Bibby Stockholm: Home Office under fresh scrutiny over migrant barge ‘incompetence’

The Home Office is facing mounting pressure over its “startling incompetence” after asylum seekers had to be evacuated from the Bibby Stockholm barge following the discovery of Legionella bacteria.

Conservative backbenchers have accused the department of overseeing a “farce” after the 39 people who had boarded the vessel were transferred to alternative accommodation on Friday evening.

Shadow immigration minister Stephen Kinnock also wrote to his opposite number on Saturday asking what the Home Office knew about the risk of the bacteria being present before moving migrants onto the barge.

Department officials are understood to have been told by Dorset Council on Wednesday evening about the discovery of initial results indicating that the bacteria was present, but the transfer of a further six migrants on to the barge still went ahead on Thursday.

Government sources said the UK Health Security Agency then told ministers on Thursday that Legionella had been found in the vessel’s water system and advised them that they needed to remove those six migrants.

Former Brexit secretary David Davis said the barge would not serve as a “solution” to the backlog even without the presence of the bacteria.

He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “The primary thing that’s been revealed has been the startling incompetence of the Home Office itself… It’s really, really hard to understand how, at all layers, this could not be caught early”.

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