Refugees from Ukraine

Peter Bone Excerpts

Wednesday 16th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Tom Pursglove]

To illustrate the point I was making for the hon. Gentleman’s benefit, I repeat that it is important that we have agreement with Ukraine on how those matters are approached. It would not be right, for example, for us to remove unaccompanied children from Poland without that agreement in place. Of course, as he would rightly expect, and because it is something that we as Ministers are very mindful of, we will continue to work constructively with the Ukrainian and Polish authorities to ensure that we get it right and that we do our bit on this.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

On that point, surely if there is an unaccompanied child in Poland, say, we would want that child looked after safely in Poland so that it can reunite with its parents when they are free to escape Ukraine. What are the Government doing to support bordering countries with humanitarian aid for that purpose?

[Tom Pursglove]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to raise that particular perspective on this issue, and I will happily have a further discussion with him outside the Chamber about the constructive work we are doing with the Polish authorities in particular. It is important, where possible, that we help to provide appropriate humanitarian assistance in the region. Of course, as he rightly says, wherever possible we want to see families reunited as quickly as possible, and there is an argument that having those children cared for closer to home makes it easier to facilitate that, but we will keep that under constant review to ensure that we are doing everything we can as a country to support those unaccompanied children and see that they are properly cared for. That is something people in our country would rightly expect.

Returning to the Ukraine family scheme, we have ensured that the scheme is easily accessible and fee free, and that it will not include any salary or language requirements. People who successfully apply to the scheme will have three years’ leave to remain and can work and access public services during that time. We will ensure that there will be avenues for people to stay if they are unable to return. We will never seek to return those to whom we give shelter if the situation in Ukraine remains as dangerous as it is today.

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[Stephen Kinnock]

The right hon. Lady is absolutely right. Operation Warm Welcome, the scheme for Afghans, has completely stalled and thousands of Afghans are stuck in hotels. That was completely on the watch of this Home Secretary, so I will take no lectures on that from the Government Members.

[Mr Bone]

I say to the shadow Minister that the SNP has moved the motion sensibly, criticising the Government in a constructive way. The shadow Minister’s remarks are in danger of turning into a more party political attack. May I suggest that that is not what the House wants at the moment?

[Stephen Kinnock]

I remind the hon. Gentleman that what is going on in Ukraine is a fight for democracy. In this House we act on the basis of democracy; it is the Opposition’s duty to hold the Government to account and to scrutinise them. If I were saying these things in Russia right now, I would be carted out and sent to the gulag, so I will take no lectures from him on the purpose of this debate and on our purpose, as Her Majesty’s loyal Opposition, in a democracy. This House has lost confidence in the Home Secretary and, frankly, the entire country has too.

I turn now to the day-to-day misery and chaos that Ukrainians seeking sanctuary in our country are experiencing. We are still hearing stories from Ukrainians who have made it to Poland, Hungary and other bordering countries that they are having to wait for days on end to be granted a UK visa. Given that we know that it takes only 10 minutes for a biometric test to be completed and only a matter of minutes to print a visa, why on earth are people having to wait for so long? As one Ukrainian refugee on the Polish border said, “It was hell”. Another called it “a humiliating process”.

This incompetence is leaving a stain on our international reputation. Have these poor people not dealt with enough stress already? We have also heard that the visa centre in northern France was originally supposed to be in Calais, then Lille, and that now it will be in Arras, another 30 miles from Lille. If the Home Office cannot even decide where the visa centre will be, how on earth will the people on the ground know where to go?

Let us not forget that the Home Secretary cited security concerns as the explanation for her refusal to set up a visa centre in Calais, while we have a Prime Minister who repeatedly overruled the advice of our security services in awarding a peerage to the son of a KGB agent. That tells us all we need to know about the priorities of this Government.

I turn to the Homes for Ukraine scheme that was announced on Monday. As I mentioned earlier in my remarks, Labour managed to shame the Government into introducing a sponsorship scheme to allow those without family to come to our country. It is a matter of profound regret that the Government have not heeded our calls for a simple emergency visa scheme that would have avoided the huge amount of bureaucracy, uncertainty and red tape that they have chosen to introduce. Nevertheless, this scheme is better than nothing.

