “small boats week” in terms of its summer news grid and, on the basis of today’s front pages, whoever is running the No 10 spin operation seems to be, so far, doing a pretty good job.
The Daily Telegraph and the Daily Express have both splashed on an announcement from the Home Office about fines for people who employ or rent property to migrants without a lawful immigration status are rising sharply.
This morning the BBC news is leading on reports that the first asylum seekers will be moved onto the Bibby Stockholm barge in Portland today.
And, not content with “is happening” news, the Times and the Daily Mail are both splashing “might happen” reports saying that the government is considering deporting asylum seekers who cross the Channel in small boats to Ascension Island, the British overseas territory 4,000 miles away in the south Atlantic.
In his Times report Matt Dathan says:
Ministers have resurrected proposals to send illegal migrants to Britain’s overseas territories as part of alternative options to tackle the small boats crisis …
The volcanic island, 4,000 miles from the UK in the middle of the South Atlantic, was previously considered as a location to process asylum seekers. Ministers believed its remote location would create a strong deterrent factor for migrants planning to cross the Channel in small boats.
Using Britain’s overseas territories forms part of a range of “plan B” contingencies that have been discussed by ministers and officials in case the government’s policy to deport migrants to Rwanda has to be abandoned.
The government is also in negotiations with at least five other countries over a similar deportation deal to the one agreed with Rwanda last year, The Times understands. This involves sending asylum seekers on a one-way flight to another country rather than taking them to an overseas territory temporarily.
Sarah Dines, a Home Office minister, has been doing an interview round this morning, and she in effect confirmed that the Ascension Island option was being examined.
Asked on Times Radio if the Times and Daily Mail reports were correct, she replied:
We are pretty confident that Rwanda is a legal policy. The high court and the lord chief justice found that it was, so that is what we are focusing on.
But like any responsible government, we look at additional measures, so we are looking at everything to make sure our policy works. We need to reduce the pull factor of illegal criminal gangs getting people to this country, basically abusing the system.
On the Today programme, when it was put to her that Ascension Island was a “plan B” in the event of the supreme court deciding deportations to Rwanda are unlawful, Dines said she would not use the terms “alternative” or “plan B”. But she went on: “We are looking at additional schemes across the globe, of course we are.”
And on Sky News, asked why the Home Office was considering Ascension Island when it examined, and rejected, this option three years ago, Dines replied:
Well, times change. We look at all possibilities. This crisis in the Channel is urgent, we need to look at all possibilities and that is what we are doing.
I will post more from her interviews shortly.
It’s August, and parliament is in recess, and so the political news diary is fairly empty. But we will get the only No 10 lobby briefing of the week at 11.30am.
If you want to contact me, do try the “send us a message” feature. You’ll see it just below the byline – on the left of the screen, if you are reading on a PC or a laptop. This is for people who want to message me directly. I find it very useful when people message to point out errors (even typos – no mistake is too small to correct). Often I find your questions very interesting too. I can’t promise to reply to them all, but I will try to reply to as many as I can, either in the comments below the line, privately (if you leave an email address and that seems more appropriate), or in the main blog, if I think it is a topic of wide interest.
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