Refugees from Ukraine Debate

Full Debate: Read Full Debate
Department: Home Office

Refugees from Ukraine

Anna Firth Excerpts
Thursday 10th March 2022

(2 years, 1 month ago)

Commons Chamber
Read Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Priti Patel Portrait Priti Patel
- View Speech - Hansard - - - Excerpts

I refer the hon. Lady to the statement I made earlier. I cannot comment on the anecdotal evidence that she has given, but bearing in mind that Kyiv is obviously under siege, it is thoroughly inappropriate if anybody made that comment.

Anna Firth Portrait Anna Firth (Southend West) (Con)
- View Speech - Hansard - -

I thank my right hon. Friend for her statement, which will be richly welcomed by the Ukrainian families in Southend West I have been meeting. In particular, I welcome the digitalisation of the family scheme. My question is around that. The devil is not in the detail with digitalisation, but the scale. We currently have tens of thousands of applications being made. Can my right hon. Friend assure me that the scheme will cope with the scale we may have on it?

Priti Patel Portrait Priti Patel
- View Speech - Hansard - - - Excerpts

These are big digital challenges that we all face, there is no question about that, but we are working through assurance to ensure that systems can cope and withstand some of the wider technological and digital challenges that come from a hostile country that we are effectively trying to operate against.