Dominic Raab claims hotel accommodation acts as ‘incentive’ for small boat arrivals – UK politics live

Deputy prime minister claims putting asylum seekers in hotels is ‘encouraging the wrong people’ as Home Office is set to announce alternatives

Good morning. We are getting a statement in the Commons later on plans to stop housing new asylum seekers in hotels, and instead to put them in disused army barracks, on ships – and possibly even on a barge.

Dominic Raab, the justice secretary and deputy prime minister, has been giving interviews this morning and he told Sky News that one reason for moving people out of hotel accommodation, which is costing the government more than £6m a day, was that it was acting as an “incentive” for small boat arrivals.

We must end this perverse incentive through the hotels and more generally with the hospitality that in a broader sense this country gives, encouraging the wrong people, which is the criminal gangs and illegal migrants, to make these very dangerous journeys.

Ministers have procured an “accommodation barge” capable of holding hundreds of migrants, which is being refitted. They have yet to decide where it will be moored, although it will be in a port rather than at sea.

The Refugee Council said it was “deeply concerned” by the plans, saying the suggested accommodation is “entirely unsuitable” to the needs of asylum seekers.