Ukraine Refugees: Mothers and Dependent Children Arriving in the UK

Lord Harrington of Watford Excerpts

Thursday 7th July 2022 Grand Committee

[The Minister of State, Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities and Home Office (Lord Harrington of Watford) (Con)]

My Lords, I thank everybody for their contributions, particularly the noble Lord, Lord Loomba. To put this in perspective for me—this is a personal statement, in a way—I started this job at the beginning of March. I agreed to do it for a limited period of time, the definition of “limited” being when the job is done. The noble Lord, Lord Paddick, has a smile on his face because I think he knows, as I do, that things tend to go on. I want to leave this job when it is generally felt that I have done what I can do.

I have spent four months with colleagues putting together a delivery team to do precisely that: to turn the Prime Minister’s promise of an uncapped refugee scheme into a delivery mechanism. I formally record my thanks to Michael Gove, now no longer the Secretary of State, for having the faith in me to do this job and for starting the whole sponsorship idea, which was loosely based on my experiences of dealing with Syrian refugees. It was done in a very limited way for Syrian refugees.

I state formally on the record that for personal reasons I have had the temptation to resign many times over the last few weeks, owing to well-documented activities culminating in what has happened over the last few days. I did not, however, because I believe the refugee job, with its responsibility for tens of thousands of people’s lives, is above all that.

What have we achieved? Please do not misunderstand me and think I mean all the comments in a positive way. I get concerned about everything I hear, but I go to bed at night thinking, “At least 90,000 people from Ukraine are safe in the UK, with a steady flow adding to that”. I do not say that in arrogance or to make out that any of the points made were wrong.

I met the noble Lord, Lord Loomba, for the first time only just before this debate; I am sorry that has not happened before. I offered to meet him next week, irrespective of what happened in the debate, but following his contribution I suggest that maybe we could have a meeting with Barnardo’s as well to discuss the points he specifically brought up. The organisation has not contacted me with those points, and I would be delighted to meet it formally. I am happy to meet the noble Lord informally, of course, as we arranged. The Pugin Room is fine for certain meetings, but we should sit down properly with Barnardo’s with our officials present.

I will go through some of the points the noble Lord brought up; they duplicate some of the other points, so I ask noble Lords to be patient with me. I am working closely with the DfE on qualifications. It has been brought to my attention, and I know there are ways. We are having to persuade professional bodies about qualifications in Ukraine, often in areas where we really need people—for example, nurses and professional people, as the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, said—so I am not oblivious to that, but I am afraid that efforts with professional bodies are rather slower than I would like them to be.

The noble Lord made quite a few points, and generally asked me to be alert to the different gaps in the system. It would perhaps help in my response to him and to some of the other comments made if I could go through the gaps that I perceive, remembering that we are all learning as we go.

The visa issue was mentioned by a few noble Lords, and the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, was very critical of the situation in his first interventions with me. I say that not critically; it is a question of fact. It was very difficult, as was said by various noble Lords, including my noble friends Lord Moynihan and Lord Cormack, that visas were taking far too long. I have made various undertakings to bring that down; I said I hoped to bring it down to 48 hours and within 14 days. I set that myself. We are not supposed to talk about targets because they are easy to shoot down if they are not achieved, but in my mind, and publicly, it was a target.

The visa system has changed. I do not know if any of your Lordships have seen it or tried it, but we now have an app-based system for visas, called AUK2; it is an automated system that eradicates the need to go to visa centres. For example, the biometric tests can now be done on phones. As to why it did not happen before, I am not a technical person but I can say that the system was not meant for this volume of people—it just was not. In the majority of cases now, people do not have to visit visa centres. I have tested this myself—I should say I have used people to test it—and, for non-complex cases, it takes sometimes two days, but certainly two to four days. That is far more acceptable than it was. Nevertheless, we can improve that.

I include my failure, despite my best intention, to comply with my undertakings to the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, on interpretation. It is very difficult, but we have improved the guidance on Russia and Ukraine. I accept her points, but I can only do what I can do. If the noble Baroness feels that I have let her down, I fully accept that criticism.

I would like to go on to positive things, but will address some of the negative things mentioned by noble Lords. Again, noble Lords should not misunderstand me; I take them in a positive way, and this is how we improve. Checks were mentioned by my noble friend Lord Cormack and others. What kinds of checks do we do? Why are families put into inadequate housing? He asked me for some numbers, and the number of unsuitable housing cases that have been reported to us is 55, on the question of sponsorship, and 280 in the case of family reunion. Our checks to find that out form part of what the local authority is paid for, at £10,500 per refugee. I am sorry; I keep looking at the clock—I will be as quick as I can, but I could go on about this kind of thing for hours. We have checks and balances within that system, but it sometimes fails. However, the scale of this is quite minor.

