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The accommodation barge was moved into Portland Port in Dorset after being towed along the south coast of England from Falmouth in Cornwall. Protests greeted it as it entered harbour.

The government says the barge will help reduce the cost of housing asylum seekers, currently standing at about £6m a day. News of the barge's arrival came just hours after the government's Illegal Migration Bill cleared key hurdles in the House of Lords and is set to become law.

The first asylum seekers are due to arrive on the Bibby Stockholm within a fortnight.

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The World at One
BBC Radio 4

Image source, DAN KITWOOD/GETTY IMAGES

The Illegal Migration Bill is "in breach of international law", the UN's refugee agency (UNHCR) has said.

Under the bill, which is set to become law after a final series of votes in the Lords on Monday, the home secretary has a legal duty to detain and remove anyone entering the UK illegally.

Vicky Tennant, UNHCR's representative to the UK told the BBC: "It effectively extinguishes the right to claim asylum in the UK for the vast majority of people coming here in search of protection.

"It has overturned a long standing humanitarian tradition, but more importantly it is not in line with the the refugee convention, predicated on the right to put forward a claim for asylum and have that claim examined."

During the Lords debate, Home Office minister Lord Murray of Blidworth said the number of small boat arrivals had "overwhelmed" the UK's asylum system and that accommodation was costing taxpayers £6m per day.

Conservative MP Richard Drax - whose constituency includes Portland, has been giving his reaction to the arrival of the Bibby Stockholm.

"It was always going to come, we've done everything we can to stop this barge for many practical and pragmatic reasons," he told the BBC. "There was no consultation."

"We've now got to mitigate our concerns and accommodate these young men when they arrive.

"I have a lot of sympathy with the government on this - thousands are coming across the channel - we've got to do something with them, but putting them on a barge is not the answer."

The MP said he would be going on board to inspect the vessel himself in the near future.

Camera crews and news reporters were out in force on Portland as Bibby Stockholm arrived in the early hours. The arrival of the barge was filmed from the air as it was moved into its final position.

Michele Cross
BBC News

Many businesses on Portland today haven't been willing to talk about the barge on camera. They say they're concerned about possible repercussion from locals, campaigners and asylum seekers alike.

One local resident told me that it has polarised the local community.

Dominic Casciani
Home and Legal correspondent

The Bibby Stockholm has docked hours after the government squeezed its deeply divisive Illegal Migration Bill through Parliament.

That package raises fundamental practical questions, starting with: how long will it be before the barge is full and they have to find more of them? Almost everyone coming over the English Channel seeking protection as a refugee should in theory now be detained, rather than housed while their case is considered by Home Office assessors.

Parliament has also imposed a duty on ministers to transfer these people to another country, for their asylum claim to be considered there instead. Here's the problem: arrivals are averaging at 500 a week.

The plan to send some of them to Rwanda is on hold until after the Supreme Court has considered it in the autumn.

There are no returns agreements at all with the European Union states: the UK left a scheme as part of Brexit. So will the government warehouse people for the time being?

The alternative is to consider their cases and either integrate them, after granting them protection, or remove them from the UK, if they have no case to be here.

Bibby Stockholm will start housing asylum seekers within the next fortnight, Downing Street has said, after the accommodation barge arrived in Dorset's Portland Port.

"It's undergoing final inspections upon arrival," the Prime Minister's official spokesman said.

"That's the last part of the process ahead of the first group of asylum seekers moving into the vessel later this month."

Lucy Gilder
Home and Social Affairs Researcher

As well as the Bibby Stockholm barge, the government has confirmed four other sites will house asylum seekers in a bid to cut hotel costs.

In March 2023, it said that three ex-military bases in Essex, Lincolnshire and East Sussex would be used:

• Wethersfield in Essex is due to hold up to 1,700 people
• Scampton in Lincolnshire is due to hold up to 2,000 people
• Bexhill in East Sussex is due to hold up to 1,200 people

Catterick Garrison in Yorkshire is also due to open soon, but the government has not yet said how many people could be housed there.

Forty six asylum seekers have arrived at the Wethersfield site. The first asylum seekers are expected to arrive at Scampton in mid-August.

Braintree District Council in Essex and West Lindsey District Council in Lincolnshire both initially lost legal challenges to prevent the Wethersfield and Scampton bases being used in this way.

But despite the fact that Wethersfield has already received asylum seekers, the High Court has ruled that some of the points made by the councils should be heard again.

Judgement is expected on Friday.

Image source, PA Media

David Wallace Lockhart
Political correspondent

Image source, Getty Images

When it comes to people entering the country without permission, the government is looking to send a straightforward message – you’re not staying.

Ministers have become increasingly uneasy about the number of asylum seekers in hotels, and they don’t want to look soft-touch.

This explains the barge docking in Dorset this morning.

And there’s been more action on the small boat front in the last 24 hours.

The Illegal Migration Bill passed the House of Lords last night.

This legislation means the home secretary has a legal duty to remove anyone entering the UK illegally.

Though the policy of sending some asylum seekers to Rwanda remains in legal limbo, it’s still the government’s goal.

Rishi Sunak’s intention is straightforward: He wants to firm up the narrative that the UK is getting tougher on those entering the UK without permission.

What’s less clear is if any of these policies will have the effect he hopes for.

Aerial photos show the delicate operation to move the accommodation barge Bibby Stockholm into Portland Port earlier this morning. Now it is safely moored in the harbour, operators will spend the next few days connecting it to the port's fresh water and mains sewerage network. Its first inhabitants will move aboard in the coming weeks.

