End of day summary
Here’s a roundup of the key developments of the day:
Oliver Dowden suggested concerns about the Bibby Stockholm barge by the Fire Brigades Union are politically motivated. Asked on BBC Radio 4’s Today show about the FBU’s comments that the barge could be a floating “death trap” for asylum seekers, the deputy prime minister said: “Of course, we’ll take into account those concerns and that’s exactly what we’re doing. I would just gently say the Fire Brigades Union has donated £850,000 to the Labour party since 2010. It is affiliated to the Labour party.”
Greenpeace activists climbed on the roof of Rishi Sunak’s North Yorkshire mansion and draped it in oily-black fabric to “drive home the dangerous consequences of a new drilling frenzy”. The campaigners were later arrested on suspicion of causing criminal damage and public nuisance after climbing down voluntarily.
The Bank of England has raised interest rates by a quarter of a point to 5.25%, marking a fresh 15-year high as it battles to bring rampant UK inflation back down to its 2% target. The Bank of England is being criticised from both ends of the political spectrum and has been accused of overreacting.
Rishi Sunak has insisted the government’s pay offer to doctors is “fair” and “final”. Writing in the Daily Express, Sunak said “there will be no more talks on this year’s pay” and he urged doctors to call off their strikes.
Police are investigating a leaflet distributed by the Welsh secretary and Monmouth MP, David TC Davies, which was described as bordering on racism. In what was billed as an “important update to constituents”, the leaflet encouraged people to give their thoughts on the local Labour-controlled council’s plans “to establish a number of Gypsy Traveller sites in the county”.
We are closing this liveblog now. Thanks so much for joining us and for all your comments and emails.
Our Ukraine-Russia war live blog is still live:
You can also follow the latest from Donald Trump’s legal woes here:
… or our UK business live blog here:
Updated
Jeremy Hunt acknowledged the rise in interest rates would be a “worry” for families and businesses but insisted the government must stick to its plan to bring down inflation.
Hunt said it was important not to “veer around like a shopping trolley” and to follow the government’s current path in order to meet its key goal of halving inflation.
In a boost for the prime minister and chancellor, the Bank of England said earlier on Thursday it expects the government to meet that promise by the end of the year.
Hunt told broadcasters:
Any rise in interest rates is a worry for families with mortgages, for businesses with loans … What the Bank of England governor is saying is we have a plan that is bringing down inflation, solidly, robustly and consistently.
So the plan is working, but what we have to do as a government is that we stick to that plan, we don’t veer around like a shopping trolley.
Our business liveblog has more on this story:
Updated
Jeremy Hunt has raised concerns about the scale of debanking following the row around the closure of Nigel Farage’s Coutts account.
The chancellor told broadcasters:
I’m worried that it may exist more than we had thought. And the reason I’m worried is because free speech is a fundamental human right. And you can agree or disagree with Nigel Farage but everyone wants to be able to express their opinions.
But in today’s society, you need a bank account to function and so a threat to be debanked, as the word is now widely used, is a threat to your right to express your opinions.
So we have regulations, I think it’s regulation 18 of the payment accounts regulations, that ban this so-called debanking of people for their political views.
I’ve written to the regulator, which is the Financial Conduct Authority. They have the right to fine banks very large sums of money if they find this practice is widespread.
I want to know if it is and I want to know what they’re doing about it and they said they’ll get back to me by September.
Experts have said action needs to be taken on the use of artificial intelligence-generated or -enhanced images in politics after a Labour MP apologised for sharing a manipulated image of Rishi Sunak serving a pint.
Karl Turner, the MP for Hull East, shared an image on the rebranded Twitter platform, X, showing the prime minister pulling a sub-standard pint at the Great British beer festival while a woman looks on with a derisive expression. The image had been manipulated from an original photo in which Sunak appears to have pulled a pub-level pint while the person behind him has a neutral expression.
The image brought criticism from the Conservatives, with the deputy prime minister, Oliver Dowden, calling it “unacceptable”.
Dowden told LBC:
I think that the Labour leader should disown this and Labour MPs who have retweeted this or shared this should delete the image, it is clearly misleading.
Experts said the row was an indication of what could happen during what is likely to be a bitterly fought election campaign next year. While it was not clear whether the image of Sunak had been manipulated using an AI tool, such programs have made it easier and quicker to produce convincing fake text, images and audio.
