The government has laid out controversial plans to house more than 500 migrants on a barge off the coast of Dorset.
The Home Office said the three-storey Bibby Stockholm would be berthed in Portland, where the local MP and council have threatened legal challenges.
The 93-metre long vessel, being leased from Liverpool-based Bibby Marine Limited, will house around 500 people.
The Home Office is looking for ways to move asylum seekers out of hotels, which are currently costing more than £6m per day.
It hopes Bibby Stockholm, as well as the use of old military bases and a former prison will lower costs, but charities have labelled the sites “unsuitable” and called for the Home Office to speed up the processing of asylum cases amid record backlogs.
Currently the Home Office is housing more than 50,000 refugees and asylum seekers in hundreds of hotels, at a cost of £120 each per night.
The plans have already sparked outrage, with local Tory MP Richard Drax threatening to look at “any way” to thwart Ms Braverman’s proposal. Conservative-run Dorset Council is also opposed to the plans.
Mr Drax, the MP for South Dorset, said the barge was being “dumped on our door” without consultation by the Home Office and threatened a legal challenge if the idea is not scrapped.
Mr Drax added: “We want to get this consigned to the dustbin before anything’s signed. We want to activate ourselves and say, ‘look home secretary, sorry – this is not the right place, can you please cancel this’.”
Separate plans to use two ex-military bases and a former prison were met with anger by local Tories when they were unveiled last week.
A Conservative-run local authority launched legal action against the Home Office over the proposal to use RAF Scampton in Lincolnshire as a site for 2,000 asylum seekers.
Tory grandee Sir Edward Leigh has attacked the idea of using Scampton – the former home of the “Dambusters” squadron which sits in his Lincolnshire constituency.
Foreign secretary James Cleverly has shared his frustration with plans to use RAF Wethersfield, near Braintree, to accommodate around 1,500 asylum seekers. Former home secretary Priti Patel is said to be helping her local council in Essex try to stop the camp.
The Bibby Stockholm was used to detain asylum seekers in the Netherlands in the 2000s, but was taken out of service after an undercover investigation by a Dutch newspaper uncovered mistreatment by prison officers, rapes by migrants and fire safety failings.
Several migrants imprisoned on ships in the Netherlands are reported to have died, including at least one on the Bibby Stockholm in 2008.
The barge was later refurbished to be used as accommodation for Petrofac workers constructing a gas plant in Shetland.
A current company brochure states that it contains 222 single en-suite bedrooms, a kitchen and restaurant, TV and games rooms, gym and bar.
The use of barges and cruise ships to house asylum seekers was previously ruled out by the Treasury, while Rishi Sunak.
The Independent understands that formal research conducted during the Covid pandemic concluded that cruise ships and other vessels could be more expensive than hotels, and raised significant practical, legal and ethical issues.
Scoping work by the Home Office warned that because asylum seekers could not be detained on vessels, there were significant practical issues in allowing them to move around busy ports and travel to schools, GP surgeries and other vital amenities.
A former minister said it was “ludicrous” for the current government to resurrect the policy, adding: “It’s just not viable.”
The government has defended the use of barges and military sites as an alternative to the “eyewatering” cost of hotels, but has not acknowledged a watchdog report accusing the Home Office of driving up “soaring” spending with its own failings.
The Independent Commission for Aid Impact (ICAI) found it was spending £120 per person per night in hotels, including catering and other services, compared to £18 for longer-term accommodation in houses and flats.
It found that the Home Office’s failure to address a “critical shortage” of accommodation for refugees and asylum seekers, driven by its record asylum decisions backlog as well as rising Channel crossings, was driving spending on hotels.
“While the Home Office has recently started planning long-term solutions, the short-term nature of its response to date has contributed to the spiralling costs,” the ICAI said, warning that the government did not “effectively oversee the value for money” from lucrative private contracts.
Parliament is currently considering the Illegal Migration Bill, which the government claims will “deter” Channel crossings by enabling it to detain and deport anyone arriving via small boat.
The government has not published the official impact assessment for the bill or information on how much the plans will cost, amid questions over immigration detention capacity.
