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Rishi Sunak, asked if asylum seekers will be housed on the Bibby Stockholm barge next week, told LBC’s Nick Ferrari:

The Bibby Stockholm will be in operation as soon as it’s passed all the checks and regulations – as soon as possible – that’s the key thing.

We’re making a difference, I’m going to keep going on this ... I’m going to throw everything at it.

There are lots of people who are lined up to try and stop me, but I’m going to keep going until we stop the boats.

You are not being detained under immigration powers, and this is not detention accommodation. You are free to leave the site, but we would request that you sign in and out of the site when you leave and return, so we can assure your safety.

The obvious fire hazard of moving a large number of people across to the Bibby is clearly causing a delay.

We know the Bibby barge was intended for 220 people, we know the intent is to put 506 residents aboard but, by the time you add security staff and other staff, that would come to 546.

Housing any human on a ‘floating prison’ like the Bibby Stockholm is unacceptable. Doing so to people like this is completely inhumane.

Our concern in many cases, probably most cases, is that these will be individuals who have crossed the Channel in flimsy boats and they don’t do this for fun.

What can we do? Speed up asylum claims process, clear the backlog, provide safe passage, allow people to start working and integrate better into the community and then concerns about it costing us £6m a day start to dissipate.

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from The Guardian https://ift.tt/Hsxe8Er