Ukrainian Asylum Seekers and Refugees

Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede Excerpts

Tuesday 7th June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Harrington of Watford (Con)]

I reiterate that refugees from Ukraine are perfectly welcome to come here and there is absolutely no reason why they should be sent to Rwanda. They are welcome here, we have accommodation for them, local authorities are paid to look after them and we have already welcomed nearly 70,000.

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

My Lords, in the case of children accompanied by a parent or a legal guardian, should the children always be treated the same way? The reason I ask is that a case has been brought to my attention in which the parents and the elder child received visas in the normal way but the family had to travel a substantial distance to get a visa for the younger child. What possible explanation could there be for this? Surely this is just a source of delay for the family travelling to safety in this country.

[Lord Harrington of Watford (Con)]

The noble Lord makes an excellent point. There is a source of delay where there has been an identification problem with the youngest child. I hope the new system we have in place now means that that is not necessary. If they have to go to a visa centre—I have observed this happening in Warsaw and elsewhere—it is only because there is no way we could identify that very young child with the parent. We look for the lightest possible method of identification. In fact, I have seen a letter from the doctor who delivered a baby being considered acceptable. We have to satisfy ourselves that young children are indeed who the mother or relative says they are. I accept that it has led to hardship where there has been a big delay and I hope that will not happen again.