Asylum seekers will go onto barge in ‘coming weeks’, says Dowden

Transcript

00:00 Well, of course, we have to undertake a number of inspections and other measures to make

00:07 sure that these vessels and this vessel in particular is suitable and ready. But I'm

00:13 confident that in the coming weeks, we will have people on those barges. And it's important,

00:18 Martha, to remember why we are doing this.

00:19 In the coming weeks, because the deadline was supposed to be the end of July. That's

00:22 what Downing Street told us was going to happen.

00:24 We are doing this because at the moment, we have people in hotels costing us £6 million

00:30 a day. We need to reduce the cost of that. And there's two ways we're doing that. We're

00:36 building vessels like this, which will take people on board, which will be cheaper. And

00:40 crucially, we need to stop people coming across the channel in the first place, which is why

00:44 we're passing the small boats legislation and why we're proceeding with a relentless