Points of Order

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Gill Furniss

Wednesday 30th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Gill Furniss (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. My constituent Anton is Ukrainian, and his sister and two-month-old niece have made a perilous journey from Mariupol to Dnipro to try to escape the ongoing conflict. Anton is now desperate to bring them to the UK as soon as possible, and he has ample accommodation for them. He has applied for a Ukraine family scheme visa for each of them. However, as his baby niece does not yet have a passport of her own, the Home Office is demanding that they attend a visa appointment for biometric photos to be taken of her. This requirement strikes me as absurd. I have written to Ministers, but I am concerned that the upcoming recess may mean that this will not be addressed with the urgency it requires. I therefore ask for your guidance on what steps I can take, before we rise tomorrow, to ensure that Ministers remove this hurdle urgently.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I thank the hon. Lady for her point of order. As she knows, it is not a point of order and it is not for the Chair to give the answer, but I appreciate that she is using the opportunity of a point of order to raise a matter that she does not otherwise have the opportunity to raise. The first thing I would say to her is that I am sure those on the Treasury Bench have heard her question, but I hope I can be a bit more helpful to her because I understand the need for urgency. I have asked similar questions as a constituency MP, and found that Ministers—[Interruption.] Excuse me, but we have a slight crisis here. Hay fever is not meant to extend to the Chair. I beg the House’s pardon.

I have discovered that the Ministers dealing with this are very open to giving immediate and thorough answers if they are asked in the right way. I know that they are holding surgeries for all Members of Parliament, and I know that their special advisers have made themselves available. The Ministers in question want to answer questions such as the hon. Lady’s question immediately. There is, I have discovered, no intention to delay, because the sort of case the hon. Lady has described is one that we all have every sympathy with and there are ways around it. I am sure the hon. Lady will get an answer and very quickly if she approaches the Ministers and special advisers directly. It is not really for me to give this advice, but if she is stuck, she should come to see me in my office later and I will find a way to get that question through for her, because we do not want that baby to suffer and there are ways of dealing with this.