Home Office accused of ‘cruelty and gross mismanagement’ as barge for asylum seekers confirmed – UK politics live | Politics

Portland Port said it would be working with the government to maximise the business opportunities and said it welcomed the investment in the local economy.

Bill Reeves, chief executive of Portland Port, said: “We welcome this investment in the port and local economy.

“We will be working closely with the Home Office to maximise the benefits and business opportunities while minimising any impact on public services.

“We understand local concerns and, as the port operator and a local business, have a vested interest of our own in the safe and secure use of the vessel.

“We are insisting that no economic migrants, criminals or under-18s are included in the population on board under a robust screening process.

“We are keen to ensure that only those people considered suitable and most deserving after passing strict checks are able to reside at Portland.

“There will be close cooperation with local agencies, including the health, welfare and emergency services during the preparations for the vessel’s arrival and its operation. We also hope to work closely with local community and voluntary groups.

“Although they won’t be able to work, we hope that some of the asylum seekers will be able to volunteer and make a contribution to the local area too.”

Here’s a roundup of today’s politics news, as the former chief executive of the Scottish National party, Peter Murrell, who is Nicola Sturgeon’s husband, has been arrested in connection with a police investigation into party finance and funding.

Meanwhile the Home Office, whose head, Suella Braverman, faces a vote to get selected for a parliamentary seat tonight, has announced it will moor a barge to house 500 asylum-seeking men in Dorset.

• Police Scotland arrested Peter Murrell, 58, on Wednesday morning in connection with an investigation into party funding. He is in police custody.

• Officers have been seen at Murrell and Sturgeon’s home in Glasgow, including with a spade in her garden, and at the SNP headquarters in central Edinburgh.

• Sturgeon was reportedly picked up at 8.10am before police arrived at 8.30am.

• The new SNP leader and Scotland’s first minister, Humza Yousaf, said it was “clearly not great” and a “challenging day for the SNP”.

• The Home Office has confirmed it has leased a boat to house 500 adult men who are asylum seekers off the coast of south Dorset, at Portland port.

• It is the latest measure in the government’s strategy to tackle the small boats crisis, and deter people from trying to travel across the Channel in makeshift rafts.

• The Home Office said the boat would be operational for about 18 months. It will have to be towed from Genoa, Italy where it is currently docked as it does not have an engine.

• Amnesty International said the use of the barge was “ministerial cruelty”.

• The government has suggested that further boats could be used and the pilot expanded to house more people, along with centres at inactive RAF bases.

• Braverman, the home secretary, faces a selection contest for a new Fareham and Waterlooville seat on Wednesday evening.

• She is standing against Flick Drummond. Both of them are MPs in Hampshire whose seats are being abolished by the boundary review.

• The government’s pay offer to teachers in England is in tatters after the headteachers’ union announced its members had overwhelmingly rejected it.

• The US president, Joe Biden, will visit Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland from 11 April to 14 April to “mark the tremendous progress since the signing of the Belfast/Good Friday agreement 25 years ago”, the White House has confirmed.

That’s all from me today, thank you for following along. My colleague Donna Ferguson will be taking over shortly and carrying you through into the evening.

Reaction continues to come in, another response here from a leading charity for refugees, the Refugee Council.

Its CEO, Enver Solomon, said: “We are deeply concerned by the government’s plans to accommodate an increasing number of people seeking asylum, the majority of whom will be granted permission to stay in the UK, in entirely unsuitable locations.

“A barge may make headlines, but it’s a completely inadequate housing option for vulnerable men who have come to our country in search of safety, having fled beatings and death threats in countries such as Afghanistan and Iran.

“They should have access to safe and appropriate accommodation including having proper physical and mental health support, access to education and community links. A floating barge does not provide what they need nor the respect, dignity and support they deserve.

