Protesters cheered the arrival of the Bibby Stockholm in Portland, Dorset. Credit: Ben Birchall/PA Wire
The barge, which will accommodate 500 adult males aged 18 to 65, is to remain in Portland for at least 18 months. Complimentary hourly buses will take migrants through port security to organized activities in Weymouth and Portland, which may include guided walks, volunteer work and sports.
Migrants are free to come and go, but they are “strongly encouraged” to be back on the barge by 11 p.m. They will each receive an allowance of £9.10 a week, less than the usual £45, as there is food on board.
Portland Mayor Carralyn Parks stressed that residents do not mind asylum seekers, but added that a 500-person barge is “not right” for a city of just 14,000 people, with insufficient facilities and infrastructure to deal with it.
The only other major site for asylum seekers to reopen is at the abandoned RAF base in Wethersfield, Essex, where the Home Office on Tuesday confirmed that one of the 46 migrants resettled in the camp has contracted scabies. greater protection for the victims of modern slavery; and a six-month delay in the deportation of migrants.
The Lords' vote came after the government refused further concessions and struck down nine peerage amendments in the Commons to send the bill back to the upper house. Now this summer, after several weeks of ping-pong between the two chambers, the Royal Assent will be passed.
“I don’t think anyone could have imagined that we could pilot the most important immigration bill for a generation without any material concessions and without any pressure on the majority in government,” a government source said.
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