Ukraine

Debate between Ben Spencer and Andy Carter

Monday 14th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Dr Spencer]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. It builds on a point I was about to make about paying tribute to particular individuals and groups. It is always invidious to do this because there are so many people to single out and so many groups to thank for what they are doing, but I want to raise four areas in my constituency that deserve special attention, in among the work that so many individuals and community groups are doing. One is the Revive café in Chertsey, which has a coffee morning for refugees. One of the key players there is a lady called Lizzie Wayland, who is a member of the Beacon Church, which hosts the cafe. It gives incredible support to people locally.

I also want to draw the House’s attention to Lesia Scholey and Councillor Charu Sood, who have set up Weybridge Friends of Ukraine. They have been pivotal in leading support in Weybridge, alongside Elmbridge CAN and the Weybridge community hub. We also have a lady called Olena Melnyk, a refugee from Ukraine who now works in Runnymede Borough Council helping with translation for Ukrainian refugees. I would also like to thank my team in my office who have been incredible in supporting people going through the visa application process and in working on many pieces of casework supporting refugees once they have moved into my constituency.

Building on that spirit, I would like to give my thanks to the Right Rev. Kenneth Nowakowski, the bishop of the Ukrainian Catholic Eparchy of the Holy Family in London, who came to speak to community groups in my constituency last week. I do not know whether Members have heard him speak, but he is incredible. Without doubt it was one of the best community speech events I have ever been to. He has been central to the refugee response from the start and he spoke about the support he has set up and the lessons learned, and gave a cautious commentary on what he sees for the future. He made two points in his speech that I hope he will not mind me mentioning. One of them really sent a chill through me. When he visited Ukraine recently, he went to a school and a little boy came up to him, very excited to see him. He said, “Come, come—you have to see our bomb shelter. It’s really cool.” That sent a chill, but in a sense it is also quite sweet, because it shows the resilience of children and the excitement of how life changes and we have to adjust in the context of conflict.

The other thing the bishop reflected on in his talk was when people can start thinking about forgiveness. Given where we are now, that is very difficult to contemplate, but of course every war ends and things move on. One of the important things that we are talking about today is the rebuilding of Ukraine and what peace will look like. I say this cautiously to the House, because it is a difficult statement to make right now, given where we are and the pain that everyone is suffering, but perhaps these could be the early stages of thinking about the future that we want to have and the future that we can start hoping for as this awful conflict comes to an end.

I would like to thank all the people who came to the event in my constituency: the community groups, the elected representatives and the people who have supported refugees across my constituency. Our communities are precious, and my communities in Runnymede and Weybridge are without doubt the things that make my constituency the best place, in my view—I am sure my colleagues would say similar things about their constituencies—and we need to support them. We need to recognise the incredible work that they do.

[Andy Carter (Warrington South) (Con)]

I was not intending to intervene in this debate, but my hon. Friend is making some excellent points. I attended a meeting of Ukrainian family sponsors in my constituency two weeks ago, and the thing I took away from it was the message that we need to encourage the Government to do more to support our fabulous sponsors and encourage them to continue to provide that service. In many cases, they are coming to the end of the six-month initial term, and in parts of Warrington we have high levels of Ukrainian families who are thinking about where they can live next. The sponsors have given up six months and they are thinking about what they do next as well. Does my hon. Friend agree that the Government could take a more active lead in supporting and encouraging sponsor families to continue?

[Dr Spencer]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. It is almost as if he had foresight of my speech—which I know he did not—because I am going to go on to talk about the challenges when sponsor-refugee relationships break down. I will come on to that in a moment.

We must all cherish our communities and the support that they are giving. There is something very special about that, and if we do not fight to protect, cherish and thank them, it will be too late and we will lose them. I am sure that that is something that we all share. For a few months now, sadly, we have been hearing in my constituency about breakdowns in the relationships between sponsors and refugees. This is getting more concerning as we approach Christmas. A lot of people, when they generously offered to take part in the scheme, saw it as only a six-month commitment. It is important to recognise that if some can continue after six months that is fantastic, but for those who cannot, it is fantastic that they have helped out. There should be no animus if people feel that they cannot continue beyond the initial six months.

I have had many conversations with the leader of Runnymede Borough Council, Councillor Tom Gracey, and its chief executive officer regarding concerns about the matching process. Some refugees are not able to be rematched, and Runnymede is going to give them homelessness support. It will help to rehouse refugees locally if they cannot be rematched. The concern is that this will put an additional burden on to the local authorities. I know that the Government have been very generous in their support to local authorities, but this will nevertheless be a challenge, especially in constituencies such as mine where the availability of affordable housing and affordable rents is very much at a premium.

I have a question for the Minister about cases in which a refugee’s sponsorship has broken down and they cannot be rematched, and the state effectively takes on the role of sponsoring them through homelessness provision. Under the Homes for Ukraine scheme as it currently stands, the sponsor gets a monthly payment of about 350 quid, so when the Government effectively take over in a state sponsorship role, could the Minister look at the possibility of local authorities getting that sponsorship payment in lieu of the sponsor getting it? That would seem to be a cost-neutral provision—those are at a premium at the moment—to support local authorities when those relationships have broken down so that the homelessness provision does not put them under undue pressure.