“These muddled plans are a consequence of an asylum system that is beset with chronic delays and a record decision-making backlog, as is the significant increase in the use of hotels in recent years. There would be no need to use barges and former military bases if cases were dealt with in a timely and efficient manner.

“Instead of trying to purchase barges the government should focus on addressing the huge backlog in asylum claims and replacing the current approach with one that is orderly, humane and meets our moral and legal obligations to protect the rights and welfare of refugees.”

On a local elections campaign trip to Peterborough before the polls next month, Rishi Sunak has been asked about the announcement.

He said: “That’s a sensible approach to this problem, it’s the fair approach to this problem, I’m determined to stop the boats and will do everything I can to deliver on that.

“I think everybody knows one of my five priorities is to stop the boats, and as part of that, we’ve got to reduce the pressure on hotels in communities up and down the country.

“We are spending, as a country, £6m a day housing illegal asylum seekers in hotels – that can’t be right.

“I’ve committed to reducing that number, moving asylum seekers out of hotels and that means we need to find alternative sites, including barges like the one we’ve brought forward today.

“That’s going to save the taxpayer money, reduce pressure on hotels and it’s part of our broader plan to stop the boats.”

Steven Morris

Residents of Portland have highlighted that one of the prisons on Portland – the Verne – operated as an immigration removal centre between 2014 and 2017 – with problems over getting lawyers for those in the centre.

In 2015 a report from Nick Hardwick, the chief inspector of prisons, flagged up that its remoteness caused problems, ranging from long journeys to get there to difficulties getting legal representation.

It said: “The Verne remained too prison-like in character for an IRC, with too much inner fencing and razor wire, and with restrictions on detainee movement, including to the chapel.”

The Home Office’s policy to house 500 migrants in a barge off Portland in Dorset has been labelled “ministerial cruelty” by Amnesty International.

Steve Valdez-Symonds, the charity’s refugee and migrants’ rights director said: “Confining hundreds of people in isolation on a barge is just more of the political theatre that the government has created to obscure its gross mismanagement of the asylum system.

“Along with the disastrous Rwanda scheme, all talk of barges, cruise ships and former military barracks should be abandoned.

“Anyone seeking asylum in this country should be housed in decent accommodation with proper facilities and, crucially, their claims should be properly and consistently processed.

“Instead of more ministerial cruelty, we need sweeping asylum reforms, with an emphasis on deciding claims fairly and efficiently, acting on those decisions, eliminating wasteful repeat reconsiderations of decisions that people are entitled to asylum, and making a real effort to reduce huge backlogs and unreasonable Home Office workloads.”

The Home Office has confirmed it has leased a barge which will be used to accommodate 500 asylum seekers.

The boat will be moored in Portland port, south Dorset.

A Home Office statement said that the Bibby Stockholm, which has previously been used to house asylum seekers in the Netherlands, may be followed by other barges, with an extension of the plan being considered.

“[The] vessel will provide basic accommodation which is significantly cheaper than hotels,” the Home Office continued.

The ship will be used in addition to new centres on former military sites, as ministers look to stop housing asylum seekers in hotels, which the government says costs £6m a day.

The boat will be used to house men while their claims are being processed. It will include “basic and functional accommodation”, healthcare provision and catering.

A spokesperson said: “Migrants are due to be moved onto the Bibby Stockholm in the coming months. The Home Office is in discussions with other ports and further vessels will be announced in due course.”

The plan has been criticised by South Dorset MP, Richard Drax, who said it would exacerbate existing problems “tenfold”. The mayor of Portland, Peter Roper, told the Times he opposed the move because the government had not consulted residents or provided any support for the area.

The Bibby Stockholm is currently in Genoa, southern Italy, and will need to be towed to Dorset because it does not have an engine, the Times has reported.

The immigration minister Robert Jenrick said: “We will not elevate the interests of illegal migrants over the British people we are elected to serve.

“We have to use alternative accommodation options, as our European neighbours are doing – including the use of barges and ferries to save the British taxpayer money and to prevent the UK becoming a magnet for asylum shoppers in Europe.

