Labour would use barges to temporarily house asylum seekers, says Stephen Kinnock | Immigration and asylum

Controversial barges and military camps will still be used temporarily to house asylum seekers if Labour wins the next election, a member of Keir Starmer’s frontbench has said.

The shadow immigration minister, Stephen Kinnock, said the idea makes him “deeply unhappy” as it is the last thing the party wants to do. But he said Labour would have “no choice but to deal with the mess we inherit”.

Kinnock told Sky News on Sunday: “Over the last 13 years, the Tory government has destroyed our asylum system. We’ll inherit a mess if we are privileged to win the next election.”

When pressed if that meant Labour would continue to use the barges to house asylum seekers, Kinnock said: “The reality is, on day one we will have to deal with the we have and the shambolic mess they have left us. We’ll be left with no choice but to deal with the mess we inherit.”

He told BBC Breakfast that he was confident a Labour government could get on top of the backlog within six months.

The shadow minister refused to give a timeline on when a Labour government would stop using the barges and bring down the backlog from a record high of more than 172,000 cases.

Kinnock’s comments came as the deputy prime minister, Oliver Dowden, said checks were still taking place on a controversial barge designed to house asylum seekers, with the first group due to be housed there within “weeks”.

He said was confident the Bibby Stockholm in Portland, Dorset, would become operational soon and that the government was taking into account concerns over fire safety.

In an interview with the Sunday Telegraph Dowden criticised those who have expressed concern over the asylum seeker barge, urging them to stop their “howls of outrage”.

The government is to launch a series of immigration policies this week in an effort to show the prime minister is starting to get a grip on one of his five key priorities – to “stop the boats”.

Kinnock, speaking on Sunday morning, also accused the Conservatives of “cooking the books” to show they were getting a grip on the spiralling asylum backlog.

“They have been artificially withdrawing claims if someone misses an appointment. It doesn’t mean they’ve been processed, it just puts people into limbo. Then essentially people are just slipping into the underground economy,” Kinnock said.

More than 6,000 people have been wiped off the list without being fully assessed in just three months, for reasons such as failing to attend interviews or appointments, and not filling in new fast-track questionnaires, the Independent reported.