If Labour wins the general election, it will keep using barges and hotels to house asylum seekers for “a very short-term period,” the shadow immigration minister told broadcasters on Sunday.
Stephen Kinnock blamed the government for asylum backlogs, saying the Conservatives have made a “complete chaotic shambolic mess” that the next government will have to fix.
Also doing media rounds on Sunday, Immigration minister Robert Jenrick said the Bibby Stockholm barge could be ready to house its first asylum seekers in a matter of days.
He also said he’s “confident” the “legacy” asylum backlog will be cleared by the end of the year.
To cut down on the £6 million-a-day hotel bills for housing asylum seekers, many of whom arrived via illegal and unsafe routes, the government acquired Bibby Stockholm earlier this year to house “single adult male asylum seekers aged 18 to 65 who would otherwise be destitute” while they wait for the Home Office’s decision.
Asked about the reports at the time, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s press secretary said that fire safety checks and other checks were ongoing “to ensure that it complies with all the appropriate regulations.”
Speaking to Sky News on Sunday, Mr. Jenrick said the first group of around 50 people will be moved to the barge “very soon” and the barge will later reach full capacity at around 500 people.
“We hope that the first migrants will go on the boat in the coming days,” he said. But the minister declined to give a date for “security” reasons.
Asked if he can guarantee safety, the minister said, “I can absolutely assure you that this is a safe facility.”
Jenrick said accommodation vessels have previously been used by oil and gas workers and other governments, including “in Scotland for Ukrainian refugees.”
“If it’s good enough for them, I’m pretty sure it’s good enough for the migrants,” he added.
Mr. Kinnock told “BBC Breakfast” that Labour will also have to use the same facilities.
“The reality is that we’ve got tens of thousands of people in hotels, we need to get them out of hotels and we need to get them off the barges and out of the military camps too,” he said.
Backlogs To Be Cleared in Months
Both Mr. Jenrick and Mr. Kinnock said they are “confident” the asylum application backlogs can be cleared in a matter of months.“Rather than chasing headlines and ramping up the rhetoric, what we need is an approach that’s based on common sense and quiet diplomacy and hard graft and that’s what Britain will get with a Labour government,” he told Sky News.
Mr. Kinnock promoted a five-point plan, including ditching the government’s plan to move illegal immigrants to Rwanda and channelling the money into a cross border police unit, clearing backlogs using a “triage system,” and working on a deal to return migrants to Europe.
He also told the BBC that he’s “confident” that “within six months of a Labour government, we will be getting on top of the backlog and clearing people out of hotels, and putting them into suitable accommodation or removing them from the country properly because they have no right to be here.”
Jenrick said he’s “confident” that the applications submitted before summer 2022 will be cleared by the end of the year.
“We have recruited the asylum decision makers that we said that we would, and productivity in the teams is rising,” he said.
“We’re making really, really good progress. I can’t understate that. The challenges that were found in the past particularly during COVID are being resolved. And the teams are working really well,” he added.
