Newspaper headlines: 'Cruise ships and barges' to house migrants and 'fresh cash for NHS'

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By BBC News
Staff

The Times reports that ministers have procured an "accommodation barge" capable of holding hundreds of migrants, which is being refitted. It quotes a government source as saying the giant barge would have a "deterrent effect" on people crossing the Channel illegally. The Daily Mail says former cruise ships will also be used - as well as old RAF bases. It says the plans will end what it calls the "hotel farce" that is costing taxpayers millions of pounds every day. According to the Guardian, cruise ships could be registered as hotels rather than detention centres - to get round possible legal challenges.

The online Independent focuses on the plight of an Afghan pilot facing deportation to Rwanda - after fleeing the Taliban and arriving in a small boat because he could find no safe and legal route. The Conservative MP Tobias Ellwood, tells the paper the case shows there is "no functioning process" allowing Afghans to apply for asylum and "this is not who we are as a nation".

The Daily Telegraph reports that a British ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars scheduled for 2030 has been "thrown into chaos" after Brussels watered down its own restrictions, in response to opposition from German carmakers. The paper says the EU will ban the sale of petrol and diesel cars from 2035 but permit cars with internal combustion engines, as long as they burn carbon-neutral petrol alternatives.

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A former RAF base in Wethersfield is expected to be used to house asylum seekers

According to the Financial Times, the chancellor is to pump more money into the NHS to fund a new pay deal for health workers - but hopes of an agreement to end strikes by teachers have descended into acrimony. The papers quotes health insiders claiming that Jeremy Hunt will put £3bn pounds into the NHS. It says the Treasury confirmed that the health department would receive more money but denied that amount had already been agreed. The paper says teaching unions now want Mr Hunt to show the same willingness to fund a classroom pay offer as he did with the NHS.

The Daily Mail says the future looks bleak for Royal Mail after bosses warned industrial action by workers could lead to the firm's collapse. It predicts the government will step in - adding that Prime Minister Rishi Sunak would not want the demise of the postal service to happen on his watch. The Daily Mirror says Royal Mail should be re-nationalised if what it calls hard-line bosses put the service into some form of administration.

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The Guardian leads on the apology by the paper's owner, the Scott Trust, for the role its founders had in trans-Atlantic slavery. The Trust is expected to spend more than £10m on a decade-long programme of restorative justice. In its editorial column, the paper says it has begun a "reckoning with its history" and others - individuals, institutions and states - should follow.

Finally the Telegraph reports that the King is expected to dine with his German cousins during his first state visit to the country as monarch, and it is thought likely that he will refer to his German ancestry in a speech at a state banquet this evening. The Times features a new portrait of the King in what it calls "a relaxed mood" and wearing a bracelet that signifies his work on climate change.