Bibby Stockholm asylum barge costing taxpayers £22m, says Home Office chief

More than £22 million of taxpayers’ money is being spent on the Bibby Stockholm asylum accommodation barge, the Home Office’s top official has said.

The vessel being used to house asylum seekers is moored in Portland Port, Dorset.

In a letter to MPs, Home Office permanent secretary Sir Matthew Rycroft said the “vessel accommodation services” portion of the contract with CTM, which relates to the barge, was £22,450,772.

He said the assessment of whether the vessel offered value for money was “currently being updated”.

The figure emerged days after an asylum seeker was found dead on the vessel.

South Dorset MP Richard Drax described the news as a “tragedy born of an impossible situation” and said he had been told by the Home Office that the man was thought to have taken his own life.

The cost of the accommodation was set out in a letter to the Home Affairs Committee’s chairwoman Dame Diana Johnson.

Immigration delivery minister Tom Pursglove said the cost was “undoubtedly” cheaper than housing asylum seekers in hotels.

Dame Diana said she was “just flabbergasted that a value-for-money assessment was not carried out at the time that the contract was let”.

Mr Pursglove told her it was being “updated” and added: “This is undoubtedly a more cost-effective way of providing accommodation.”

The £22,450,772 figure was contained in a variation to the contract with CTM – worth almost £1.6 billion over two years – to provide hotels and travel for asylum seekers.

As well as the payment to CTM for providing accommodation services on Bibby Stockholm, the Government is also paying Dorset Council £3,500 per occupied bed on the vessel, which can hold up to 504 migrants.

The council has also received almost £380,000 in a one-off grant to help support local charity and voluntary organisations provide services on board.

Sir Matthew’s letter to the committee also showed that, since 2020, just 1,182 people who arrived on small boats across the Channel had been returned to their home country out of a total of more than 111,800 who have arrived in that time period.

The majority of those were Albanian – a country with which the UK has a returns agreement – and there were only 420 who were sent back to other countries.

Tory deputy chairman Lee Anderson asked: “Is that an acceptable figure?”

Illegal migration minister Michael Tomlinson told him: “I want to see those figures as high as possible … as far as I’m concerned the numbers need to be significantly higher than they are.”

The ministers were involved in a tetchy clash with SNP MP Alison Thewliss over children who had gone missing while their asylum claims were processed.

Earlier this year it emerged 154 children were missing, that figure had now come down to 132.

Mr Pursglove said there were no unaccompanied asylum seeking children in hotels now but 132 were “still missing” and “we are working intensively” with local authorities and police on the issue.

Ms Thewliss told him: “You’re not doing a very good job of it if 132 out of 154 are still missing… you don’t care do you?”

Mr Pursglove said that was a “pretty outrageous suggestion”.

The committee heard that of those missing, 103 were now adults and 29 were still under 18.

Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper said: “Today’s admissions from the Home Office show the truly appalling scale of Tory failure and chaos, including a disastrously low level of enforcement in the asylum system.

“Just 1% of small boat arrivals since 2020 have been removed. Even for Albania, which is a designated safe country, only 5% have been removed – which is a shockingly low figure.”

She said it was a “disgrace” that the unaccompanied children were still missing and the £22 million for Bibby Stockholm was an “eyewatering” figure.

“We can’t continue with this damaging and costly chaos,” Ms Cooper said.

Mr Pursglove also told MPs he was “confident” the Home Office would meet Rishi Sunak’s target to clear the backlog of so-called “legacy” asylum cases – applications made before June 28 2022 – by the end of the year.

“I believe we will fulfil it and I also believe we will see these grant rates come down”, he said.

During the session he was repeatedly asked if the Government was committed to a deadline set to produce a report on what safe and legal routes were available to asylum seekers, as well as any proposed new ones.

The questions came after Cabinet Office minister Esther McVey earlier this month appeared to disparage the idea the Government could create new safe and legal routes for migrants.

Appearing on BBC Radio 4’s Any Questions, she said: “When you talk about safe routes … that actually means more people will be coming here, if you offer up safer routes.

“We are taking down immigration.”

Committee member Tim Loughton – a Tory backbencher who backed the amendment to the act – reminded Mr Pursglove that the Government was under a legal duty under the Illegal Migration Act to lay the safe and legal routes report before Parliament in January.

The minister offered little detail but said: “In letter and in spirit, that agenda is being taken forward.”