Sunak’s migration woes could cost him General Election - Settle

Indeed, for a good while it partly dominated them this week as UK Government sources briefed journalists about how it was thinking of trying to alleviate the accommodation problem of people arriving here in small boats by possibly putting them in big boats moored on the coastline.

Yet, when asked about housing asylum-seekers in barges and ferries, Robert Jenrick, the Minister of the Poisoned Chalice, told MPs he wasn’t going to comment on “press speculation,” given nothing had yet been agreed. Disingenuous to say the least.

READ MORE: Rishi Sunak is a man in a hurry but the clock is running against him

Indeed, in Commons exchanges on the migrant issue, Mr Jenrick went on happily to mention examples of placing refugees on ships in Scotland and in Holland, where their use, he noted, had been “successful”.

Quite clearly, the issue of large numbers of people – 45,000 last year – making the perilous journey across the Channel is an intractable one and, if Mr Sunak and his colleagues manage to sort it out before the General Election, then hats will be eaten all across the country; mine included.

One clear problem has been the lack of speed in processing applications; more than 160,000 people are still in the system awaiting a decision.

And as Mr Sunak’s highly controversial Illegal Migrant Bill zips through Parliament with pressure from some Tory backbenchers to go further and faster only temporarily abated with talks planned with ministers for over the Easter parliamentary recess, the contentious plan to ship unsuccessful asylum-seekers to Rwanda is still bogged down in the courts.

Among the many connected issues focusing ministers’ minds is, of course, the “eye-watering” cost to the taxpayer of accommodating more than 50,000 migrants in some 400 local hotels at £150-a-night; that’s £6.8m a day or £2.3bn a year.

Despite the pressing need to sort this situation out, it must be pointed out that months ago the PM broached the idea of putting migrants on big boats with Cabinet colleagues, who, reportedly, “laughed[it] off the table”.

Migrants arrive in England (Image: PA)

Beyond finances, the political problem now for the PM is that some of the loudest criticism about the new sites to house some 4,000 new arrivals – at RAF bases in Essex and Lincolnshire and on private land in East Sussex - is coming from within his own Cabinet, among his own MPs and in local Conservative council areas, where the additional sites have been earmarked. As well as repurposed barrack blocks, portacabins could, apparently, be used.

Mr Jenrick told MPs Mr Sunak was also “bringing forward proposals” to use the Catterick Garrison barracks in his own North Yorkshire constituency to show “leadership”. I suspect the PM, who, luckily, has a number of expensive homes, will not get quite as many accolades for his generosity as he would like.

The political hole, or should that be chasm, the Conservative Government now finds itself in was painfully displayed in the Commons mid-week when the Immigration Minister updated MPs on how the Government had its eye on alternative housing to ease matters.

“Accommodation for migrants should meet their essential living needs and nothing more,” he declared. “Because we cannot risk becoming a magnet for the millions of people who are displaced and seeking better economic prospects.”

Mr Jenrick came under fire not only from alarmed opponents in Labour and the SNP but also from ones on the Conservative benches.

Veteran Tory Sir Edward Leigh said a court injunction by the local council would be sought against the Home Office’s “thoroughly bad decision” in Lincolnshire following a similar threat from Essex.

READ MORE: Despite Channel tragedy, more desperate people are heading this way

He decried how using the ex-home of the famous Dambusters squadron could jeopardise a £300m regeneration project in the area.

Later, Andrew Bowie, the Trade Minister, took to Twitter to, unusually, attack a decision by his own Government, and decry the use of a hotel for asylum-seekers at an “inappropriate location” in his Aberdeenshire constituency, expressing his “disappointment”. Don’t be fooled by the subdued language. Mr B is angry and mindful that he has a mere 843 majority.

Outwith Parliament, the Refugee Council said: “We must ensure that people fleeing war, conflict and persecution can access safe, dignified, and appropriate accommodation while in the UK asylum system.” Portacabins?

It added the Government plan was “unworkable and will add yet more cost and chaos to the system”.

In the Commons chamber, Labour’s Yvette Cooper, gave Mr Jenrick, in parliamentary terms, both barrels in a denunciation of almost poetic dimensions when she told him: “They are flailing around in a panic, chasing headlines - barges, oil rigs, Rwanda flights, even wave machines - instead of doing the hard graft.

“They have lost control of our border security, lost control of the asylum system, lost control of their budget and lost control of themselves.”

Yet while the Shadow Home Secretary’s ire was up, just what Labour would do to abate the migrant accommodation problem is anyone’s guess. Then again, it’s one of the few joys of being in Opposition to be able to luxuriate in the Government’s plight of flapping around in political quicksand. As Sir Keir ponders his party’s electoral chances over a late-night whisky from the deckchair in his Camden garden, he might conclude that his greatest allies in Labour’s bid for power are the struggles and fault-lines within the Tories and the SNP and that his greatest enemy is those within his own party.