Councils to be paid £3,500 per migrant to house them on barges

Councils are to be offered £3,500 per migrant for housing them on barges, with the first port due to be announced on Wednesday.

Ministers will provide the cash to cover the cost of services for up to 500 migrants, who will be housed on a barge in Portland Harbour in Dorset. It is expected to be the first of several sites for barges or ferries.

This is in addition to the £50 per day per migrant paid by the Home Office to house them on a barge to be chartered from Bibby Marine, a company specialising in transporting and accommodating offshore and construction workers.

The move comes as the Home Office faces the prospect of multiple legal actions by councils over the three former military bases, prison and Portland Port that are designed to end the use of hotels.

Ministers say the £50 cost is a third of the £150 a day currently being spent to house 51,000 asylum seekers in nearly 400 hotels at an overall charge of more than £6 million a day.

Lessons need to be heeded

In an article for The Telegraph, David Neal, the independent chief inspector of borders and immigration, warned the Home Office risked a repeat of the disorder and infection experienced at the Manston centre in Kent for Channel migrants unless it learned the lessons of that and other debacles.

“I know from past inspections that, at several points in recent years, the department has struggled to stand up facilities that efficiently and effectively deliver accommodation that is appropriate and humane,” said Mr Neal, a former senior military officer.

He was “shocked” by conditions at Manston, where officials failed to learn the lessons from Napier Barracks, where migrants rioted and torched buildings. 

“The department must do better as it sets up accommodation at [the two former RAF bases] Scampton [and] Wethersfield, and other facilities,” he said.

Mr Neal said the new sites could be an “opportunity” to create suitable alternatives to the “unsustainable” and “eye-wateringly” expensive use of hotels by providing “medical care, catering, cleaning services, transport, opportunities for purposeful activity and legal advice, all in one place”.

However, he warned the Home Office needed “close liaison” with the communities, local councils, health services, police and contractors to ensure the migrants were housed appropriately.

Possible legal challenge 

Richard Drax, Tory MP for South Dorset, said a barrister was examining the possibility of a judicial review of the barge plan on the basis that the Home Office had failed to consult on the impact on health services or policing. The council cannot challenge on planning grounds as consent is not required because it is a privately owned port.

“We are all saying it’s the wrong place. It’s a highly sensitive working port, close to a seaside resort and is not the place to stick migrants over whom we have no control once they are out of the port,” he said.

It is understood the single, adult male migrants will be able to enter a secure part of the port when they leave the barge and they will also be able to go into town on a minibus. Although they cannot be legally curfewed or detained, officials will seek to operate a “robust” regime.

A Home Office spokesman said: “The pressure on the asylum system has continued to grow and requires us to look at a range of accommodation options, which offer better value for money for taxpayers than hotels.”

Braintree council is scheduled to have its application for an injunction to block plans for an asylum camp at RAF Wethersfield heard next week, while West Lindsey council has issued a pre-action letter over proposals to turn RAF Scampton into a similar camp. Each facility would house up to 1,700 migrants.

Sources in Braintree claimed they were told in confidence that it would only get 48 hours’ notice of work on the site, irrespective of any legal action.

Enver Solomon, chief executive of the Refugee Council, said a barge was "a completely inadequate housing option for vulnerable men, women and children who have come to our country in search of safety having fled beatings and death threats in countries such as Afghanistan and Iran."

Home Office must apply lessons learned from Napier and Manston

By David Neal

Last week’s announcement that the Home Office will be establishing facilities “to provide basic accommodation at scale” to migrants arriving on small boats represents a new stage in the department’s efforts to reduce its reliance on hotels to house destitute asylum seekers. Fundamentally, however, the Home Office continues to face the challenge of providing suitable accommodation to a vulnerable group of people for whose welfare it is responsible, while minimising costs to the taxpayer and the impact on local communities. 

As it sets up these new sites and explores other alternatives to hotels, it is essential that the Home Office applies the lessons it has learned over the past few years from its often-difficult experience in this area. 

In my Inspection Plan for 2023-24, published today, I announce that I will inspect the Home Office’s asylum accommodation operations later this year. I know from past inspections that, at several points in recent years, the department has struggled to stand up facilities that efficiently and effectively deliver accommodation that is appropriate and humane. 

Synchronising ambitions and delivery

An ICIBI inspection of Napier Camp and Penally Barracks in 2021 highlighted poor provision at those facilities, and I was shocked by the conditions I observed last autumn on a visit to the Home Office’s processing site at Manston. I have found that the Home Office has sometimes struggled – in the early stages of a project, particularly – to synchronise policy ambitions and operational delivery, and to hold suppliers to account. 

At the same time, my inspections have shown the department does have the capacity to learn and improve. My March 2022 re-inspection of Napier Barracks found a much-improved service, and a re-inspection (as yet unpublished) of Manston in January this year concluded that, while the revamped operation has yet to be tested by large numbers of arrivals and further work is needed, the facility is now better resourced and led. 

What is concerning is that lessons that should have been learned from the Home Office’s experience at Napier Barracks were not initially applied in the development of the Manston site. The department must do better as it sets up accommodation at Scampton, Wethersfield and other facilities. Lessons identified over the past few years need to become lessons learned and implemented, and officials must provide the close oversight and careful management required to ensure minimum standards are delivered. 

Opportunity to offer more

While the Government is keen to emphasise that provision for asylum seekers at the new ex-military sites will “meet their essential living needs and nothing more”, the new facilities offer an opportunity, if the Home Office will take it, to provide more appropriate housing and support to residents than was available to them in hotels, while providing the taxpayer with much better value for money. 

The cost of hotel accommodation – frequently and rightly described as “eye-watering” – is clearly unsustainable, but it must also be acknowledged that hotels have been entirely unsuitable places for asylum seekers to reside in for extended periods of time. All too often, placement in hotels has left vulnerable people isolated, with limited access to the local services and support they need. 

Dedicated asylum accommodation facilities may or may not be the best alternative, but they do at least offer the potential for an increased concentration of resources, with access to medical care, catering, cleaning services, transport, opportunities for purposeful activity and legal advice all in one place. 

The Home Office needs to plan carefully for the provision of these services and to make sure they are accessible at the new sites from day one. Close liaison between the Home Office and the community, local authorities, health services, police, contractors and sub-contractors will be necessary if migrants are to be housed appropriately at the facilities now being developed. 

Transparency and partnership

This co-ordination must be carried out with transparency and in a spirit of partnership. External advice from agencies with experience of accommodating people at scale, such as the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the British Red Cross, should be embraced in order to make the service as effective and efficient as possible. 

At the same time, a necessary focus on the practicalities of housing small boat arrivals must not be allowed to distract the Home Office from the vital task of reducing the asylum casework backlog of more than 160,000 claims, which are awaiting an initial decision. This backlog is, after all, the source of much of the pressure on the accommodation system. 

Later this year, I will also be carrying out an inspection of asylum decision-making to assess the department’s efforts to improve the efficiency of that area. 

David Neal is the independent chief inspector of borders and immigration