The Home Secretary also declined to rule out reports that the Home Office is considering fitting asylum seekers with electronic tags.
Suella Braverman has insisted that the Bibby Stockholm barge is safe after firefighters raised the possibility of legal action over concerns about the safety of those on board.
The union previously branded the giant barge, initially designed for about 200 people but modified to house 500 migrants, a “potential death trap”. The Home Secretary also said ministers were considering all options after The Times said officials are mulling electronic tagging as a way to prevent migrants who cannot be housed in limited detention sites from absconding.
While the preferred solution is to increase the number of detention places, electronic tagging has been mooted, as has cutting off financial allowances to someone who fails to report regularly to the Home Office. “We are considering a range of options. We have a couple of thousand detention places in our existing removal capacity.
The asylum backlog has soared to a record high, with more than 175,000 people waiting for an initial decision on an asylum application at the end of June, with the bill for the taxpayer almost doubling in a year to nearly £4 billion.
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