The country is paying too high a price for fantasy policies on asylum

Editorial: The costs of using barges and old RAF bases to house asylum seekers have turned out to be greater than hotels

The Independent’s freedom of information request has revealed that 74 vulnerable people have been moved from RAF Wethersfield in Essex by the Home Office for their own safety, and 170 more people have left voluntarily (AFP via Getty)

Many of this government’s policies on asylum seem to be influenced by fantasy. There was the far-away island fantasy when Priti Patel was home secretary: the idea that asylum seekers could be housed on Ascension Island or St Helena. This was an unworkable plan that eventually evolved into the Rwanda policy, which has still not proved to be any more workable than the original idea, but which has now cost £370m and has secured the – voluntary – relocation, so far, of one person.

There was the prison hulks fantasy, possibly influenced by the prison ships of Great Expectations. This seems to have prompted repeated attempts – including by the last Labour government – to put asylum seekers in cheap accommodation away from population centres. Under the current government, the cost of putting asylum seekers in hotels increased the urgency of the search for alternative accommodation. This is what finally gave us the Bibby Stockholm, an accommodation barge for construction workers that was towed to Portland Port, Dorset, last year.

It has been beset with problems, including a legal dispute about planning permission and the discovery of Legionella bacteria. As The Independent reports today, the barge was last recorded as holding 321 people, when the Home Office had expected it to accommodate 430. Figures obtained under the Freedom of Information Act show that 162 migrants have been “dispersed” from the barge, some of them being moved into hotels – in other words, back to square one.