Checks are still taking place on a barge designed to house asylum seekers, with the first group due to be housed there within “weeks”, the UK’s deputy prime minister has suggested.
Oliver Dowden said he was confident the Bibby Stockholm in Portland, Dorset, would become operational soon and that the government would “take into account those concerns” when pressed over fears raised about fire safety.
Despite the plan to start moving people on to the 500-capacity boat being repeatedly pushed back, Dowden was resolute it remained necessary to reduce the cost to taxpayers as part of a wider drive to “stop the boats”.
Explaining the delay, Dowden said: “We have to undertake a number of inspections and other measures to make sure that these vessels – and this vessel in particular – is suitable and ready.”
Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, he added: “I’m confident that in the coming weeks, we will have people on those barges.”
Dowden said the government was already taking into account concerns raised by the Fire Brigades Union, which has called the boat a “potential deathtrap” given concerns about overcrowding and access to fire exits.
He began to argue that the FBU was a significant donor to the Labour party, until it was put to him that the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) had also made a late intervention.
“Well, we are confident that we will be able to address all of these concerns,” Dowden told the BBC.
He pointed to what he described as some successes, as part of the government’s drive to “stop the boats”. He said the number of Albanians arriving on the English south coast had dipped by 90%, and that after cooperation with France there was a 40% rise in the number of people being intercepted in the Channel.
After Rishi Sunak vowed to clear an asylum backlog of 92,000 applications by the end of the year, Dowden said “we remain committed to that pledge” and added that the number of caseworkers had been increased to help.
The government is struggling to move people seeking asylum out of hotels and into alternative accommodation such as giant barges, cruise ships and disused military bases, despite repeated promises from the prime minister that he would find alternatives.
The use of hotels has risen in recent years after a succession of record highs in the number of small boats crossing the Channel. The government estimates the cost is £6m a day.
The first 50 people were expected to arrive onboard the vessel on Tuesday but Home Office sources said late representation from the HSE to check working practices for port staff had delayed the plans, and not fire safety concerns.
The HSE said it had raised concerns about hi-vis clothing and separating pedestrians from vehicles, but saw no reason for its recommendations to cause the holdup.
On Tuesday, Sunak rejected claims that the barge plan had been a shambles. “This is an example of me doing something different that hasn’t been tried before to help solve a serious problem,” he told LBC.
