Bibby Stockholm: First asylum seekers to board barge

The first 50 asylum seekers will be moved to the Bibby Stockholm barge in Dorset later, the BBC has been told.

Up to 500 men, aged 18-65, will be housed on the three-storey barge while they await the outcome of their asylum application.

The floating accommodation block was docked off the Dorset coast nearly three weeks ago, and has been empty since due to health and safety worries.

A Home Office minister said migrants would be moved to the barge imminently.

Home Office sources have said the barge, moored in Portland, is ready to host its first group of asylum seekers.

Some people were informed to expect to be moved on Monday, BBC News has been told.

In a letter seen by the BBC, the Home Office has written to an asylum seeker telling them they will have to move to the Bibby Stockholm.

The government has said the vessel offers basic and functional accommodation and it previously housed oil and gas workers - as well as asylum seekers in other countries.

However, the key difference is that its capacity - which used to be 222 - has been doubled to 500 by putting bunk beds in its cabins, and converting some communal rooms into dormitories for four to six men.

Asylum seekers would be on the Bibby Stockholm "imminently this week, in the coming days", Minister for Safeguarding Sarah Dines told the BBC's Radio 4 Today programme.

She said the increase in the number of people on the ship would be "gradual", with a possible 500 by the end of the week, despite concerns from the Fire Brigades Union that the vessel had originally been designed to house around 200 people.

A Home Office press officer later said Ms Dines misspoke when suggesting there could by 500 people on board by the end of the week. It was a general figure they are expecting to be on the ship at some point, they further clarified.

Those arriving in the country through unauthorised means should have "basic but proper accommodation" and they "can't expect to stay in a four-star hotel", Ms Dines added.

The government has repeatedly said the barge will be better value for British taxpayers and more manageable for local communities.

But there has been considerable local opposition to the plan, due to concerns about the asylum seekers' welfare, as well as the potential impact on local services.

More than 40 organisations and campaigners have called the plans "cruel and inhumane" in an open letter to barge owner Bibby Marine.

A group supporting an asylum seeker shared a copy of a Home Office letter informing a migrant, currently living in a Dorset hotel, he would be moved to the barge on Monday.

The letter states he would be free to come and go from the site and lists onboard facilities, including an on-site nurse, English classes and Wifi.

One asylum seeker from Syria says the Home Office told him to move out of his Bournemouth hotel to live on the barge.

The man, who the BBC is not naming, said he had no intention of living there.

"We ran from war. We don't want to go on the barge. It's a jail," he told the BBC.

The man said he and four others at the hotel have challenged the decision.

The Bibby Stockholm is the first vessel secured under Home Secretary Suella Braverman's plans to reduce the cost of asylum accommodation.

Ministers have said it would help cut the £6m-a-day cost of housing asylum seekers in hotels while their claims are processed.

Speaking to BBC Breakfast on Sunday, shadow immigration minister Stephen Kinnock said barges would continue to be used by a Labour government if his party won the next general election.

Mr Kinnock said that due to "the complete and utter chaos and shambles of the Tory asylum crisis", Labour would use barges and hotels to house asylum seekers during "a very short-term period".

Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper had previously indicated she would not be able to immediately shut down the sites but declined to be explicit about the policy.

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