Accusations that “Labour-linked” charities and lawyers are blocking efforts to move asylum seekers out of hotels are “nothing short of risible”, a shadow frontbencher said.

Shadow transport secretary Louise Haigh has hit out at the government’s “desperate” line of defence after it emerged 20 people did not board the Bibby Stockholm barge on Monday.

While 15 asylum seekers did move onto the vessel – one of the Home Office’s new forms of accommodation to reduce reliance on expensive hotels – the Care4Calais group said other transfers were “cancelled” due to legal challenges.

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In response, a government source briefed newspapers that “Labour-linked charities and lawyers are repeatedly trying to stop us from moving illegal migrants out of expensive hotels”.

They added that Labour “need to quit trying to sabotage our plans to stop the boats” and “back the barge”.

Ms Haigh told Sky News she does not know what link lawyers or charities that are working on this issue have to the Labour party.

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“I think it really is a desperate attempt to deflect from their own failures,” she said.

“The idea that the official opposition that’s not been in government for more than 13 years is responsible for the crisis that has been created in the asylum system by the Conservatives’ failure to tackle it is nothing short of risible.”

Labour has argued the government should be focusing on bringing down the asylum seeker backlog rather than finding new forms of accommodation for them.

The government has said hotels housing people waiting for their claims to be processed are costing £6m a day and moving people into barges, alongside disused military sites, will be cheaper.

However, Ms Haigh said the Bibby Stockholm is being used “in addition to the enormous hotel bill” and called it a “floating symbol of catastrophic failure”.

She said the backlog for asylum applications is over 170,000 and “that’s ten times more than when Labour left government”.

She claimed that the Home Office is processing 9,000 fewer asylum cases a year than they were in 2015 and 40,000 asylum seekers are awaiting deportation after decisions have been made “so to blame anyone else for their failure is completely and utterly ludicrous”.

Ms Haigh said a Labour government would fast-track asylum seeker applications from safe countries to reduce the backlog, and stop small boat journeys by scrapping the “failed” Rwanda deportation scheme and using the money to set up a cross-border police unit to tackle people smuggling.

“We want to move away from any use of hotels or barges or any other kind of accommodation. We want to bring that backlog down.

“The Conservatives, instead are pursuing these madcap schemes and headline-grabbing moments, rather than tackling a serious plan to deal with the crisis.”

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Earlier, Justice Secretary Alex Chalk insisted the use of barges is only “part of the solution” and the government is considering “other budget accommodation”.

The vessel only has the capacity to house 500 asylum seekers – less than 1% of those waiting for their claims to be processed.

It has been reported that the government is considering reviving plans to fly people who arrive by unauthorised means 4,000 miles to Ascension Island, in the South Atlantic ocean, as a Rwanda “plan B”.

Mr Chalk told Sky News: “It’s not purely about barges…a huge amount of work is taking place to see what other alternative cheaper, more cost-efficient and frankly more proportioned accommodation is available.

“We cannot have in perpetuity people staying in four-star accommodation.”

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