Plymouth

Big vessel housing refugees could dock at port

Plymouth could become the latest site chosen for a giant vessel to house asylum seekers amid calls for the Home Office to be challenged in the courts over the policy.

The Devon port is one of several places along the south coast Home Office staff have examined, Whitehall and maritime sources have said.

In a further development, the mayor of Portland, in Dorset, Carralyn Parkes, where Rishi Sunak’s government will site a first barge for asylum seekers later this month, has also questioned whether plans to restrict their movements are legal.

Sunak announced over the weekend that two more giant vessels would be used to house about 1,000 people seeking asylum in the UK, but declined to say where. One is expected to be moored in Birkenhead near Liverpool.

Sources said the plan to place a vessel in Teesport, near Middlesbrough, had not been confirmed.

Asylum seekers could also be housed in vessels moored near Newcastle, Harwich and Felixstowe.

Parkes said she had been told by Home Office staff there would be tight restrictions on the movement of asylum seekers, and questioned if those restrictions would be within the UN refugee convention.

“Each refugee who wishes to leave the compound will have to go through three checkpoints and will have to be accompanied by staff as they enter and exit the port. They cannot just get up and walk out of the front door as they could if they were in a community. It contravenes the spirit of the 1951 convention on refugees and its 1967 protocol,” she said.

A senior Home Office official told residents in Portland on Tuesday that the barge – the Bibby Stockholm – is being refitted at a dry dock in Falmouth before being towed to Portland to take its first asylum seekers in the last week of June.

The port owners are insisting the asylum seekers will only be allowed to leave the port by bus, which will take them to pre-arranged drop-off points including locations for activities and voluntary work.

Dorset council, which is opposing the plans, has ruled out legal action after reviewing specialist legal advice, it said in a statement.

The mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, yesterday wrote to Suella Braverman outlining his “strong opposition” to “unsafe and unworkable” proposals to moor refugee accommodation close to London City airport.

“To be clear, these plans would be unsafe and unworkable, and they risk the health and wellbeing of already highly vulnerable people,” he said.

London’s Royal Docks said it had informed the Home Office last month that the waters beside the airport would not be appropriate as a potential location.

A Home Office spokesperson said: “The use of expensive hotels to house asylum seekers crossing the Channel is unacceptable and must end … We will continue to meet our legal obligations and responsibilities to those being accommodated on the barge, as we do for asylum seekers living in other accommodation.”