Homes for Ukraine: Child Refugees

Olivia Blake Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd June 2022 Westminster Hall

[Olivia Blake (Sheffield, Hallam) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Davies. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead and Kilburn (Tulip Siddiq) on securing this important debate. It has been amazingly heartening to see so many people, including many of my constituents, open their hearts and homes to those fleeing this war. It has been equally amazing to see the passion of Members of Parliament, such as my hon. Friend, in fighting to get families reunited and brought here through the Homes for Ukraine scheme.

Like my hon. Friend, I am concerned about what the future will hold for Ukrainian refugees, especially children, who have come here through the Homes for Ukraine scheme. We rightly celebrate kinship care for our own children, so it feels incredibly wrong that this is being denied to children whose parents have no choice but to leave them with other family members to come to the UK. Ministers must take responsibility for the limitations of the scheme.

The issues I want to raise relate mainly to our duty of care for refugees once they arrive. First, some will be unable to complete their six-month placement with their host. In fact, reports suggest that as many as 660 Ukrainian households have had to declare themselves homeless to their council because of breakdowns in relationships with hosts. Some have been asked to leave with just a day’s notice, making it incredibly difficult for them to seek alternative arrangements. For child refugees, it goes without saying that that is hugely destabilising. They are more vulnerable and they are being turned out of homes: 480 households with dependent children had no choice but to seek help because they had discovered the accommodation that they were supposed to be living in was not fit for purpose or meeting their needs. I have also been made aware of situations where the host’s Disclosure and Barring Service check came back with concerns—and this was after children had been placed with them—meaning that families could no longer stay and their place of sanctuary suddenly became a place of fear.

Secondly, I have been wondering why the checks and balances and, importantly, the support offered to hosts are not the same as those for foster carers, especially therapeutic interventions. They should also be provided to the host family. Local authorities need the resources to adequately prioritise and ensure safeguarding and welfare. Access to education probably deserves a debate in its own right, as it is a huge issue for children. A catch-up for schools in the summer is a great idea that has been raised with me by the Ukrainian society in Sheffield.

The warmth and generosity from members of the public has been inspiring, but things can go wrong. Ministers cannot and should not forget refugees once they have entered the country. That leads me to the third problem: what will happen to people once their six-month placement is over? At the moment, Ukrainians are facing a cliff edge. Some organisations have highlighted that they might struggle to access housing. We know that some landlords will not accept those who receive benefits, until the law hopefully changes. Others will struggle to provide the years of financial evidence required for renting. Deposits and up-front rent will also be a challenge. The availability of social housing has clearly been a challenge for many years. In Sheffield, over 20,000 people are already on waiting lists.

For those people who have lost everything in war, housing will be critical when the six-month cut-out comes. Since people have already been here for up to three or four months, it is becoming critical. They have no one to act as guarantors, which is another issue for private renting. The Government must face up to the reality and urgently investigate how those who came here under the Homes for Ukraine scheme can be housed securely. They must put in place a plan for what happens after the initial housing period comes to an end.

If we do not get this right, Ministers will be stripping vulnerable people of the hope that they had been given for a better future in the UK by the Homes for Ukraine scheme. I ask them to urgently consider what resettlement options will be available to people at the end of the six months.

--- Later in debate ---

[Eddie Hughes]

I do not think it would be possible for me to set a timeframe, but I can say that we are going to contact the 1,000 people who have already applied, working through those as quickly as we can. The policy will initially apply to applications in the system that were put on hold, but they will, as the hon. Lady has suggested, be prioritised for processing through the expanded scheme once it opens in July, although we need to ensure that sponsorship arrangements are appropriate, which is complex, and that all safeguarding checks have taken place prior to travel. That might take a few weeks.

All that will be welcome news for many of the children and many of the potential sponsors who are well placed to offer a child safety, sanctuary and security in their home, but I want to be completely clear about the fact that it will be possible only in some carefully defined circumstances, including when children are travelling with or are joining an adult relative, or children travelling alone are travelling to stay with a known sponsor, such as a close family friend. The safety of the child must be paramount.

It is important that we take this opportunity to expand the scheme—

[Olivia Blake]

I am slightly concerned because trusted adults often can be perpetrators of abuse. I want to ensure that there will be continued monitoring of and checks on children who are placed with people outside their family, and that the correct safeguarding and infrastructure are around those children.

[Eddie Hughes]

I completely accept and understand the point that the hon. Lady has made, and it is important that the parents determine who such a person should be. To that end, we would trust that the children were to be placed in a safe environment.

It is important to take this opportunity to expand the scheme. We are particularly grateful for the support of colleagues in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and for the support of other expert practitioners, including local authorities, in helping us to develop the expanded format and ensure that the scheme is focused on delivering what is in the best interests of any child. In line with our commitment, the expanded scheme will include an additional requirement for local authorities to assess the suitability of sponsorship arrangements and ensure that robust safeguarding processes are put in place.

There will also be clear requirements for parental consent to any sponsorship arrangement and an expectation that the sponsor should be someone who is personally known to the parents.