Bibby Stockholm: Barge set to house asylum seekers arrives in UK waters
A giant barge which will be used to house asylum seekers off the Dorset coast has arrived in UK waters.
The Bibby Stockholm accommodation barge will stop in Falmouth, Cornwall, where it will undergo inspection and refitting.
The 222-bedroom, three-storey vessel, will house around 500 single male asylum seekers when it is in position in Portland Port, off the Dorset coastal town of Weymouth.
It will be ready for use this summer and will be operational for at least 18 months.
The barge will stop in Falmouth, Cornwall, to be refurbished
The 222-bedroom will be positioned in Portland Port, off the coastal town of Weymouth
The Home Office said the accommodation will be “basic” with healthcare provision, catering facilities and 24/7 security, at a reported cost of £20,000 a day.
It did not say how much the lease agreement cost but insisted it is “significantly cheaper than hotels”.
However, the plan has faced criticism from Tory-run Dorset Council and local Conservative MP Richard Drax.
Facilities on board the Bibby Stockholm accommodation barge. Pic: Bibby Marine Ltd
Dining facilities on board the Bibby Stockholm. Pic: Bibby Marine Ltd
Mr Drax threatened legal action over the ‘floatel’, sparking fears of fresh tensions in the Conservative Party.
The South Dorset MP, who has previously backed rigorous measures to cut the UK’s level of immigration, said the barge was “dumped on our door” without consultation by the Home Office and urged Home Secretary Suella Braverman to scrap the idea.
In April, Mr Drax described the Portland Port site as a “very, very restricted area” and raised concerns about keeping hundreds of vulnerable people there, which he said would place pressure on the port’s “very small” police force.
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He told Sky News those being accommodated on the barge would be bussed in from the port to nearby Portland Harbour, which is a “summer resort dependent almost entirely on visitors and tourists” with busy beaches not far away.
The government is also facing criticism from charities and human rights campaigners who said the accommodation is not appropriate for people fleeing war.
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Liverpool-based operator Bibby Marine Limited said last month that the barge had been refurbished since it was described as an “oppressive environment” used for asylum seekers in the Netherlands.
Portland Port chief executive Bill Reeves said: “We encourage everyone in the community to approach this with an open mind and help us show other areas just how successful this type of initiative can be, both for the migrants and the local community.”
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Prime Minister Rishi Sunak previously said the barge would save taxpayers’ money, with the government currently spending around £6m a day housing asylum seekers in hotels.
The Times previously reported that the vessel would cost £15,000 a day to charter, while the cost of berthing it in Portland would be more than £4,500 a day.
Additional costs would be required for services, including security and catering.
However, Labour said the barge is in addition to, not instead of, hotel accommodation.
The UK-US trade deal has been signed and is “done”, US President Donald Trump has said as he met Sir Keir Starmer at the G7 summit.
The US president told reporters in Canada: “We signed it, and it’s done. It’s a fair deal for both. It’ll produce a lot of jobs, a lot of income.”
Sir Keir said the document “implements” the deal to cut tariffs on cars and aerospace, describing it as a “really important agreement”.
“So this is a very good day for both of our countries – a real sign of strength,” the prime minister added.
Mr Trump added that the UK was “very well protected” against any future tariffs, saying: “You know why? Because I like them”.
However, he did not say whether levies on British steel exports to the US would be set to 0%, saying “we’re gonna let you have that information in a little while”.
Mr Trump also praised Sir Keir as a “great” prime minister, adding: “We’ve been talking about this deal for six years, and he’s done what they haven’t been able to do.”
He added: “We’re very longtime partners and allies and friends and we’ve become friends in a short period of time.
“He’s slightly more liberal than me to put it mildly… but we get along.”
Sir Keir added that “we make it work”.
As the pair exited a mountain lodge in the Canadian Rockies where the summit is being held, Mr Trump held up a physical copy of the trade agreement to show reporters.
Several leaves of paper fell from the binding, and Sir Keir quickly stooped to pick them up, saying: “A very important document.”
