Bibby Stockholm: Home Office ‘knew about’ Legionella on day asylum seekers boarded barge, says council

Home Office contractors were told about Legionella bacteria found on the Bibby Stockholm barge on the same day asylum seekers were transferred on to the vessel, the local council has said.

All 39 migrants housed on the barge docked in Portland Port, Dorset, were evacuated on Friday (11 August), after it emerged that tests on the water supply had detected traces of Legionella - a bacteria which can cause a serious type of pneumonia.

The tests were first carried out on 25 July by Dorset Council’s environmental health department, The Telegraph reported, but the initial results did not come back until last Monday, 7 August, the same day the asylum seekers were moved to the floating accommodation.

Now, Dorset Council has said that it informed the “responsible organisations” - operators CTM and Landry & Kling, both of whom are employed by the Home Office - about the preliminary test results that Monday, the same day it received them. A Home Office official was then reportedly told about the discovery on Tuesday, during a meeting late that evening.

However, a government spokesperson has claimed that the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) was only told of the Legionella late on Wednesday, and that ministers were not made aware until Thursday. The full timeline remains unclear - but we do know that migrants were not removed from the barge until Friday, meaning some were exposed to the bacteria for four days.

Commenting on the revelations, a spokersperson for Dorset Council said: “To be clear, it was not Dorset Council’s responsibility to inform the Home Office – that responsibility sat with CTM and Landry & King, the companies contracted by the Home Office to operate the barge.” They did not clarify whether the council told CTM and Landry & Kling about the bacteria before or after asylum seekers were moved onto the barge.

Meanwhile, the Home Office has not directly addressed the allegations, but a spokesperson told NationalWorld: “The health and welfare of asylum seekers remains of the utmost priority.

“All asylum seekers accommodated on the Bibby Stockholm have now been disembarked as a precaution and moved to alternative accommodation. The Home Office and our contractors are following all protocol and advice from Dorset Council’s Environmental Health team, UK Health Security Agency and Dorset NHS who we are working closely with.”

They addd that the UKHSA learned about the bacteria on the evening of Wednesday 9 August, a meeting was subsequently convened on Thursday 10 August, and later that day, the Home Office was advised to remove the six migrants who were the latest to arrive on the vessel. However, as a further temporary precaution, ministers decided to remove all 39 asylum seekers from the barge.

The discovery of Legionella was first revealed to the public on Friday (11 August) - just days after migrants first boarded the Bibby Stockholm. This move had already been heavily delayed by safety concerns, local opposition, and legal challenges, and around 20 people initially expected to board the barge were granted a last-minute reprieve following interventions by lawyers. In the end, only 15 boarded the vessel on Monday (7 August), and over the next few days, this figure rose to 39.

Sky News was the first to report that people were being removed from the barge on Friday (11 August) - but added that this was being done as a “precautionary measure”, and that no asylum seeker had fallen sick or developed Legionnaires’ disease.

However, an hour after the announcement, refugee charity Care4Calais claimed on Twitter that most migrants still remained onboard the barge - with many only hearing the news from their case workers. They also said they had not been warned about using the water.

Meanwhile, the Fire Brigades Union general secretary Ben Selby said that he had warned Home Secretary Suella Braverman about the huge health and safety risks of the barge prior to asylum seekers being boarded - but claimed she had never responded to his request for a meeting.

His statement read: “The Fire Brigades Union warned the Home Secretary that forcibly holding migrants on this barge was a huge health and safety risk. We wrote to Suella Braverman more than a week ago to demand a meeting to discuss these issues. We have had no response that letter, and our fire safety and operational safety concerns remain.

“It remains our professional view that it’s a potential death trap and an accident waiting to happen. However, Suella Braverman and her ministerial colleagues are hellbent on confining vulnerable people in jail like conditions on what is effectively a prison ship. This outbreak of Legionella suggests that it’s only a matter of time before either lives are lost or there is serious harm to a detainee.”

In a statement on the situation, a spokesperson for the Home Office said on Friday (11 August): “The health and welfare of individuals on the vessel is our utmost priority. Environmental samples from the water system on the Bibby Stockholm have shown levels of legionella bacteria which require further investigation.

“Following these results, the Home Office has been working closely with UKHSA and following its advice in line with long-established public health processes, and ensuring all protocol from Dorset Council’s Environmental Health team and Dorset NHS is adhered to.

“As a precautionary measure, all 39 asylum seekers who arrived on the vessel this week are being disembarked while further assessments are undertaken. No individuals on board have presented with symptoms of Legionnaires’, and asylum seekers are being provided with appropriate advice and support.

“The samples taken relate only to the water system on the vessel itself and therefore carry no direct risk indication for the wider community of Portland nor do they relate to fresh water entering the vessel. Legionnaires’ disease does not spread from person to person.”

Meanwhile, a Refugee Council spokesperson told NationalWorld: “We are deeply concerned by this news [of the Legionella bacteria]. We have a responsibility to give people seeking asylum safe and secure accommodation while they are in the UK asylum system. But instead of providing people who have come to our country in search of safety with suitable places to live, the government is placing them in accommodation that is entirely unsuitable to their needs.

“The chaos within the asylum system needs to stop: instead we must treat people seeking asylum with compassion and fairness, and meet our moral and legal obligations to protect their rights and welfare.”

Kolbassia Haoussou, director of survivor empowerment at charity Freedom from Torture, added: “The presence of life-threatening bacteria onboard the Bibby Stockholm is just another shocking revelation that we’ve seen unfold over the past few weeks. This government’s punitive policies and deliberate neglect of the asylum system is not just cruel, it’s dangerous.

“This government urgently needs to stop forcing refugees into unsafe and undignified accommodation, and instead focus their efforts on rebuilding a compassionate and efficient system that protects people like me who have fled torture and persecution.”

This is not the first military site that government is using to house migrants which has been affected by disease.

There have been a small number of positive results for tuberculosis detected at the former RAF Wethersfield in Braintree, Essex, and in July, one migrant was treated for scabies at the base.

The Home Office had been expecting to send an initial group of people to the Bibby Stockholm at the end of July, however The Times reported serious fire safety concerns about the vessel which delayed the plans. One source told the paper of fears the barge could become a “floating Grenfell”, in reference to the west London tower block tragedy in 2017 where 72 people were killed in a fire.