Local councillor and Labour parliamentary candidate Jayne Kirkham has given her opinion on the delays over the migrant barge.

"The Conservative Government leased the Bibby Stockholm at great expense to house asylum seekers at Portland port in Dorset.

"The barge came to Falmouth on 9 May for what we thought was originally intended to be a 2-week re-fit to more than double its capacity from 222 to 500 people. It is still here. The refit is taking far longer than expected and no doubt costing a great deal more. 

"While it sits in Falmouth docks, reports have surfaced of the contract an Australian company has been given to manage the 3 barges the government is planning to use, including the Bibby Stockholm, which will apparently cost the taxpayer £1.6 billion for 2 years.  

"So, with the cost of leasing the barge, the cost of the now extensive refit, the payments to ports and councils, and this £1.6 billion management contract, the Government has huge questions to answer about the exact cost of housing the 500 people who they plan to put on this one barge. How much will it cost to house one asylum seeker on this barge, if it ever gets that far? 

"The Conservative Government lost control of asylum claims ten years ago when it cut costs in the Home Office by slashing pay for officials. We now have more than 166,000 vulnerable people in the asylum backlog waiting for their claims to be assessed. Fewer than 2% of those who arrived in 2022 have had a decision. In the meantime, the Government's ill-conceived 'Illegal Migration Bill' is floundering in the Courts and the House of Lords.

"The barge being refitted in Falmouth to house people seeking asylum is a hulking reminder of the government's failure to end the dangerous channel crossings or to process asylum claims in a timely and humane way.

"Labour has a comprehensive five-point plan to fix the broken asylum system: -

1. We will create a special unit in the National Crime Agency to tackle the people smugglers. 
2. We'll rewire the Home Office to improve decision-making. 
3. We'll negotiate a safe returns and family reunion agreement with EU countries – the type that we used to have but the Government failed to retain during its Brexit negotiations. 
4. We'll restore and rebuild safe routes to this country.
5. We'll use our overseas aid funding in countries where it's needed - at the source of the problem."

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