Migrant barge contract will not be renewed by Labour

Closure follows audit on wasted billions under Tory rule

- MILLIE COOKE, DAVID MADDOX

The Bibby Stockholm barge, which came to symbolise the failure of Tory policy on tackling small boats crossing the Channel, is to be shut down by the new Labour government.

The contract for the boat, on which asylum seeker Leonard Farruku was found dead in a suspected suicide last year, will not be renewed when it ends in January.

The announcement came on a day when 12 damning reports by the National Audit Office (NAO) revealed the depth of the chaos left behind by Rishi Sunak’s Tory government with billions wasted and “systematic failures” across departments.

Auditors have uncovered billions in taxpayers’ money wasted or misspent in services ranging from fixing potholes, the funding of HS2, management of the NHS, schools and tackling chronic homelessness.

Among the eye-catching failures in the 12 NAO reports were:

• £9.2bn spent on reducing the classroom attainment gap for disadvantaged children only for it to get wider

• £100m spent to undo the work on the now cancelled legs of HS2 which had already gone £6bn over budget

• Up to £1.6bn a year spent on fixing potholes with a lack of information on where and how the money was being spent

• Mismanagement of the NHS means that it will have a shortfall in funding of tens of billions by the end of this parliament

• £1.6bn was spent by councils in just one year on temporary accommodation for people who are homeless

• A lack of a central coordinated approach in setting up compensation schemes for issues like the Post Office/Horizon and infected blood scandals