Date: 2023-04-26
Robert Jenrick: Perhaps I can answer some of those questions, because we do have answers and we did think carefully about each of those questions prior to making the decision to proceed with the policy and to apply it to my hon. Friend's constituency. With respect to healthcare, we have worked with the UK Health Security Agency. We have taken its advice to ensure that no infectious diseases can spread on the barge or, where they do, that appropriate steps are taken. My hon. Friend referred to the decision to provide basic primary care on or adjacent to the barge. That decision was not taken, as he suggests, to privilege migrants residing on the barge. Quite the opposite: it was to ensure that those migrants place the least possible burden on local public services and so that it is not regularly necessary for migrants to register with GPs or take the appointments at GP surgeries that his constituents rightly demand. Given that the cohort of individuals will be relatively young, it is unlikely that they will place significant pressure on the local NHS, but we are working with it and with the local integrated care board to work through those challenges. My hon. Friend asked about the regime on the boat. Again, it is designed to ensure that there are as few issues for the local community as is possible within the confines of the current law, which states that the vessel has to be a non-detained one. That means that we will implement a regime that very strongly encourages the migrants to return to the vessel for 11 pm and not, as my hon. Friend suggests, to roam the streets of the area. There will be a secure cordon around the vessel, which, again, will discourage people from walking into the community. There will be a bus that takes the migrants to agreed places where they might spend some free time or go to a shop--again, to discourage them from making journeys throughout the community and to carefully control their movements as far as one can within the limits of the law. My hon. Friend asked about the Ministry of Defence. We have worked with it; we sought its advice before proceeding, and we have considered the particular sensitivities of Portland port. My hon. Friend asked about the police. We want to work closely with them. We have made it clear that we will provide a special grant to Dorset police that will cover the additional burden that this special national endeavour will have on their very limited resources, because obviously we want to ensure that the local community is reassured as much as possible. That means that there will be extra neighbourhood policing and further support for the police that is not coming out of the coffers of the local constabulary. We have offered significant funding to Dorset council. It will receive at least PS3,000 per asylum seeker residing on the vessel per year, which will enable it to provide extra resources and personnel to manage the project--albeit that we will not be placing many burdens on it, as the vessel will be managed by the Home Office and its suppliers. Wherever possible, we will pay for the services required for those individuals. So a significant proportion of that funding--which, as I have said, will run to millions of pounds--will be available to Dorset Council to do whatever it wishes. One would hope that it will choose to devote the lion's share to the needs and desires of the immediate population, who will be most affected by this project.