Jayne Kirkham, the Labour parliamentary candidate for Truro and Falmouth has responded to the government barge that is being refitted in Falmouth.

The plans for the barge had already received criticism, but after the arrival of Bibby Stockholm in Falmouth on the 9th of May an emergency Protest was organised by Cornwall Resists the very next day.

Nub News has approached Cherilyn Mackrory, the MP for Truro and Falmouth, for a comment on the protest.

However, Jayne Kirkham has now released a full statement on the situation:

"The ship currently waiting in the port of Falmouth to be refitted to house approximately 500 people seeking asylum is a hulking reminder of the government's complete failure to process asylum claims in a timely and humane way.

"The Conservative Government lost control of asylum claims in 2013 when they cut costs and jobs in the Home Office.

"We now have over 166,000 desperate people waiting for their claims to be assessed, less than 2% of those who arrived last year having their claims decided, and a staggering cost of £6 million per day on hotel rooms.

"The government has decided to try to deal with this by pushing the Illegal Migration Bill forward and detaining everyone who comes here to seek refuge if they don't come through one of the dwindling number of legal routes. They will then be sent to Rwanda. (Although Rwanda can only take 3-400 - a fraction of the numbers that would be needed).

"It's hard to see how detaining more people won't make the problem worse and putting them on ships or in disused army camps is a desperate way to proceed. The ship that is currently in Falmouth will be moved to Dorset after the refit and moored there.

"If Labour were in power we would be working through our 5-point plan to fix the asylum process: -

• Building up the Home Office's capacity to process these outstanding claims quickly by recruiting senior officers.
• Investing in a National Crime Agency task force to deal with the smugglers.
• Restoring and rebuilding the safe routes to this country.
• Signing return agreements with EU countries like the Dublin agreement that was lost when we left the EU.
• Using our overseas aid funding in countries where it's needed at the source of the problem, rather than spending it on hotel bills in this country.

"If claims were dealt with quickly we wouldn't have thousands of people in hotels or on barges. They could either get on with their lives or go back to a safe country. "

Stephen Kinnock, Labour's Shadow Minister for Immigration said:

"The Conservatives have broken the asylum system and are out of ideas on how to stop the small boats or clear the asylum backlog, which now stands at an astonishing 166,000.

"The barge is a symbol of government failure, which will house no more than 0.3% of people seeking asylum in Britain.

"Labour has a comprehensive five-point plan to end the dangerous channel crossings and clear the backlog. It includes a new elite police unit to tackle criminal gangs upstream and a new deal with the EU based on the safe return of channel crossers and a capped and controlled family reunion pathway."