Asked by: Deidre Brock (Scottish National Party - Edinburgh North and Leith)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to support UK charities seeking to provide safe escape routes for Ukrainian orphans and unaccompanied refugee children.
Answered by Kevin Foster
We recognise the deeply troubling circumstances faced by all Ukrainians who are caught up in this conflict, including unaccompanied minors, and the role many countries will need to play to safeguard those children. With respect to UK charities we are aware of a significant interest in assisting Ukrainian children.
Safeguarding and protection of these vulnerable children is paramount. It will generally be in the best interests of a child to reunite with their family members in the first instance. This is also the position of the Ukrainian Government. We have held a number of discussions with leading international organisations who are working hard to ensure appropriate processes are put in place to process and safeguard unaccompanied minors who are fleeing Ukraine.
The Ukraine Family Scheme (UFS) provides an immediate pathway for those Ukrainians, including unaccompanied minors, with family already settled in the UK to come to our country. The relevant safeguarding checks will be performed as part of the application process. The UFS is designed to allow as many people as possible to come to Britain and gives them immediate access to the support they need.
The routes and visa changes which we have announced so far follow extensive engagement with the Ukrainian Government to ensure they respond directly to their needs and asks. We will continue to work closely with them going forward.
We are committed to working with local government to ensure appropriate arrangements are in place, particularly for any unaccompanied children who may arrive and for whom there is no option of being reunited with extended family. The UK already has well established policies in this area for looked after migrant children.
Asked by: Deidre Brock (Scottish National Party - Edinburgh North and Leith)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if the Government will take steps to (a) waive all visa requirements and (b) introduce a resettlement scheme for unaccompanied Ukrainian refugee children.
Answered by Kevin Foster
We recognise the deeply troubling circumstances faced by all Ukrainians who are caught up in this conflict, including unaccompanied minors, and the role many countries will need to play to safeguard those children. With respect to UK charities we are aware of a significant interest in assisting Ukrainian children.
Safeguarding and protection of these vulnerable children is paramount. It will generally be in the best interests of a child to reunite with their family members in the first instance. This is also the position of the Ukrainian Government. We have held a number of discussions with leading international organisations who are working hard to ensure appropriate processes are put in place to process and safeguard unaccompanied minors who are fleeing Ukraine.
The Ukraine Family Scheme (UFS) provides an immediate pathway for those Ukrainians, including unaccompanied minors, with family already settled in the UK to come to our country. The relevant safeguarding checks will be performed as part of the application process. The UFS is designed to allow as many people as possible to come to Britain and gives them immediate access to the support they need.
The routes and visa changes which we have announced so far follow extensive engagement with the Ukrainian Government to ensure they respond directly to their needs and asks. We will continue to work closely with them going forward.
We are committed to working with local government to ensure appropriate arrangements are in place, particularly for any unaccompanied children who may arrive and for whom there is no option of being reunited with extended family. The UK already has well established policies in this area for looked after migrant children.
Asked by: Deidre Brock (Scottish National Party - Edinburgh North and Leith)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to ensure visa applications are processed within the service standard.
Answered by Kevin Foster
Performance and efficiency of visa processing is continually reviewed to ensure performance is as strong as possible.
Information on our immigration routes with service standards and whether they have been processed against these standards is available as part of our transparency data, at: Migration transparency data - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
We are, however, currently flexing resources across all routes to ensure a robust response to the Ukrainian crisis while still processing standard applications within service standard wherever possible. As a result, individuals with standard applications in study, work, and family routes may experience some temporary impact to the processing of their application.
Asked by: Deidre Brock (Scottish National Party - Edinburgh North and Leith)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to reduce the caller waiting times to the UKVI hotline dedicated to hon. Members.
Answered by Kevin Foster
Since the beginning of the Ukraine crisis, there has been a significant increase in calls to the MP Enquiry Line which has led to lengthy wait times. More staff are now being deployed to operate the line and we anticipate call wait times volumes will drop significantly as a result.
Asked by: Deidre Brock (Scottish National Party - Edinburgh North and Leith)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the potential merits of extending eligibility for the Homes for Ukraine scheme to Ukrainian nationals who lived in Belarus prior to 1 January 2022.
Answered by Kevin Foster
This Government has made clear its support for Ukrainians fleeing in fear of their lives clear by introducing the Ukraine Family Scheme and Homes for Ukraine Scheme.
The Homes for Ukraine scheme will allow individuals, charities, community groups and businesses in the UK to bring Ukrainians to safety.
To qualify for the Scheme a person must be Ukrainian, or the immediate family member of a Ukrainian national, have been residing in Ukraine on or immediately before 1 January 2022 (including those who have now left Ukraine).
The Government has no plans to extend the eligibility beyond this cohort.
Asked by: Deidre Brock (Scottish National Party - Edinburgh North and Leith)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many Homes for Ukraine visa sponsorship applications have been successful to date.
Answered by Kevin Foster
The scheme has only been running for a short period so far; details on the number of visas issued will be released in due course.
Asked by: Deidre Brock (Scottish National Party - Edinburgh North and Leith)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if her Department will consider lifting the requirement for Ukraine Family Scheme applicants to travel to visa application centres in other countries to finalise their application.
Answered by Kevin Foster
The Home Secretary updated Parliament on 10 March about the government's support for people fleeing Ukraine, including the need to visit a visa application centre to provide biometric data.
https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/home-secretary-update-on-support-for-ukrainians
Asked by: Deidre Brock (Scottish National Party - Edinburgh North and Leith)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to simplify (a) organisational processes and (b) documentation for people applying to the Ukraine Family Scheme.
Answered by Kevin Foster
The Home Office is continually making efforts to simplify the application process for Ukrainian refugees, and keeps this under regular review.
The latest developments can be found in the Home Secretary’s statement of 10 March which can be found: Home Secretary update on support for Ukrainians - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
Asked by: Deidre Brock (Scottish National Party - Edinburgh North and Leith)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether her Department plans to publish the review of historic applications under the Tier 1 (Investor) route by the end of March 2022.
Answered by Kevin Foster
As the Home Secretary set out in her Written Statement of 21 February, the review is being finalised and it is our aim to publish it shortly.
Asked by: Deidre Brock (Scottish National Party - Edinburgh North and Leith)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the potential merits of allocating more temporary visas to workers in the food and drink supply chain to ensure sufficient food supplies at Christmas 2021 and beyond.
Answered by Kevin Foster
Recognising the extraordinary circumstances facing businesses currently, Government is providing visas as a time-limited, temporary measure for the food sector until longer term measures to improve the supply of skills domestically start to have an impact. This includes visas for up to:
It will be for the sectors and companies concerned to make use of these opportunities to recruit labour over this period.
However, we must see long-term solutions delivered by employers through improved training and hiring, with better pay and working conditions, as immigration routes do not provide a guarantee of being able to recruit in a competitive global market for skilled workers. Therefore, we have no further plans to provide more temporary visas in this sector.
The Points Based System already provides for a range of roles in the food and drink sector, including roles such as Butchers, to be recruited on a global basis subject to the rules and requirements of the system being met, including on salary.