Read more from my colleagues Dan Milmo and Kiran Stacey here:
Updated
Rachel Reeves has challenged Rishi Sunak to a chess game amid reported plans to install 100 sets in public parks – but noted “it doesn’t look like there are very many to go round”.
The shadow chancellor, a former junior chess champion, said green spaces in her constituency would “love” to receive one of the boards, but questioned the number reportedly being made available.
The prime minister, also a keen player, is to announce a funding boost of £500,000 for the English Chess Federation, with plans to expand the game in schools and parks, Bloomberg reported.
Funding from Sport England cannot be accessed for the game as it is not officially recognised as a sport in England, PA Media reports.
Reeves told BBC Radio 2 on Thursday:
I really hope we get one at a park in Leeds West ... all of them would love to have one of these chess sets.
It doesn’t sound like there’s many to go around, but also if Rishi Sunak fancies a game of chess, I’m happy to take him on too.
An announcement is expected later this month and the government is in talks with the federation about the best ways to invest in the game, Bloomberg reported.
The plans would involve installing 100 chess sets in public parks and expanding instruction in schools, according to the outlet.
Sunak expressed his desire to get more British children playing chess, describing it as a “great skill” during a visit to Washington in June.
He said:
You know, I’m actually doing a little bit of work now on how we can get more people in the United Kingdom to play chess, because it’s so good for you.
It’s a great skill and it’s really good for helping you think and it’s a great hobby.
Malcolm Pein, the English Chess Federation’s international director, said it would be the first time the government has supported chess in “any serious sense”.
He told the PA Media news agency that some of the reasoning behind the funding push was a need to “upskill” and make “Britain smarter”, as well as chess being “enormously popular”.
Pein said the “transferable skills” could be used in cyberdefence and computer programming jobs.
Updated
The Bank of England is being criticised from both ends of the political spectrum over today’s interest rate rise.
The IPPR, the progressive thinktank, says the Bank is “tightening the screws too much” by lifting interest rates to a 15-year high of 5.25% today.
Carsten Jung, a senior economist at IPPR, suggests rates could be more than one percentage point too high.
“The UK economy is weakening. The labour market is slowing down, and productivity is falling. Increasingly there is a realisation that the Bank of England is already overdoing it.
“By raising interest rates to 5.25 per cent, the Bank is tightening the screws too much and causing excessive harm for households and businesses. Interest rates might well be more than a percentage point too high now.
“Instead of further rate rises, we need a more balanced approach to tackling inflation, using more government support. Countries like Spain have kept energy prices lower, temporarily limited rent increases and tackled excessively high profits through taxation. Their inflation rate has recently fallen back to target. The UK should take inspiration from their example.”
The pro-free market Institute of Economic Affairs thinktank is also concerned that the Bank is overreacting.
Julian Jessop, an economics fellow at the IEA, says:
“The Bank’s decision to raise rates again, albeit by just a quarter point, suggests that the MPC is still looking in the rear view mirror.
“Money and credit growth have already slowed sharply and other leading indicators of inflation have weakened, including commodity prices and evidence from business surveys.
“It would have made more sense to pause to assess the impact of the large increases in rates that have already taken place, as other central banks have done.
“The UK economy is like a frog slowly being cooked by ever higher interest rates. By raising the temperature further now, the Bank risks doing too much and, once again, only realising its mistake when it is too late.”
For more reaction to today’s interest rate rise, you can visit our business blog:
Updated
Four people arrested over protest at Sunak's Yorkshire home
North Yorkshire police said the four Greenpeace activists who scaled Rishi Sunak’s roof had been arrested on suspicion of causing criminal damage and public nuisance.
Elliot Foskett, assistant chief constable, said:
Shortly after 8am this morning we responded swiftly to reports of protest activity at the prime minister’s North Yorkshire address.
There was no threat to the wider public throughout this incident which has now been brought to a safe conclusion.
The prime minister and his family were not at the address at the time of the incident.
You can read our updated story here:
Updated
Greenpeace UK climate campaigner Philip Evans said the activists who scaled Rishi Sunak’s house had been taken into custody.
Evans stressed that the action was peaceful and no one was harmed and no property was damaged.
