TV cameras were today given a first glimpse inside the Bibby Stockholm barge which arrived at Portland Port in Dorset on Tuesday. The barge will house around 500 asylum seekers, all single men, in bunk beds of between two and six people per en-suite room. A canteen, gym, classroom, exercise yard, television room, and space for worship are among the facilities on board. The government says housing migrants on barges is “significantly” cheaper than the £6-million-a-day taxpayer bill of using hotels Report by Jonesia. Like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/itn and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/itn
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00:44 We are looking for decent but not luxurious forms
00:48 of accommodation for illegal migrants.
00:50 That's why we've brought forward the barge in Portland.
00:53 That's why we're now using disused military sites.
00:56 For example, in Scampton, in Lincolnshire,
00:58 and Wethersfield, in Essex.
01:00 We'd like to use more barges in other parts of the country.
01:05 This is something that's being done in the Netherlands
01:09 and in Belgium, and has been done successfully in Scotland
01:12 by the SNP government.
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01:17 As you can see yourself, it isn't a floating prison.
01:25 People are free to come and go as they want,
01:27 but we do have this secure fence line in place,
01:30 just so that people don't wander around the port.
01:32 As you've seen, it is a working port,
01:34 and we need to keep the safety of the asylum seekers
01:35 on board the vessel at the heart of everything we do.
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