Asylum seeker barge plan would face legal challenge

Ministers are facing the prospect of a legal challenge if they go ahead with plans to house asylum seekers on a barge off the Dorset coast.

The Home Office is reportedly looking to use the 222-room Bibby Stockholm for the migrants under controversial plans aimed at reducing reliance on hotels.

Local Conservative MP Richard Drax told the Times "all legal routes" were being looked at to try and stop the proposal.

The government says more than £6m a day is spent on hotels for migrants. But charities say military bases and boats are "wholly inadequate places" to house people fleeing war and persecution.

The three-storey Bibby Stockholm - which can house more than 500 people - has been refurbished since it was criticised as an "oppressive environment" when the Dutch government used it for asylum seekers.

Details about any deal to use the barge have not yet been confirmed, but a Home Office spokesperson said: "The pressure on the asylum system has continued to grow and requires us to look at a range of accommodation options which offer better value for money for taxpayers than hotels."

Mr Drax, whose constituency includes Portland, has described the use of boats as "totally and utterly out of the question", and will exacerbate existing problems "10-fold".

Speaking to BBC's Laura Kuenssberg on Sunday, Home Secretary Suella Braverman refused to confirm the deal, saying her office was "looking at all sorts of lands, sites and vessels".

He told the Commons that "the sheer number of small boats have overwhelmed the asylum system", adding the government would "not elevate the wellbeing of illegal migrants above the British people".

"Accommodation for migrants should meet essential living needs and nothing more, because we cannot risk becoming a magnet for the millions of people who are displaced and seeking better economic prospects," he said.

The plans were criticised by Labour, with shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper saying the announcement was an "admission of failure".

"They've got this huge backlog of asylum decisions, so much so that 98% of last year's small boats arrivals simply haven't even been decided or processed," she said.