The British government announced on Wednesday that it would use a barge docked in the port of Portland, southern England, to house 500 asylum seekers in a bid to cut costs and discourage illegal crossings of the English Channel.
The UK Home Office highlights a “significant step” in the pledge by Rishi Sunak’s Conservative government to “stop the boats” that bring tens of thousands of migrants to England’s coasts each year, putting pressure on Britain’s asylum system.
The ship, named Bibby Stockholm, will be able to “accommodate about 500 men while their asylum applications are being examined,” the Home Office said.
It will provide “basic and functional facilities”, 24-hour care and security on board “to minimize disruption to the local population”.
Strongly criticized for this project, which was recently mentioned by Secretary of State for Immigration Robert Jenrick, the government points out that such a solution has been used in the Netherlands, but also in Scotland to take in Ukrainian refugees.
“The use of expensive hotels to accommodate people making unnecessary and dangerous journeys must stop,” Robert Jenrick said in a statement on Wednesday. “We will not put the interests of illegal immigrants ahead of those of the Brits we are meant to serve.”
“We need to use alternative accommodation options, as our European neighbors are doing, including using barges and ferries, to save British taxpayers money and prevent the UK from becoming a magnet for asylum seekers,” he added.
Hotel accommodation for migrants costs £6million a day, the government says, £2.3billion a year.
In December, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced that he intends to halve the bill for housing asylum seekers.
Last week the government announced that it would also use two disused military sites. The project, which has drawn criticism from associations helping asylum seekers and concerns from local elected officials, aims to eventually host thousands of migrants.
Last year a record number of migrants (more than 45,000) reached the English coast by crossing the English Channel in small boats.
The Conservative government intends to discourage migrants from entering the UK irregularly and has made this one of its priorities after successive plans to stem the phenomenon failed in recent years. He also wants to send them to Rwanda, a project suspended by court decisions.