The Home Office is facing mounting pressure to answer questions surrounding the removal of asylum seekers from the Bibby Stockholm barge following the discovery of Legionella bacteria in the water supply.
Conservative backbenchers have accused the department of “incompetence” after the 39 people who had boarded the vessel were transferred to alternative accommodation on Friday evening.
Meanwhile, shadow immigration minister Stephen Kinnock wrote to his opposite number on Saturday asking what the Home Office knew about the risk of the bacteria being present before moving migrants onto the barge.
The department said all 39 of those on board had been disembarked as a “precautionary measure” after samples from the water system showed levels of Legionella requiring further investigation.
Reminders of how the Australian firm behind the barge secured the deal have been making the rounds on social media.
The government secretly handed an Australian firm the £1.6 billion contract to supply asylum accommodation on barges without competition, The Independent revealed in June.
Corporate Travel Management (CTM) was put in charge of the lucrative two-year arrangement in February, weeks before the government revealed it would use a barge as its first offshore accommodation for asylum seekers.
The government placed the new barges under a pre-existing agreement with CTM for “travel and venue solutions”, which previously covered official bookings for conferences, flights, train tickets, hotels and vehicle hire for ministers and civil servants.
The remit of CTM’s government work was widened during the pandemic, although the work carried out was widely criticised.
A report by parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee found that the operation was “too slow and placed too much reliance on commercial providers”, but CTM was then handed a contract for operating quarantine hotels and mandatory testing.
In a series of angry Google reviews that dragged the company’s rating down to 1.4 stars, one person called CTM “incompetent”, while another wrote: “Shame on the Tory government UK, on whoever decided to give them this contract.”
Related: Health secretary says asylum seekers should be moved back onto Legionella hit barge
