Refugees from Ukraine

Debate between Stuart C McDonald and Liz Saville Roberts

Wednesday 16th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Stuart C. McDonald]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Every Member of this House will almost certainly have constituents who have faced similar battles. Newspapers report people speaking of “A humiliating process”; of being

“tied up by Home Office red tape”;

and of the

“trauma of UK visa processing”.

Moving the process online will hopefully make things easier for some, as I say, but “online” is not necessarily “straightforward” or “fast”. The Government are still telling the women and children who are fleeing bombs and brutality to use a smartphone to: complete a complicated online form in English; upload documents that prove that they were resident in Ukraine before the invasion, and that prove a family relationship; and wait for a decision. Meanwhile, the sparse and subcontracted visa application centres are not set up to cope with the many who still need their services. Hours are too limited and the centres are spread too far apart. There is talk of surging staff, and many staff are no doubt working hard, but they have been handed an impossible task.

[Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will join me in asking the Minister when exactly the application system will allow applications to be made in Ukrainian, as we were promised a week or so ago would be possible.

[Stuart C. McDonald]

That is a very good question, and one that we touched on in the Home Affairs Committee this morning, but it would be useful to hear again from the Minister, from the Dispatch Box, about the work being taken forward.

Staff in visa centres face an impossible task. Worse still, there are persistent reports of some subcontractors charging fees for appointments outside business hours, or for uploading documents. The Government knew that was a problem; the independent chief inspector of borders and immigration recently reported that subcontractors’

“sole focus is income generation. The human aspect is not at all valued”.

The pantomime about processes in France was also an absolute farce. At the rate we are going, it will be months until we play our part properly.

We are three weeks on from Putin’s first escalation of the conflict in Ukraine, and around a fortnight on from the launch of the family scheme, and as I understand it, 5,500 visas have been granted, but that is in the region of 0.18% of the number of people who have fled Ukraine—and the UK’s population is 15% of that of the EU.