Barges and disused military bases could continue to be used to house asylum seekers under a Labour government until a claims backlog has cleared, the shadow home secretary, Yvette Cooper, has indicated.
She was speaking as it emerged that a barge, which is expected to house 500 asylum seekers in Dorset, departed on Monday morning for its permanent berth at Portland – a month behind schedule – after being fitted out for its controversial role.
After a policy speech in Westminster, Cooper declined to say if a Labour government would end the use of the barges, which have been criticised by charities on the grounds of human rights and cost.
“What we want to see is the backlog cleared so that the government doesn’t need to use the hotels or other alternatives, and we can simply focus on the long-standing asylum accommodation that has always been there.”
Pressed if Labour would continue to use barges, she said: “We will take action to clear the backlog. We’ll have to address what we inherit at that time because at the moment it is so chaotic what the government is doing.”
The Home Office has defended its planned use of barges – the first of which is the Bibby Stockholm, a vessel which has 220 en-suite bedrooms over three decks – insisting it is a cheaper alternative to housing them in hotels. The vessel left Falmouth in Cornwall on Monday morning heading for Portland while being pulled by tugboats.
Cooper was speaking after a major speech setting out her party’s approach to national security, in which she announced that a Labour government would criminalise the deliberate use of AI chatbots to radicalise and train would-be terrorists.
Generative AI had taken radicalisation to a new level, she says, referring to the case of Jaswant Singh Chail, who attempted to kill the Queen at Windsor Castle having been encouraged by his “AI girlfriend” to proceed with the attack.
Cooper delivered the speech the day before the government’s expected publication of an update to its Contest counter-extremism strategy, in which the home secretary, Suella Braverman, is expected to emphasise the continued threat of Islamist terror.
Setting out a list of things she said were essential for the strategy to include, Cooper stressed the importance of neighbourhood policing and tackling “hateful extremism”. The term, first promoted by former counter-extremism commissioner Sarah Khan, refers to a distinct type of extremism outside of terrorism and includes behaviours that can incite and amplify hate.
Cooper also called for the Contest update to cover “Martyn’s law”, which is aimed at forcing all venues to draw up plans to prevent terrorist attacks and ensure public safety, and develop “a more sensitive and supportive response for survivors of terror who pay a terrible personal price for the attacks on us all”.
She also sought to contrast Labour’s approach to national security with that of the party’s former leader, telling an event at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI): “When Britain faced an attack on our soil in Salisbury in 2018, we made clear at the time I thought that Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader was wrong to prevaricate over Russia’s responsibility.”
She added: “I was also appalled by the carelessness and contempt for national security that former Conservative prime minister Boris Johnson showed while foreign secretary at the height of the Skripal crisis, meeting alone with an ex-KBG officer, on the way back from a Nato summit on Russia, failing to even properly report it and claiming he could not even remember whether government business had been discussed.”
