Ukraine: Disasters Emergency Committee Appeal

Baroness Northover Excerpts

Wednesday 9th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

My Lords, if I may, I must first correct my noble friend: it is the FCDO. The development element of our work is extremely important and it links in with the humanitarian support. I confirm that through rapid deployment teams, including the assessments they are making, we are working directly with the Ukrainian authorities and the Ukrainian Government to determine exactly what is required on the ground. I agree with him; as my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary has said, what is best for the Ukrainian people is for people to make cash donations, and the DEC appeal demonstrates the importance of that.

[Baroness Northover (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord and his colleague alongside him—the noble Baroness, Lady Williams—for their help in relation to a case flagged to me by World Jewish Relief, and which I flagged in your Lordships’ House on Monday, of an elderly lady in her 90s who was waiting for a visa in Warsaw. What action is he taking to ensure that the system to assist refugees in such a desperate situation is fit for purpose and properly funded, so that we do not have to come to him and his colleague with individual cases?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for flagging that issue. I speak for my noble friend as well as myself, and I know that I speak for the whole of the Front Bench in saying that wherever there are issues it is our job to respond to Members’ inquiries directly to us in our own roles. If we can assist, as we have managed to do in this case, that is a tribute to the noble Baroness and indeed to the whole of your Lordships’ House about the importance of working collaboratively on this crisis. My noble friend will be taking an Urgent Question shortly on fitness for purpose, but I am assured by her and the Home Office that, for example, visa applications are being received. Over 10,000 people have already started their applications, and as of this morning over 1,000 visas had been issued by the United Kingdom.