Our activists have come down, having delivered their message to the prime minister who’s holidaying 5,000 miles away. It’s time for Sunak to decide which side he is on – Big Oil’s profits or our future on a habitable planet?
By ignoring the stark warnings of his own advisers, energy experts and the UN, and committing to a climate-wrecking drilling frenzy in the North Sea, the prime minister is pouring fuel on the wildfires, floods and unprecedented heat waves that are ruining lives and livelihoods right around the world.
The buck stops with him, and he must take sole responsibility for the devastation he is unleashing.
He added:
Our action today was entirely peaceful and we were diligent in ensuring that no one was home and that no damage would be done to the property. We have cooperated fully with the police and the activists have been taken into custody.
We felt it was important to take this message directly to the prime minister’s doorstep today, since it is Sunak himself that has signed off on the decision to grant these licences and it is Sunak who holds the power to reverse this decision.
So we ask the prime minister once more – Rishi Sunak, whose side are you on – Big Oil’s profits or our future?
Updated
Four Greenpeace protesters who scaled the prime minister’s Yorkshire constituency home have been arrested, a North Yorkshire police spokesperson at the scene said.
Updated
A group of Greenpeace activists have ended their hours-long protest on the roof of Rishi Sunak’s mansion as they criticised his new fossil fuel drilling “frenzy”.
The four campaigners draped the prime minister’s grade II listed manor house in North Yorkshire with an oil-black fabric to “drive home the dangerous consequences” on Thursday morning.
Police were “managing the situation” after being called to the family home in Kirby Sigston, near Northallerton, at around 8am after the activists climbed the roof while Sunak, his wife and children were on holiday in California.
The group returned to the ground at around 1.15pm and were seen being driven off in a police van.
Oliver Dowden, who is standing in for Sunak during his holiday, told the protesters to “stop the stupid stunts”.
A former deputy chief constable of North Yorkshire police said it was a “major breach of security”, as he called for an “investigation into how this has been allowed to happen”.
Updated
The four Greenpeace protesters are now climbing down from the roof of Rishi Sunak’s house.
The activists started coming down at around 12.30pm and are waiting for each other on the roof and extension on the house.
NEWS FLASH: The science is clear, for a safe climate there must be NO NEW oil and gas projects. @RishiSunak you can’t be serious about approving more oil and gas?#NoNewOil #StopRosebank #Greenpeace pic.twitter.com/CDdXYaW7DJ
— Greenpeace UK (@GreenpeaceUK) August 3, 2023
Updated
Responding to Greenpeace scaling the roof of Rishi Sunak’s North Yorkshire manor house, Alicia Kearns, the senior Tory who chairs the Commons foreign affairs committee, told the Yorkshire Post the action was “unacceptable”.
She said:
Politicians live in the public eye and rightly receive intense scrutiny, but their family homes should not be under assault.
Before long police will need to be stationed outside the home of every MP.
Updated
Brexit checks on fresh farm produce coming to the UK from the EU have been delayed for the fifth time, according to reports.
The decision to suspend plans to enforce the controls, which have been applied in the other direction – on British exports to the EU – since January 2021, is due to be announced imminently, according to the Financial Times.
The delay is intended to give the government and exporters in the EU more time to prepare for the checks, setting Rishi Sunak on a collision course with domestic UK food producers who have long argued that it gives a free pass to continental rivals while they have to endure checks on all fresh food exports to the bloc.
According to reports, there are concerns the extra red tape would increase the cost of food imports to consumers and fuel further inflation.
The decision comes just days after the government abandoned plans to force manufacturers to label their products with an alternative to the EU’s CE (Conformité Européenne) safety mark.
Industry representatives welcomed the delay.
Shane Brennan, the chief executive of the Cold Chain Federation:
The government has made the right decision to postpone. UK food retailers, hospitality businesses and consumers were in line for major disruption because many EU food-producing businesses supplying into the UK are not ready for the new requirements.
Read the full story here:
Updated
Responding to the news that the Bank of England has raised interest rates to 5.25%, the shadow chancellor, Rachel Reeves, said:
This latest rise in interest rates will be incredibly worrying for households across Britain already struggling to make ends meet.
The Tory mortgage bombshell is hitting families hard, with a typical mortgage holder now paying an extra £220 a month when they go to re-mortgage.
