Homes for Ukraine Scheme

Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede Excerpts

Monday 28th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Harrington of Watford (Con)]

I agree with much of the sentiment of what the noble Baroness said. As far as the visa process is concerned, the only purpose is to provide security checks for this country. As I have said on the record before, when I was given the job to do by the Prime Minister, that was the only constraint. It is my job to make sure that the visa process is speeded up, and in the last two weeks we have gone on to a system where those with Ukrainian passports can fill out the form and download the visa without having to go to a visa centre, which they did only two weeks ago.

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

My Lords, the Minister said there were 20,000 applications for visas. Can he say how many Ukrainians have actually arrived in this country under this scheme? It is heartening to see how full-hearted the response from the British public has been to it, but what is the position with very young children, newly born babies and those soon to be born? Will their parents need similar visa arrangements for them to come to this country?

[Lord Harrington of Watford (Con)]

The answer to the question on the babies is that children under five do not have passports or visas. The reason why there still have to be visits to visa application centres is our fear that very young children will be used to be trafficked over here, and we need evidence that typically the mother—but sometimes the father—in question is in fact the rightful parent. We really do that as quickly and easily as we can. We cannot ignore the fact that there are people traffickers operating, and we have to do some due diligence.