Sir Keir Starmer picks up paper from the UK-US trade deal after Donald Trump dropped it at the G7 summit. Pic: Reuters
The US president also appeared to mistakenly refer to a “trade agreement with the European Union” at one point as he stood alongside the British prime minister.
Mr Trump announced his “Liberation Day” tariffs on countries in April. At the time, he announced 10% “reciprocal” rates on all UK exports – as well as separately announced 25% levies on cars and steel.
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In a joint televised phone call in May, Sir Keir and Mr Trump announced the UK and US had agreed on a trade deal – but added the details were being finalised.
Ahead of the G7 summit, the prime minister said he would meet Mr Trump for “one-on-one” talks, and added the agreement “really matters for the vital sectors that are safeguarded under our deal, and we’ve got to implement that”.
Whitehall officials tried to convince Michael Gove to go to court to cover up the grooming scandal in 2011, Sky News can reveal.
Dominic Cummings, who was working for Lord Gove at the time, has told Sky News that officials in the Department for Education (DfE) wanted to help efforts by Rotherham Council to stop a national newspaper from exposing the scandal.
In an interview with Sky News, Mr Cummings said that officials wanted a “total cover-up”.
Politics latest: Grooming gangs findings unveiled
The revelation shines a light on the institutional reluctance of some key officials in central government to publicly highlight the grooming gang scandal.
In 2011, Rotherham Council approached the Department for Education asking for help following inquiries by The Times. The paper’s then chief reporter, the late Andrew Norfolk, was asking about sexual abuse and trafficking of children in Rotherham.
The council went to Lord Gove’s Department for Education for help. Officials considered the request and then recommended to Lord Gove’s office that the minister back a judicial review which might, if successful, stop The Times publishing the story.
Lord Gove rejected the request on the advice of Mr Cummings. Sources have independently confirmed Mr Cummings’ account.
Education Secretary Michael Gove in 2011. Pic: PA
Mr Cummings told Sky News: “Officials came to me in the Department of Education and said: ‘There’s this Times journalist who wants to write the story about these gangs. The local authority wants to judicially review it and stop The Times publishing the story’.
“So I went to Michael Gove and said: ‘This council is trying to actually stop this and they’re going to use judicial review. You should tell the council that far from siding with the council to stop The Times you will write to the judge and hand over a whole bunch of documents and actually blow up the council’s JR (judicial review).’
“Some officials wanted a total cover-up and were on the side of the council…
“They wanted to help the local council do the cover-up and stop The Times’ reporting, but other officials, including in the DfE private office, said this is completely outrageous and we should blow it up. Gove did, the judicial review got blown up, Norfolk stories ran.”
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Grooming gangs victim speaks out
The judicial review wanted by officials would have asked a judge to decide about the lawfulness of The Times’ publication plans and the consequences that would flow from this information entering the public domain.
A second source told Sky News that the advice from officials was to side with Rotherham Council and its attempts to stop publication of details it did not want in the public domain.
One of the motivations cited for stopping publication would be to prevent the identities of abused children entering the public domain.
There was also a fear that publication could set back the existing attempts to halt the scandal, although incidents of abuse continued for many years after these cases.
Sources suggested that there is also a natural risk aversion amongst officials to publicity of this sort.
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Mr Cummings, who ran the Vote Leave Brexit campaign and was Boris Johnson’s right-hand man in Downing Street, has long pushed for a national inquiry into grooming gangs to expose failures at the heart of government.
He said the inquiry, announced today, “will be a total s**tshow for Whitehall because it will reveal how much Whitehall worked to try and cover up the whole thing.”
He also described Mr Johnson, with whom he has a long-standing animus, as a “moron’ for saying that money spent on inquiries into historic child sexual abuse had been “spaffed up the wall”.
Asked by Sky News political correspondent Liz Bates why he had not pushed for a public inquiry himself when he worked in Number 10 in 2019-20, Mr Cummings said Brexit and then COVID had taken precedence.
“There are a million things that I wanted to do but in 2019 we were dealing with the constitutional crisis,” he said.
The Department for Education and Rotherham Council have been approached for comment.
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