Ukraine: Refugees

Baroness Finlay of Llandaff Excerpts

Wednesday 6th April 2022 Grand Committee

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)]

My Lords, like others, I applaud the noble Baroness, Lady Helic, for securing this important debate and I welcome the Minister to his post. He has apologised publicly—it has been in the media—and admitted that the system is not good enough. Many of us fear that, in his well-intentioned work, he might get so worn down that he finds himself mentally unable to function with the burden of what he is carrying on his shoulders. I do not believe that that has happened, but I put that as a warning to those who should perhaps be supporting him, because I worry that he may not be getting enough support.

The noble Earl, Lord Shrewsbury, recounted a story that is repeated in many pieces of correspondence that I have received, including one about a mother and her daughter who have, it seems, probably been tempted into what could be modern slavery in Ireland—contact with them has been lost. A lot of other young people are deeply traumatised. I will quote from the rector of the great academic council from the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine, who at the beginning of March wrote to Colin Riordon, who is the vice-chancellor of Cardiff University and who supplied me with this letter, to which he replied on 2 March:

“Almost 10,000 Ukrainian students, teachers, and about 500 foreign students are hiding in the basements of dormitories and educational buildings. There are no safe places left in Ukraine.”


Since that letter was written, the situation has deteriorated greatly.

We must be aware that the people in Ukraine are sacrificing themselves to protect freedom and democracy in all of Europe and possibly across the world. When we offer them sanctuary, we must follow that through. The visa process is causing enormous distress to people who are already traumatised. Our official processes must not worsen the health of those already vulnerable and traumatised by what they have experienced. Our border control and authorities should undertake their responsibilities properly by acting to counter all discrimination and mitigate health risks, not worsen them. People will need healthcare services—they need them now—as they have undergone mental and physical traumas. Children have witnessed rape, violence, parents killed in front of them and overwhelming terror the like of which we cannot imagine from the safe haven of these islands where we sit.

Health workers coming from Ukraine should be allowed to continue working in our country with automatic recognition for their qualifications and help to integrate, because nearly all of them have adequate English already and the hurdles that they will be asked to go over will be enormous. Those in training should be allowed to access our training schools—I will ask the Minister about that later, because there is a problem.

We have an ethical obligation of non-abandonment of the seriously ill people and their families. Before the war started, Ukraine was estimated to have approximately 7% of the analgesics required to deal with its normal surgical and palliative care requirements. It had much less than the rest of Europe. That is now estimated to have fallen to 1% or lower than is required, simply to provide pain relief to people who need it in that country. That is an appalling statistic to have to live with.

I have previously declared that we have applied to welcome a family. On 9 March, the family we want to sponsor had managed to get to Sofia in Bulgaria, so I wrote to the ambassador there and gave all the details of the family, including their CVs—as much as I could obtain. Today, I received a reply. It referred me to some telephone numbers, which I tried; none was able to provide any help at all.

We applied on 18 March, as soon as the process opened. It took my husband eight hours to work through the forms, including communicating with them to get all the details required. The document list was inadequate. It did not state at the beginning of the process what would be needed as we worked through it. At one point, we had to upload a PDF of passports to an external agency—I do not know who the agency was, but we had to convert the JPEG files into PDF files. As the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, said, there was no linking of individual family members, so we know that three of the four applications are being processed but we have no idea what has happened to the fourth—the son—although we had an automatic email response.

There must be a way that families can be kept together, as has been highlighted. Wales wants to become a super-sponsor, with Scotland. Arrival hubs have been set up at ports of entry across Wales. They are not being openly disclosed in the public domain for obvious security reasons for those arriving. It has been estimated that Wales is expecting and able to take 1,000 people easily. Some 10,000 people in Wales signed up for the Homes for Ukraine scheme to act as potential sponsors. There have been 1,300 applicants to date for Wales; 143 have got visas. We have hotel rooms waiting to receive them, covered by the Welsh Government, that are not being used. Accommodation is available and processes have been put in place with local government. We have interacted with Cardiff Council, which I must commend for being extremely helpful and arranging to inspect property, conduct crime checks, et cetera. A helpline has been launched.

The universities are trying their best to link with other universities; Cardiff University has volunteered 50 projects to host Ukrainian academics for periods of three months or more, and the Council for At-Risk Academics is working with the university to try to provide support and arrange for twinning of UK universities with ones in Ukraine. It is currently not possible to accommodate all the students on courses because the Government have refused to waive the requirement to provide evidence of English-language competency or prior learning, but the courses would be willing to take them. There are a series of scholarships; Cardiff Metropolitan University—with which I previously had a role—has pledged £400,000 for two years to support scholarships and fellowships.

There is a concern that there may be a brain drain from Ukraine to the United Kingdom, but many of these people want to return, to rebuild their country once they can do so. We should support them. As well as providing a visa scheme and talking about three-year visas, what plans are being put in place now to let people know that we want to support them to come here, that we will do it fast and that we will support them to return when they are ready and want to do so but will not push them back?

There is a problem with medical and dental courses, and I ask the Minister to work with me to discuss with medical schools across the UK ways in which to accept and transfer medical and dental students into courses. We have an acute shortage of healthcare workers in this country, and we should help people who are a year or two years away from graduating to achieve the careers that they have worked so hard to achieve so far.

I understand from the Local Government Association that there is a concern that some people are already becoming homeless. How much Ministry of Defence accommodation is empty, how much of it has been assessed as habitable, and is it being repurposed deliberately to house Ukrainians in groups so they can stay together in their own community with people who speak their own language while other housing is being arranged for them? I understand from somebody in the MoD, who does not wish to be named, that there is such accommodation.

My last question relates to security. I understand that the Government, in the open session yesterday for which we are all most grateful but which some of us could not attend because of the health Bill, spoke about the security issues. How are they getting security information from the police files in Ukraine and from criminal records there to do the security checks that they say they need to do? Will the Government disclose to us the algorithm of the processes, as there are accounts of people getting emails to say that they have a visa, but the required documentation is not attached to that email and, therefore, they cannot activate entry into this country?