“All accommodation will meet our legal obligations and we will work closely with the local community to address their concerns, including through financial support.”

Headteachers’ union rejects government pay offer

Richard Adams

The government’s pay offer to teachers in England is in tatters after a third union announced today that its members had overwhelmingly rejected it.

The National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT) said 90% of its members voted to reject the Department for Education’s offer, which included a £1,000 one-off payment for this year and an average 4.5% pay rise from September.

Nearly two-thirds of the NAHT’s 34,000 members in England took part in the consultation, with most saying the offer was “unaffordable” for school budgets. A total of 78% said they would also vote for strike action if a ballot was held.

The result follows similar responses by National Education Union (NEU) members, where 98% rejected the offer, and the Association of School and College Leaders, with 87% voting to reject.

Gillian Keegan, the education secretary, has said there will be no further negotiations for the time being, despite the NEU scheduling five further school strike days for next term.

Paul Whiteman, the NAHT’s general secretary, said the union executive would meet this month to discuss balloting on industrial action. An earlier ballot failed to reach the legal threshold of 50% of members voting required to authorise strikes.

Whiteman said: “What school leaders are saying is that they are prepared to take action because they can’t find any more solutions, they’re completely out of solutions to make their budget go any further. They can’t recruit people who don’t want to come into the profession because there’s not enough money in it and it’s too much work.

“And if they say that loud and clear, to the extent that they are going to take tangible action, then the government really has to listen.”

Lisa O’Carroll

The “final piece of the Brexit jigsaw”, required physical checks on imports of chilled and fresh from the EU member states, is to be put in place at the end of January, the government has announced.

It follows four delays to the physical checks that were due to be put in place for plant and animal produce ranging from salad to leather and wood when Brexit came into force on 1 January 2021.

The import controls were repeatedly put back amid fears of lack of infrastructure at ports such as Dover or knowhow among EU suppliers.

A new Target Operating Model will apply to imports from all countries, not just EU states, under the government proposals and will guard against disease threats ranging from African swine fever to Xylella fastidiosa, a dangerous bacteria threatening hundreds of species of plants in the UK after its identification as the cause of the death of olive trees in Italy.

The government is putting the plans out to consultation for six weeks but the proposals to highly digitise the process have been welcomed by trade groups.

William Bain, the head of trade and policy at the British Chambers of Commerce, said: “This in a way is the final part of the Brexit jigsaw being put into place. Outbound controls have been in place from day one but have been repeatedly deferred in inbound trade.”

The government proposals will see the digital and physical checks introduced from later this year and it is hoped they will be fully operational by 2027.

Bain added: “Providing certainty for business is crucial and the focus must now be on delivering to the timescales set out. This will need a concerted effort to get the physical and digital infrastructure in place.”

The burden will fall on EU suppliers as UK exporters to the EU have been obliged to provide full health certification, safety and security paperwork and customers declarations for the past two years.

The former Brexit minister Jacob Rees-Mogg, who delayed the controls again one year ago, was criticised by the National Farmers’ Union last year for giving EU produce a competitive advantage over UK rivals who had to be Brexit compliant from day one.

Lady Neville-Rolfe, a minister of state at the Cabinet Office, said: “The publication of our draft Border Target Operating Model is a huge step forward for the safety, security and efficiency of our borders. Our proposals strike a balance between giving consumers and businesses confidence while reducing the costs and friction for businesses, which in turn will help to grow the economy.”

The home secretary, Suella Braverman, will face her Tory colleague Flick Drummond at a selection meeting on Wednesday night, as she aims to secure a seat for the next election.

Braverman’s current seat of Fareham is being wound up and included in a new constituency of Fareham and Waterlooville.

Drummond represents Meon Valley, also in Hampshire, which is being scrapped under the new parliamentary boundaries.

A result is expected on Wednesday night.