Homes for Ukraine: Visa Application Centres Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Home Office
Justin Madders
Main Page: Justin Madders (Labour - Ellesmere Port and Neston)Department Debates - View all Justin Madders's debates with the Home Office
Homes for Ukraine: Visa Application Centres
Justin Madders Excerpts(2 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)
I applaud the generosity of my constituents who have offered their homes to Ukrainian refugees, but many are growing frustrated, anxious and despondent because of the continual delays they are experiencing, which I am sure the Minister has heard about many times already. One example is a sponsored woman sheltering in a school in Lviv. After a month, she finally had her visa approved this week, but that is yet to be communicated to her, and neither has the permission to travel been issued. As my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough (Andy McDonald) indicated earlier, this pattern is being repeated up and down the country. Can we have some assurances that that individual will not have to wait another month for those things to happen as well?
Kevin Foster
Absolutely. It should not take that long. We are also clear that people are welcome to travel into a third country, if they can. They do not need to wait in Ukraine for the decision or the paperwork to be granted. Of course, there has been no direct travel between the UK and Ukraine since the Russian attack. Those documents should be issued fairly promptly after the process. As has been touched on, the process that will shortly come on to the fully online system automates much of that and makes it even quicker than the current process.