Homelessness is a big point that was brought up by many noble Lords, including the noble Lords, Lord Khan and Lord Paddick. I am very conscious of it. The actual number of cases is now comparatively small, but significant in my working: there are approximately 600, split 400 and 200 between the sponsorship and family schemes. The whole emphasis is to keep these people away from the homelessness register. Every week, I meet with local authorities. Councillor Georgia Gould, of the same party as the noble Lord, Lord Khan, and I have a very good relationship. She is one of a group I meet to discuss precisely the problem of how we stop people getting on the homelessness list.

One way is to improve the rematching process that was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, and others. It is quite new. At the moment, the local authorities are doing it themselves, with our guidance, but I hope to expand that as the six months come to an end. The noble Lord, Lord Paddick, and every Member who contributed to this debate asked what happens after six months. That is very important, and a big part of it is rematching. We are at three months now but soon, at the four-month stage, we will be writing to people to say, “Thank you very much for agreeing to do this for six months. Would you like to continue?” Otherwise, we will have to do rematching, and we will make it as quick as we can.

There are other ways of dealing with the problems that particularly the noble Lord, Lord Khan, mentioned. On what we are actually doing to help local authorities, they all have problems with homelessness and everything like that. It is true to say that we cannot create properties that do not exist. I think even the noble Lord, Lord Khan, would accept that the Government’s many powers do not include those in the short term. The plan that we are working on is getting more people into the private rental sector. How do we do that? Quickly, we are looking at schemes to help them with the deposit so that they can do it and, moving on from that, with an advance of the rent, et cetera, to get them working. I am going as speedily as I can through all these different points.

Points were made about banking and were brought up again in quite a few of the contributions. I am pleased to say that a number of banks will accept Ukrainians without all the stuff they cannot do—the credit records, proof of address and all those things. Those are in the guidance provided to refugees. It is on the internet and they are given a physical, paper welcome pack. I am afraid I cannot remember what banks they are but a number of them will do this for Ukrainians.

On the question about universal credit and £200 not being enough, that is a problem and we are really trying to speed up on it. The lights are flashing but—

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

No, you have two more minutes.

[Lord Harrington of Watford (Con)]

Oh fine, thank you very much. I will try to use them properly.

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

We were trying to turn them off.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Harrington of Watford (Con)]

I shall keep my head down and get on with the rest of this speech.

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

You have as much time as you like because it is an hour and a half.

[Lord Harrington of Watford (Con)]

Thank you very much. Right, I have no excuse at all now. I am really not trying to get out of this at all; it is just that I have been going through things quickly to try to get it done in that time.

On jobs, if I could go back to the noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, and her well-discussed point about process in the system, we are working on a system with DWP to get more trained people to help them. It is interesting that the first ONS survey of this cohort showed that more than 60% of those over 18 were already in work. I am meeting a lot of people who are in work—and so pleased to be, as we are so pleased to have them in work. There are problems with transport, however. The Brighton example was mentioned by my noble friend Lord Moynihan, but generally people have to get to the jobcentre for that.

I meet every week—well, I met Ministers every week to discuss this but I am afraid I cannot possibly tell your Lordships quite who it will be next week. Particularly, the department for employment has been very helpful on this.

Quickly going through the other matters, now that I have a bit of extra time, I am seeing what I have missed out in my canter through the whole thing. I probably skipped over the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, too much. It was, basically: what support are we giving to local authorities? He knows this very well but, to put it on the record again, it was a well-negotiated consensus view that £10,500 per refugee—not per family—would cover most of it. I meet so many local authorities now and some of the people cost hardly anything and some, of course, cost far more than £10,500. Basically, they are doing a pool system.

I have not had reports that it is not enough money. I have heard worries about our unaccompanied minors scheme and that it is not enough for them. Of course, we made provision for where children need extra care, be that through intense social services or, unfortunately, to be taken into care. A lot of extra money is available for that. I think we support the local authorities well. They are very articulate and vociferous in their weekly calls to me on that. Again, I hope everybody realises that there are no political points in this at all. Everyone is really trying to help collectively, particularly the local authorities.

