LONDON (Reuters) – Asylum seekers held in Britain’s new floating facility will receive “decent but basic” accommodation, immigration minister Robert Jenrick said on Friday, as the government scrambles to handle the thousands of migrants who arrive on small boats every year.
Last year, more than 45,000 migrants arrived on England’s south coast – up 500% in the past two years – and 51,000 migrants are now being housed in hotels at a cost of £6 million ($7.71 million) a day.
The ship will open its doors over the next two weeks to up to 500 single men seeking asylum.
The ship – on its arrival in Portland, on the south coast, has divided local opinion between those who say that facilities have been stretched, and those who call it a floating prison and who say that refugees should be better received – has become a powerful political symbol.
Behind a secure iron fence that surrounds the sidewalk, a rectangular boat is as long as a football field. Migrants will be assigned a place in one of more than 200 bedrooms with metal beds and televisions.
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Looking to spend less on immigrants at a time when many Britons are struggling with rising living costs, Britain is also converting former military sites into residential areas and contracting out more ships.
“The community doesn’t want us to be migrants in expensive hotels. They want us to use comfortable but basic accommodation like a newly arrived ship,” Jenrick said in Portland.
A rendering from the inside shows the airport’s security scanner and long corridors like shuttles, a large room with desks and laptops, a TV room with armchairs, and a canteen.
The director of lodging services at the facility said residents will be free to come and go as they please.
Across Europe, governments are grappling with the challenge of balancing the economic and social costs of bringing in thousands of migrants and the humanitarian work of those displaced by conflict, instability and poverty.
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has made stopping the landing boat one of his top priorities in the run-up to next year’s general election.
His plan to make it easier to send asylum seekers to Rwanda will soon become law.
(Reporting by Sarah Young and William James; Editing by Alison Williams)
Copyright 2023 Thomson Reuters.
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