However, on Monday the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities stood at the Dispatch Box and bellowed at the top of his voice about being fed up with people saying that the British people are not generous. His histrionics were yet another example of the deeply disingenuous behaviour of Conservative Ministers who come to this Chamber and deliberately misrepresent the Opposition’s criticisms of their dismal performance. Nobody is criticising the public for lack of generosity; our criticisms are levelled directly at this Government who have utterly failed the Ukrainians who are fleeing the horrors of war. If Ministers were to spend half as much time actually getting on with their jobs as they do desperately deploying smoke and mirrors to conceal their failings, then we might all be in a better place.

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[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

It is traditional to thank the previous speaker for their remarks, but regrettably I can find little on which I agree with the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock), and I fear his tone was wrong.

[Richard Graham]

The point I wanted to make to the shadow Minister is that the reason the Government Benches are not as highly populated as many people, including in the media, might expect for a debate on refugees from Ukraine is that over 150 colleagues are currently in Committee Room 14 listening to and engaging with four female MPs from Ukraine. I have to say that all four of them have paid considerable tribute to the enormous support that this country and our Government have given their country, which is wonderful to hear, and I sometimes wonder whether we are living in a slightly different parallel world down here compared with up there.

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[Mr Bone]

I thank my hon. Friend for a very important intervention. I would not criticise the Opposition for not having Members on their Benches because, for various reasons, a number of things relating to Ukraine are going on today.

I have a great deal of respect for the shadow Minister, but I just think he got it wrong on this occasion, and I absolutely think that the deputy leader of the Labour party, the right hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner), got it wrong at Prime Minister’s questions. She lost the House, and she was making party political points. In contrast, the SNP parliamentary leader made a very constructive point, and the way SNP Members have introduced this debate is wholly constructive. They disagree with the Government on the level of support and the way refugees are handled, but they have done it constructively, and I could fully support most of the motion they have tabled. I have to say that I have said that before I hear what the Back-Bench SNP Members say, but I do think they have chosen this subject and put down a motion that is reasonable and constructive, even if I do not agree with absolutely all of it.

I want to congratulate the Prime Minister on his leadership across Europe on the Ukrainian crisis Europe. I think people recognise that he has put in a lot of energy and has galvanised support for sanctions. Our military support to Ukraine has been huge, and our humanitarian support to the countries bordering Ukraine is probably the most in Europe. I think that is important testimony to how well this Government have done.

I think there is a very important point about looking after refugees, mainly women and children, who are fleeing Ukraine and getting out of Ukraine to the bordering countries, and who will want to be looked after there until the Russians can be defeated in Ukraine and they can then go back to their loved ones in Ukraine. I think we should do everything we can to help those countries, and I congratulate all the countries bordering Ukraine on the support they have given people who have either come from a warzone, with all the trauma they are facing there, or are fleeing in advance of the war coming towards them. I think we should give great credit to our European neighbours for that, and the fact that we are giving massive humanitarian aid is very important.

I want to deal in particular with the issue of human trafficking. I chaired the all-party group on human trafficking for a number of years, and these evil gangs—“evil gangs” does not do justice to how awful these people are—have moved into the areas to which refugees are coming in those countries. What human traffickers, and by the way these are not the same as smugglers, do is take young women and children and offer them, they say, a safe route to this country or that country, perhaps even to the United Kingdom, but what they actually do is put them into modern-day slavery, prostitution or forced labour. This is happening at the moment in the countries surrounding Ukraine, as the former Prime Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), brought up in the debate yesterday.

My particular concern is about Moldova, which is a small country bordering Ukraine, but not in the EU. That very small country has taken in 100,000 refugees, but Moldova was already known for human trafficking. It is an area rife with those telling people that they can get them jobs and prosperity elsewhere, because it is a poor country. There was always a problem with human trafficking gangs there, and they are now operating to a greater degree. It is not an area where we would naturally have a lot of Home Office or Foreign Office support, because it is not in the EU and it is not a country we would deal with at high level.

I would like the Minister to consider putting extra resources into those countries to fight the human traffickers. We have led the fight against human trafficking in Europe, and we need to have people on the ground at the border to stop the trafficking gangs getting hold of these people and forcing them into a most evil situation.

