Asylum seekers could start being housed on the Bibby Stockholm barge as soon as today as the government unveils a new crackdown on illegal migration.
About 50 people are expected to be in the first group of migrants to board the vessel docked in Portland Port, Dorset, despite local opposition.
The developments come as the government begins a so-called “small boats week” – with a series of announcements on the issue that Rishi Sunak has promised to solve.
This includes a huge increase in fines for landlords and employers who house and give work to illegal immigrants.
The government is also considering reviving plans to fly people who arrive by unauthorised means 4,000 miles to Ascension Island in a bid to clear the asylum backlog and deter people from crossing the Channel, multiple reports on Monday suggested.
Safeguarding minister Sarah Dines would not confirm or deny this but told Sky News the government is looking at “all possibilities”.
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She said the first occupants of Bibby Stockholm are expected to arrive “in the coming days”, describing the situation in the Channel as “urgent”.
The minister would not confirm an exact date for “operational” reasons, although Sky News understands 50 single males are set to move on board today.
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The plan has faced weeks of delays amid safety concerns raised by the Fire Brigade Union, which has branded the site a “potential death trap”.
Defending the plan, Ms Dines said the barge “sends a forceful message that there will be proper accommodation but not luxurious”.
“Luxurious hotel accommodation has been part of the pull, I’m afraid,” she said.
“There have been promises made abroad by the organised criminal gangs and organisations which have tried to get people into the country unlawfully and they say, ‘You will be staying in a very nice hotel in the middle of a town in England’.
“That needs to stop and the barge is just one of a wide range of other measures.”
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2:02
What’s it like onboard the Bibby Stockholm?
Govt ‘looking at all possibilities’
The Bibby Stockholm will ultimately house 500 asylum seekers, which Ms Dines later suggested could happen by the end of the week.
Asked about the Ascension Island reports, Ms Dines said the government is “looking at all possibilities”.
She told Sky News “times change” when asked why the plan was reportedly being reconsidered after seemingly being rejected by Boris Johnson’s former government.
“We look at all possibilities. This crisis in the Channel is urgent, we need to look at all possibilities and that is what we are doing.”
The proposals to use the British Overseas Territory are apparently being considered as a “plan B” if the Rwanda plan fails.
The controversial deportation scheme has been stalled by legal challenges that will end up in the Supreme Court.
Deep in the South Atlantic, Ascension Island could be used to house an asylum processing centre as an alternative attempt to reduce the number of small boats crossing the Channel – something Mr Sunak has staked his premiership on.
Government ‘completely failing’
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‘Proper plan needed to get asylum backlog down’
On Monday it was announcedcivil penalties for employers will be increased up to a maximum of £45,000 per worker for a first breach and £60,000 for repeat offenders, tripling both from the last increase in 2014.
Landlords face fines going from £1,000 per occupier to £10,000, with repeat breaches going from £3,000 to £20,000. Penalties relating to lodgers will also be hiked.
But Labour said the measures would do nothing to deter people from crossing the Channel as it accused the government of “completely failing in this area”.
Shadow minister Nick Thomas-Symonds told Sky News: “They have 173,000 people now who are in the backlog in our asylum system. That’s the reason that they’ve ended up having to use hotels and (military) bases and now this barge.
“They are there because of their chronic failure.”
The SEC notice seemed to be an industry first after the commission approved the listing and trading of spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds on US exchanges in January.
Nigel Farage has spoken about his aspirations as Reform UK party leader and insists he could become prime minister.
He told Sky’s political correspondent Darren McCaffrey the prospect of taking over at Number 10 at some point “may not be probable, but it’s certainly possible”.
In an interview on the sidelines of the Reform UK annual conference in Birmingham, he also described his intention to change the party and make it more democratic.
“I don’t want it to be a one man party. Look, this is not a presidential system. If it was, I might think differently about it. But no, it’s not. We have to be far more broadly based,” he said.
He also accepted there were issues with how the party was perceived by some during the general election.
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Highlights of Farage’s conference speech
“We had a problem,” he admitted. “Those that wished us harm use the racist word. And we had candidates who genuinely were.”
Earlier the party leader and Clacton MP gave his keynote speech at the conference, explaining how they intend to win even more seats at the next general election.
He also called out the prime minister for accepting free gifts and mocked the candidates in the Tory leadership race.
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29:14
Farage jokes about PM accepting gifts
But he turned to more serious points, too – promising that Reform UK will “be vetting candidates rigorously at all levels” in future.
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Addressing crowds in Birmingham, Mr Farage said the party has not got “time” or “room” for “a few extremists to wreck the work of a party that now has 80,000 members”.
Farage says Reform UK needs to ‘grow up’
By Darren McCaffrey, political correspondent in Birmingham
Reform and Nigel Farage can hardly believe their success.
Perhaps unsurprising, given they received over four million votes and now have five MPs.
But today this is a party that claims it has bigger ambitions – that it’s fighting for power.
Having taken millions of votes from the Conservatives, the party thinks it can do so with Labour voters too.
Reform finished second in 98 constituencies, 89 of them are Labour seats.
But it is a big ask, not least of all because it is a party still dominated by its controversial leader and primarily by one majority issue – migration.
Nigel Farage says the party needs to grow up and professionalise if it has a chance of further success.
This is undoubtedly true but if Reform is going to carry on celebrating, they know it also has to broaden its policy appeal beyond the overwhelming concern of its members.
“The infant that Reform UK was has been growing up,” he said in his speech and pointed towards the success of the Liberal Democrats at the general election.
He told delegates his party has to “model ourselves on the Liberal Democrats” which secured 72 seats on a smaller popular vote share than Reform UK.
He said: “The Liberal Democrats put literature and leaflets through doors repeatedly in their target areas, and despite the fact they haven’t got any policies at all. In fact, the whole thing’s really rather vacuous, isn’t it? But they manage with a vote much lower than ours to win 72 seats in parliament.”
Reform won more than four million votes in July, and 14% of the vote share – more than the Lib Dems.