Perhaps they were a bit tongue in cheek, but I will just respond to the final comments from the noble Lord, Lord Khan, about what difference the new Secretary of State for Levelling Up will make. He got the job only three or four hours ago, but I was very pleased that he did, for a number of reasons. Apart from the personal friendship between us, he was the Secretary of State when I did the Syrian programme and was excellent with it. The whole purpose for appointing me in the first place was so that I am ring-fenced to deal with this work, but I am very optimistic that what Greg Clark, the new Secretary of State, does will do nothing to impair or impinge on it. In fact, I hope he will improve on it.

The noble Lord asked how the councils are supported. I have dealt with various points to do with that. I ask noble Lords for any feedback they have from any councils—I also ask all the MPs this in my weekly call—as we really do try to learn on the ground.

[Lord Moynihan (Con)]

On that point, would my noble friend the Minister be happy for me to populate my case study with the names and write to him accordingly, so that he could follow that up? Also, since the Minister mentioned his engagement with the banks and their commitments, if NatWest is on that list, could he make sure that it is aware that it is not being as effective as it committed to publicly? If it is not on the list, why not?

[Lord Harrington of Watford (Con)]

I wish I had that much influence with NatWest. I do not recall it being on the list, but TSB and Halifax are, for example. They are all quite well-known banks, but it is not just the big clearing ones. I would be delighted to hear any case studies, or indeed to meet personally with the refugees my noble friend knows, if he would like me to. Every week, I meet refugees and I find out a lot from it. I have found meeting MPs very helpful as well, because of course they meet constituents. I would be very happy to meet personally with my noble friend Lord Moynihan —I have not seen him since we were undergraduates together, but he will not remember that—or any of the refugees he mentioned. I would be very happy to bring them here to meet them and hear about their experiences.

[Baroness Sheehan (LD)]

I just want to confirm that NatWest is definitely in the scheme. It is the bank that my families are using; it is definitely in the scheme, and we were told that it takes 28 days to process those forms. The Vodafone scheme that is supposed to be helping Ukrainian refugees leaves much to be desired. There is lots of noise about its generosity but in fact those SIM cards, which are essential to setting up bank accounts and everything that follows from them, are not readily forthcoming.

[Lord Harrington of Watford (Con)]

I had heard of the Vodafone Foundation in the context the noble Baroness mentioned, with a lot of noise, et cetera. I am very happy to meet it. In fact, I had a meeting yesterday with someone who does a programme with Vodafone in other countries, but I will now ask to meet the Vodafone people directly, because its involvement is trumpeted—that is the correct word for Hansard.

I have missed the comments from the noble Lord, Lord Khan, on PTSD. At the moment, it has not become a problem. This could be because it is not being reported. It could be because people are keeping things inside, because they just got away from a traumatic situation. I suspect it is beneath the surface. At the refugee groups I talk to, you meet people who are beautifully spoken—perhaps a mother with young children. You could easily think on the surface that you were attending a kids’ playgroup like those you go to up and down the country, but when you get talking, you can see what is just under the surface. I thank the noble Lord for flagging this. At the moment, it is not a problem, but we are on alert, via the local authorities.

I must conclude; I have probably gone well over my time.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

I mentioned universities’ twinning schemes. Does the Minister have any comments on that area?

[Lord Harrington of Watford (Con)]

I have nothing but encouragement, as my noble friend knows, but they have not proceeded to the extent that I want. I had extensive conversations with the DfE about it, as he knows—who will be there next week, I could not tell him—but he is always on at me about it in a very positive and proper way. I am not oblivious to it.

In summary, if I may, I know that things are not perfect, I really do. Some people say that people criticise me all the time. Well, I am pursued around the House of Lords, particularly—and to a lesser extent by the House of Commons—by people with experiences, and I want to learn about them. Sponsorship is very difficult because, by nature, it is full of well-meaning people. Who would put their name down if they were not well-meaning, except, as has been brought up, when there may be a few really bad eggs? But most of those that have not worked out were not because of bad eggs, but because people did not really consider quite what it involved.

However, this is evolving. My real hope is that when it is done, instead of wrapping it up and burying it in the annals of civil service and governmental history, as happened with the Syrian scheme—it was completed and then moved off—that this becomes the way that we can deal with flows of refugees from all over the world, from whatever terrible disaster, which unfortunately happens all the time in our history. That is my hope and it all keeps me going, but I thank noble Lords for their contributions to this debate, all of which are gratefully received.

Committee adjourned at 3.46 pm.