Image source, Ben Birchall/PA Wire

Image source, Ben Birchall/PA Wire

Image source, Ben Birchall/PA Wire

Local Conservative MP Chris Loder (West Dorset) was at the dockside as the Bibby Stockholm drew in to Portland harbour.

He told the BBC: "Yesterday I wrote to the home secretary and the transport minister to say I'm not confident the safety of this barge has been properly assessed to accommodate twice the number of people on it that it was designed for.

"There are a lot of questions that are unanswered, and quite a few concerns... people don't understand why there are 500 single young men intended to be on that barge.

"I think that the risks that people might face in and around the area are relatively low - but they need to be fully understood."

The Home Office says it has reconfigured the barge's 222 rooms in line with marine industry safety rules.

"Using vessels as alternative accommodation, like our European neighbours are already doing, will be better value for British taxpayers and more manageable for communities than costly hotels," it said.

Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper has previously described the use of barges as accommodation for asylum seekers as "a sign of the Conservatives' total failure to clear the asylum backlog... or get any kind of grip on the system".

But reports of a policy speech she gave in Westminster on Monday suggest she declined to say that a Labour government would stop using the barges.

“What we want to see is the backlog cleared so that the government doesn’t need to use the hotels or other alternatives, and we can simply focus on the longstanding asylum accommodation that has always been there,” she said.

The Guardian reported, external that when pressed if Labour would continue to use barges, Cooper added: “We will take action to clear the backlog. We’ll have to address what we inherit at that time because at the moment it is so chaotic what the government is doing.”

The Illegal Migration Bill is set to become law after the government won a final series of votes in the Lords late last night.

Backed by MPs in March, the bill is central to prime minister Rishi Sunak's pledge to stop small boats crossing the English Channel.

Under the bill, the home secretary has a legal duty to detain and remove anyone entering the UK illegally.

In a late-night debate in the House of Lords, peers rejected attempts to reinsert time limits on child detention and modern slavery protections. The plans can now be made into law.

• You can read more about how the government says it plans to tackle illegal migration here.

Dan Johnson
West of England correspondent

Two groups are holding protests at the entrance to Portland Port, both oppose the barge but with different perspectives.

Portland resident Sammy, with the No to the Barge group, said: "I'm here for my family - we haven't got enough staff for the NHS, dentists, doctors. Why 500 men when they should have been families, children - that's what we were previously told.

"But 500 men? I have children to think about.

"Why Portland? It's very small, why didn't London accept them, being a big city. No-one wants them - why?"

Stand up to Racism demonstrators also gathered at the port entrance. Protestor Lainey said: "We utterly don't support the barge - it's the wrong place for it to be.

"We are totally in support of the refugees when they arrive.

"It should be managed by creating safe passages and we should be speeding up the asylum claims. Its just a distraction technique - all the time they are focused on the 500 asylum seekers they are not focussed on the cost of living crisis."

Marcus White
BBC South

Three storeys high and the length of a football pitch, the hulking grey Bibby Stockholm has spent the last 30 years as an accommodation barge. Its cabins have previously housed asylum seekers, homeless people and construction teams working off the Scottish coast.

The barge owner - Liverpool-based Bibby Marine - says the vessel can accommodate 506 people. Catering facilities, quiet rooms, faith rooms, a TV lounge and space for games have survived the refit and a computer room has been created to enable migrants to access the internet.

Free buses - initially hourly - will take migrants through port security to organised activities that might include guided walks, work in community gardens, voluntary work and sports including football and handball.

Critics however say the Bibby Stockholm is too small to adequately house hundreds of people.

READ MORE: What will life be like on the Bibby Stockholm?

One of the reasons the government cites for using the Bibby Stockholm to house people is part of efforts to stop small boat crossings of the English Channel.

People who risked these dangerous crossings accounted for about 45% of asylum applications made in 2022.

In total, 45,755 migrants, external crossed the Channel that year - the highest number since data was first collected in 2018.

As of Friday, more than 13,000 people had crossed the channel this year so far, including 3,824 last month, the highest number for any June on record.

Read more here.

Image source, .

The first 50 asylum seekers are expected to be moved onto the Bibby Stockholm within weeks. All those on board will be single, adult males aged from 18 to 65 - in the latter stages of their asylum applications.

They're expected to live on the vessel for about three to six months while their claims are dealt with - but they are not detained, and will be free to come and go.

The Bibby Stockholm is fitted to hold up to 500 people and the plan is to gradually build up the numbers of people on board. It is initially contracted to be berthed at Portland for 18 months.

After nearly 24 hours travelling along the south coast the Bibby Stockholm arrived alongside the dock at Portland Port. The accommodation barge will be connected to the port's fresh water and mains sewerage network as part of preparations for the arrival of the first group of asylum seekers in the coming days.

While the barge's arrival in Portland has clearly drawn out local groups opposed to its presence, the government defends the use of such vessels to house migrants, insisting they are a cheaper alternative to hotels.

The Home Office said: “Using vessels as alternative accommodation, like our European neighbours are already doing, will be better value for British taxpayers and more manageable for communities than costly hotels."

“We continue to work extremely closely with local councils and key partners to prepare for arrival of asylum seekers later this month and minimise disruption for local residents including through substantial financial support.”

The government also says the best way to relieve pressures on the asylum system "is through the Illegal Migration Bill which will ensure people arriving in the UK illegally can be detained and swiftly removed to their home country or a safe third country".

Illegal Migration Bill to become law after Lords challenge

We are just hearing that the Bibby Stockholm has finally docked at its berth at Portland Port - watched by groups of protesters from the quayside. It's been 24 hours since it left Falmouth - and months since news of its impending arrival shocked this Dorset community.