Responsibility for this crisis lies at the door of the Conservatives that crashed the economy and left working people worse off, with higher mortgages, higher food bills and higher taxes.
The chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, said:
If we stick to the plan, the bank forecasts inflation will be below 3% in a year’s time without the economy falling into a recession.
But that doesn’t mean it’s easy for families facing higher mortgage bills so we will continue to do what we can to help households.
Updated
The Bank of England has raised interest rates by a quarter of a point to 5.25%, marking a fresh 15-year high as it battles to bring rampant UK inflation back down to its 2% target.
In a move that matched City analysts’ forecasts, the central bank agreed on the rise – its 14th in a row – to tackle a cost of living crisis that has pushed many families into financial hardship.
Some economists had feared the Bank would increase the likelihood of a recession by raising rates by 0.5 percentage points, but policymakers opted for a more modest increase after a drop in the UK annual inflation rate.
The consumer prices index fell in June to 7.9% from 8.7% in the previous month. However, it remains ahead of the comparable figure in France, Germany and the US, and nearly four times the 2% level the Bank aims to achieve.
The British economy has also begun to weaken in recent months. Property prices have already begun to fall in response to higher borrowing costs while business surveys indicate much of the industrial sector is in recession.
Follow our business liveblog for more on this story here:
Updated
Oliver Dowden has told protesters to “stop the stupid stunts” after Greenpeace activists scaled Rishi Sunak’s house to demonstrate against his announcement on North Sea drilling.
Speaking on a visit to Able Seaton Port, in Hartlepool, the deputy prime minister said:
I think what most people would say is: ‘Can you stop the stupid stunts’. Actually, what they want to see from government is action.
That’s what you’re seeing here today – the world’s largest offshore wind farm being built right here, creating jobs.
But at the same time we’re going to need in the coming decades oil and gas as part of our energy mix. The question is do we produce it here, where we get more tax, we create more jobs, or do we do what Labour and others say which is: ‘No more investment in our North Sea oil and gas’?
Updated
Full story: Bibby Stockholm will be housing people within weeks, says Oliver Dowden
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 dropped by 90%, and that, after cooperation with France, there was a 40% rise in the number of people being intercepted in the Channel.
In relation to Rishi Sunak’s vow 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.
Read more here:
Updated
The Greenpeace campaigner Philip Evans says the four activists who have been on the roof of Rishi Sunak’s house since around 6am are “holding firm for now”.
Speaking from outside the house, Evans told the PA Media news agency they had made sure the prime minister’s family were on holiday and not going to be at home before carrying out the protest, which is a response to Sunak saying he would “max out” oil and gas in the North Sea.
He said:
It’s an incredibly dangerous thing to be saying and in general there’s been an attack on the climate since the Uxbridge byelection.
Rishi Sunak’s government has been the worst government we’ve had on climate.
He said the group had knocked on the door when they arrived and said: “This is a peaceful protest”, but there was no answer.
Asked whether it was still intrusive to target someone’s home, Evans said:
This is the prime minister. He is the one that was standing in Scotland going to drill for every last drop of oil while the world is burning. He is personally responsible for that decision and we’re all going to be paying a high price if he goes through with it. It is personal.
Updated
Police are investigating a leaflet distributed by the Welsh secretary and Monmouth MP, David TC Davies, which was described as bordering on racism.
In what was billed as an “important update to constituents”, the leaflet encouraged people to give their thoughts on the local Labour-controlled council’s plans “to establish a number of Gypsy Traveller sites in the county”.
Under the heading “Gypsy and Traveller site coming to your area soon!”, the Conservative MP said he was concerned a public consultation on the plans being held during the summer holidays meant “many residents will be unable to participate”.
Providing his own form for people to fill in, Davies’ leaflet invited constituents to give their own view on the establishment of sites, along with their details. It contained a privacy agreement saying the Conservative party would use people’s information with their consent “inside and outside election periods”.
The leaflet was criticised by Mabon ap Gwynfor, a Plaid Cymru member of the Welsh Senedd. In a tweet in Welsh, translated into English, he said it “borders on racism” and that the Roma community “is the community that has been most persecuted” in the UK.
Travelling Ahead, a group that provides advocacy and advice for Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities in Wales, said the leaflet was a clear breach of the Equality Act. It condemned “dog-whistle actions intended to create a hostile environment for Gypsies and Travellers”.
