The UK government plans to house illegal migrants on giant barges as a measure to reduce the £3.5bn it spends annually on housing asylum seekers in hotels. The new policy would send new
arrivals to live on static ships, similar to those used by construction workers for offshore accommodation, instead of hotels. Immigration Minister, Robert Jenrick, is set to make the announcement, and sites like the airbases of RAF Scampton and the former RAF Wetherfield are likely to be chosen to house the migrants, despite objections from locals. The move to put migrants on offshore barges is expected to be announced soon.
According to The Sun, the Home Office is seeking to stop potential migrants from being attracted to the UK by not providing them with high-end accommodation such as three, four, and five-star hotels, as it has done in previous years. Instead, illegal migrants will be sent to large sites like airbases to be housed in offshore barges, which will have 24/7 security and onboard luxuries to prevent residents from attempting to leave. Residents on the barges would be allowed off the vessel for a limited time for exercise on land. The government is expected to justify the new policy by pointing out that other European Union (EU) countries, like France, already use similar accommodation methods.
The government spent £3.5bn last year, using Foreign Office funds, to pay for hotels to accommodate migrants arriving on the UK's shores. Currently, over 51,000 asylum seekers are being housed in around 400 hotels across the UK. Chair of the Commons International Development select committee, Sarah Champion, accused the government of "profligate" spending and criticised the Home Office's "failure to get on top of asylum application backlogs and keep control of the costs of asylum accommodation and support contracts."
The UK government's plan has sparked outrage among locals, and protests have taken place outside hotels housing asylum seekers in recent months. Anti-migrant protestors clashed with members of an anti-refugee group outside a hotel in Newquay, Cornwall, on 26 March. In addition, plans to turn RAF Scampton, which was home to the Dambusters' 617 Squadron, into a migrant detention centre has sparked fury among locals, and the local council has applied for listed status for the officers' mess in a bid to block the proposal. Senior MPs, including Sir Edward Leigh and James Cleverly, have also spoken out against the plan.
The UK government is expected to give local councils extra cash and other measures to appease them, as migrants could also be placed in large-scale facilities on land, which could go against the wishes of local residents. Nonetheless, the government has argued that it is in the national interest to house migrants on offshore barges and former RAF bases.
The UK government's new policy represents a departure from previous years, where asylum seekers were often housed in hotels. The plan to use offshore barges and former RAF bases as migrant detention centres has been met with resistance from locals, who see it as a threat to their security and well-being. Despite this, the government is committed to reducing the amount it spends on accommodating asylum seekers in hotels, which is one of the factors behind the new policy. Photo by DFID - UK Department for International Development, Wikimedia commons.