Minister says she is ‘excited’ asylum seekers will be moved from hotels to a barge despite safety concerns

Evening Standard

A Home Office minister told on Monday how she was “excited” that people who have crossed the Channel in small boats will soon be moved from hotels to a barge despite safety and overcrowding fears.Asylum seekers and economic migrants to the UK were expected to be bussed to the Bibby Stockholm vessel, docked in Portland Port, as soon as Monday.

Transcript

00:00 We're very confident that Rwanda is going to work, but of course lots of other alternatives

00:03 are always discussed. It wouldn't be right to talk about any particular country, but

00:07 you would expect the government to look at additional measures. But we're very confident

00:10 that Rwanda is going to work.

00:12 But why Ascension Island then? I mean it's a tiny island, such a long way away, with

00:16 very few facilities and tiny infrastructure.

00:18 I'm not going to confirm whether that's a possibility. We're looking at lots of different

00:23 measures. We have discussions all the time, as any responsible government would with many

00:28 countries.

00:29 But critics will say that you're going round in circles. This was an idea that was mooted

00:33 by Priti Patel. It now appears to be being floated again. If it was shown to not work

00:38 the first time round, why talk about it again?

00:41 Well, times change. We look at all possibilities. This crisis in the Channel is urgent. We need

00:47 to look at all possibilities and that's what we're doing. We're determined to make sure

00:51 there isn't the pull factor for illegal migrants to come to this country, basically to be abused

00:59 by criminal organised gangs. These are international operations and it's got to stop.

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