Read the full story here:
Updated
Full story: Greenpeace protesters drape giant oil-black fabric over Sunak’s mansion
Greenpeace activists have climbed on the roof of Rishi Sunak’s North Yorkshire mansion and draped it in oily-black fabric to “drive home the dangerous consequences of a new drilling frenzy”.
The climbers managed to get on top of Sunak’s constituency home in Kirby Sigston, near Northallerton, on Thursday morning, as the prime minister flew to California on holiday.
After reaching the top of Kirby Sigston Manor using ladders and climbing ropes, they unfolded 200 sq metres of oil-black fabric to cover a whole side of the property. At the same time, two other activists unfurled a banner stating: “Rishi Sunak - Oil Profits or Our Future?” across the grass in front of the house.
This week the prime minister pledged to “max out” the UK’s oil and gas reserves as he announced more than 100 new licences for North Sea drilling, which experts said could be catastrophic for the climate. But in 2021, the International Energy Agency said there can be no new oil, gas and coal developments if the world is to reach net zero by 2050.
Greenpeace said the protest aimed to stop Sunak from approving Rosebank, the biggest undeveloped oil and gas field in the North Sea, the operations of which would be enough to exceed the UK’s carbon budgets.
A No 10 source told PA Media that police were at the property. “We make no apology for taking the right approach to ensure our energy security, using the resources we have here at home so we are never reliant on aggressors like [Vladimir] Putin for our energy,” the source said. “We are also investing in renewables and our approach supports 1000s of British jobs.”
North Yorkshire Police said they were managing the situation.
In a statement, the police force said:
We’re responding to reports of protest activity at a property in Kirby Sigston, near Northallerton.
Our officers are at the scene and managing the situation. We’ll provide a further update in due course.
Dowden suggests firefighters' concerns over barge linked to their political views
Oliver Dowden suggested concerns about the Bibby Stockholm barge by the Fire Brigades Union are politically motivated.
Asked on BBC Radio 4’s Today show about the FBU’s comments that the barge could be a floating “death trap” for asylum seekers, the deputy prime minister said:
Of course, we’ll take into account those concerns and that’s exactly what we’re doing.
I would just gently say the Fire Brigades Union has donated £850,000 to the Labour party since 2010. It is affiliated to the Labour party, and I’m afraid what we see with this is exactly what we saw with trying to pass the legislation earlier this year through parliament. There are many obstacles.
We’re confident that we will be able to address all of the concerns. I’m absolutely certain about that and I’m absolutely certain we will be able to get people on this vessel in the coming weeks.
Updated
Robin Harper, who became the UK’s first Green parliamentarian when he won election to the inaugural Scottish parliament in 1999, has quit the Scottish Greens in protest at its stance on independence and gender recognition.
Harper, who served as co-convenor of the Scottish Greens from 2004 to 2008, stepping down as an MSP in 2011, has made little secret of his antipathy to the party’s pursuit of more radical policies under the leadership of his successor, Patrick Harvie.
The Scottish Greens became a staunchly pro-independence party after Harper stood down, joining forces with the Scottish National party before the 2014 referendum, and has taken an uncompromising stance on the case for gender recognition reform.
Harper was highly critical of the party’s decision to sign a cooperation agreement with Nicola Sturgeon’s SNP government in 2021 after the Scottish Greens won a record eight seats, pushing the Liberal Democrats into fifth place. Harvie and his co-leader, Lorna Slater, became junior ministers.
In his resignation letter, reported by the Times, Harper told Harvie a number of people had told him they believed the party had “lost the plot”.
Harper told BBC Radio Scotland on Thursday morning the independence debate had become “sterile”, with no prospect of any movement on it.
The debate should be around the radical constitutional reform being offered by Labour, including replacing the House of Lords with an elected assembly. Harper is on the board of Gordon Brown’s Our Scottish Future thinktank which co-wrote Labour’s reform strategy.
A Scottish Greens spokesman thanked Harper for his service, but said:
Independence and human rights, including the rights of trans people, are at the core of our vision and have been since our party was founded over 30 years ago. Our commitment to that vision has seen us achieve record result after record result in recent elections.
Updated
Rishi Sunak insists the government’s pay offer to doctors is 'fair' and 'final'
Rishi Sunak has insisted the government’s pay offer to doctors is “fair” and “final”.
