Bibby Stockholm asylum barge prices taxpayers £500,000 in only a month

The first asylum barge has value taxpayers greater than £500,000 over the previous month, new figures claimed.

The charity Reclaim the Sea mentioned hiring the Bibby Stockholm from Bibby Marine Limited and mooring it at Portland Port value £24,500 a day.

This means the vessel – which has been empty for nearly a month after the invention of legionella illness – has value over £560,000 because it arrived in Dorset.

Some 51,000 asylum seekers are at present staying in lodges throughout the UK, costing taxpayers round £6m a day.

But Britain’s damaged asylum system is costing taxpayers £3.966 billion a yr, with the asylum backlog at present sitting at 175,000. 

Ministers imagine housing asylum seekers on barges and in former army lodging will drastically scale back the invoice for taxpayers.

Shadow immigration minster Stephen Kinnock advised LBC: “The government are casting around for any way of getting people into emergency accommodation.

“But what they need to actually being doing is recruiting extra case staff and resolution makers to the Home Office in order that these claims can get processed.

“That means getting into the backlog, recruiting the right kind of asylum case workers and decision makers to get that backlog cleared and get people out of hotels.”

Immigration minister Robert Jenrick mentioned asylum seekers may return to the Bibby Stockholm “within weeks” if security exams present no trigger for concern.

The 39 males had been briefly housed on the Bibby Stockholm, berthed in Portland Port, Dorset, earlier than traces of Legionella micro organism had been discovered.

They had been taken off and moved to a lodge whereas exams had been being performed on the vessel’s water system.

A Home Office spokesperson mentioned: “The number of people arriving in the UK who require accommodation has reached record levels and has put our asylum system under incredible strain with hotel accommodation costing an unacceptable £6million a day.

“The Home Office is dedicated to creating each effort to cut back lodge use and restrict the burden on the taxpayer.

“This is why we have been looking at a range of alternative accommodation sites, including vessels which have been used safely and successfully by Scottish and Dutch Governments, and former military sites.”