On Saturday 29th June 2002, BBC News Online, ran an interview
with Tory MP Peter Luff, and keith Best on their visit to the Netherlands.
They were visiting asylum seekers housed on barges.
If you had asked NCADC before the visit who would come
back the most obnoxious in support of barges for asylum seekers, we would
have said Peter Luff. We apologise to Peter Luff.
"I heard the interview on the radio.
Keith Best made some disgraceful comments when supporting barges. I was
fuming for quite some time afterwards. People need to know what he said,
and anyone involved with the Immigration Advisory Service (IAS) should
either back him (so we know where we are with the organisation) or sack
him."
Pete Widlinski,
North East Coalition for Asylum Rights (NECFAR)
===================================
BBC News Online, Saturday 29th June 2002
Barges could be an alternative to rural asylum centres
Asylum seekers could be housed on barges in Britain as
they are in the Netherlands, believes the head of the Immigration Advisory
Service (IAS) .
The chief executive of the independent Immigration Advisory
Service, Keith Best, visited the Netherlands to find out more about the
accommodation.
Mr Best, chief executive of the independent Immigration
Advisory Service (IAS) was impressed by the conditions on board the barges
.
"I think this could provide part of the solution to the
difficulties that we've got in trying to find accommodation for asylum
seekers in the UK."
"It's a cheap option but it's a comfortable one for people.
It's rather like student accommodation - it's not luxurious but it's certainly
comfortable, they've got TVs in their rooms."
"Yes of course it's spartan, but I don't think asylum
seekers would expect anything else."
"There's some controversy about the quality of the food
but that's a local issue, that can be sorted out."
Mr Best said the regime on the barges appeared to be making
the residents relatively happy and contented.
"It's comfortable in so far as there's safeguards taken
for trying to make sure that people are not left on their own, that they
do have somebody else to help them.
"What's interesting here is that they do mix nationalities
very widely, and they've found that has reduced tensions which you might
otherwise get from having large numbers of one nationality.
"And it's certainly preferable to the sort of conditions
that they've had to come from and the persecution from which they've been
fleeing."
"Talking to the people here... there is a considerable
degree of contentment, if that's the right word for people who've gone
through what they have to flee from persecution.
"People are courteous, they greet you, they say hello,
they say 'excuse me' when they're passing you in the corridor, they're
laughing with one another - this is not full of very malcontented people."
============================
Mr Luff's comments:
'Flexibility'
Mr Luff said the barge idea presented a useful alternative
to the type of centres the government is proposing to build.
"The glorious thing about these is you can put them virtually
anywhere you like...near any major town or city which has a port or any
kind of harbour facility.
"There's a lot of flexibility, you can move them around
and trial them in different locations.
"But I'm clear from what I've heard today, you do need
to be near a major town or city."
Full article:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/uk_politics/newsid_2073000/2073654.stm