Writing in the Daily Express, Sunak said “there will be no more talks on this year’s pay” and he urged doctors to call off their strikes.
He called the NHS “an institution the UK is rightly proud of” thanks to the “extraordinary men and women who work so hard to protect our nation’s health”.
Sunak wrote:
For that reliable, high-quality service to continue, we need our brilliant doctors to be on the front-line treating patients.
He called the government’s pay offer to doctors “very generous”, saying a first-year junior doctor would see pay rise by 10.3%.
He wrote:
Our pay deal is fair, so I urge all doctors to know when to say yes and call off their strikes.
That’s the right thing to do.
Because on every day of industrial action, tens of thousands of appointments are cancelled.
And at a time when millions of people are already waiting for treatment, that’s causing waiting lists to go up, not down.
Sunak said he made tackling waiting lists one of his priorities and it should be a “national mission”.
He said:
I know that most doctors just want to get on with their life’s work of caring for patients.
And in the end, no amount of strikes will change our decision. This offer is final.
Sunak faced heavy criticism on Wednesday from a junior doctor for insisting striking doctors are to blame for record-high NHS waiting lists.
Updated
Here are a few more images of Greenpeace activists scaling Rishi Sunak’s home in Richmond, North Yorkshire:
Updated
The Greenpeace UK climate campaigner Philip Evans accused Rishi Sunak of being a climate arsonist, as police arrived at the prime minister’s North Yorkshire home where activists have draped black fabric over the manor house.
Evans said:
We desperately need our prime minister to be a climate leader, not a climate arsonist.
Just as wildfires and floods wreck homes and lives around the world, Sunak is committing to a massive expansion of oil and gas drilling.
He seems quite happy to hold a blowtorch to the planet if he can score a few political points by sowing division around climate in this country. This is cynical beyond belief.
More North Sea drilling will only benefit oil giants who stand to make even more billions from it, partly thanks to a giant loophole in Sunak’s own windfall tax.
Updated
Environmental campaigners cover Rishi Sunak's North Yorkshire home in black fabric in protest against drilling 'frenzy'
Police are at the North Yorkshire home of Rishi Sunak after it was scaled by Greenpeace activists, a No 10 source said.
Greenpeace activists have climbed on to the roof of Rishi Sunak’s mansion in protest against his new drilling “frenzy”.
The campaigners have draped the prime minister’s manor house in North Yorkshire with an oily-black fabric to “drive home the dangerous consequences” of continued use of fossil fuels.
Sunak and his family are on holiday in California.
This week Sunak announced plans to “max out” the UK’s oil and gas reserves by granting more than 100 new licences for extraction in the North Sea.
A Downing Street source said:
The police are in attendance.
We make no apology for taking the right approach to ensure our energy security, using the resources we have here at home so we are never reliant on aggressors like [Vladimir] Putin for our energy. We are also investing in renewables and our approach supports 1000s of British jobs.
Updated
Oliver Dowden says asylum seekers will be housed on the Bibby Stockholm barge 'in the coming weeks'
Oliver Dowden said asylum seekers will be housed on the Bibby Stockholm barge “in the coming weeks”.
The plans to move migrants on to the barge, docked in Portland on the Dorset coast, have been beset by delays, with government sources suggesting the first arrivals may not be on board until next week.
The plan is to move more than 500 adult male asylum seekers to the Bibby Stockholm, which will save the government the cost of putting them up in hotels. Aside from major doubts over whether it is a fit place to house potentially traumatised people, serious questions have been raised over whether the vessel is even safe.
Campaigners have called the government’s plans cruel and inhumane. One local authority whistleblower has said it has the potential to become a “floating Grenfell”. And the Fire Brigades Union has said it considers the vessel a “potential deathtrap”.
Asked about the plans, the deputy prime minister told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme:
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.
But I am confident that in the coming weeks we will have people on those barges.
Dowden said of the Bibby Stockholm:
We are confident that we will be able to address all of these concerns, I’m absolutely certain of that, and I’m absolutely certain we will be able to get people on this vessel in the coming weeks.
I will be looking after the politics blog today. If you have any tips or suggestions, please get in touch: nicola.slawson@theguardian.com.
Please note, comments will open at about midday today after scheduled maintenance.
Updated