[Tom Pursglove]

It is fair to say that my hon. Friend has been a tireless advocate on these issues for many years, and he speaks with great authority about them. I hope I can provide him with some reassurance in saying that I absolutely take away the point he raises. It is fair to say that our law enforcement agencies are looking at this very closely and identifying what more we can do to work in this area. I should add that there is a very strong link through Europol, which is ensuring that we are working with our neighbours to clamp down on this in a co-ordinated way.

[Mr Bone]

I am very grateful for the Minister’s intervention, and we have of course worked tirelessly with Europol, but I do think that the sophistication of these evil gangs cannot be overestimated and urgent action is required in that area, particularly in Moldova, but also in other countries such as Poland.

[Alexander Stafford]

My hon. Friend is making an incredibly point about human trafficking. Does he agree that the UK should spend some of the money in our foreign development budget on tackling human trafficking, because it is a huge issue that we know is going to get worse with this crisis? We must protect those women and girls—the children especially—as it is a ginormous issue coming down the line.

[Mr Bone]

I could not agree more with my hon. Friend. The problem is, or has been, that when we use that sort of aid, it does not count towards this mythical zero point whatever it is per cent., but we should still do it because it is the right thing to do. We and the whole House are after protecting women and children, and we do not want to lose these people at the very point when they have fled from a most awful situation. I do hope that that is one thing the Government could look at.

I want to say something briefly about Homes for Ukraine. A number of my constituents have been very keen to help in Wellingborough—for instance, I know that the Methodist church has a number of people who want to take refugees from Ukraine—which is absolutely great, and I really appreciate what my constituents are offering. It is important, and I am glad to hear what the Minister has said, that we have wraparound support for everyone who comes here. We cannot just bring someone over, pop them in a house, and that is it, and the local authorities need to be on board. North Northamptonshire Council has been very keen on this, and Councillor Helen Harrison has played the leading role when dealing with Afghans who have come here, so I am really pleased that councils are going to be offered £10,500 per person.

[Dr Philippa Whitford (Central Ayrshire) (SNP)]

This is one of my concerns in that just getting accommodation by signing up to the website is not going to solve this, both because people will need all sorts of support to integrate and because they will be traumatised. Would it not be better for local councils to create lists of people with accommodation? The idea that this can be handled from here across the UK is not going to work; it should be as localised as possible.

[Mr Bone]

The hon. Lady raises a very interesting point. I have a lot of time for what she has to say, which has merit. One problem with getting Afghan refugees settled was the extra time that it took to go from the Home Office down to the local authority. North Northamptonshire Council has the ability to deal with this, and to do so quickly—and I am not a fan of centralised systems that are based on a computer that is liable to break down—so that is certainly worth looking at.

On the wraparound support that local authorities will provide, I think the Minister said there might be some extra help with education. In winding up, will he expand on that?

In summary, what my constituents have said about getting refugees over here is that, first, we should be looking after them as they come across the border. We are doing that with money. They also think that the Government have now got it right with the schemes—a little slow, I think they would say, but they are getting there. It is right that there are checks and that we do not just let any people in. On the human trafficking front, the easier we make it for traffickers to bring people in, the more people will come in and be forced into prostitution or forced labour. The Government are getting it right, and I congratulate them on what they are doing. I just wonder whether they could look at one or two points on how education will be dealt with, and whether we can speed up the process and get vulnerable women and children to local authorities quickly, rather than having to go through a more bureaucratic system.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

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[Anne McLaughlin (Glasgow North East) (SNP)]

I want to acknowledge two things at the outset. First, the UK is not doing nothing and what the UK has done so far will have made a massive difference for some to whom we have given protection. Some may end up as MPs in this place one day, talking about how they came to the UK as refugees in 2022. There is no doubt that we will have saved and shaped lives, and have enabled some simply to have a life. This Government are not doing nothing and it would be wrong to claim otherwise, which is why nobody has claimed that today.

I also want to acknowledge that none of this is the fault of anyone other than Vladimir Putin and his regime, as my hon. Friend the Member for Gordon (Richard Thomson) said. It is not the fault of a European Government, of the people of these islands or of the Russian people, and it certainly is not the fault of the Ukrainian people, but our lack of culpability is irrelevant to our duty, both legal and moral.

As an immigration spokesperson and someone who has a very significant immigration case load in my constituency, and as someone who sat on the Nationality and Borders Bill Committee, scrutinising every line along with my hon. Friend the Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Stuart C. McDonald), I am always concerned when this UK Tory Government is required to fulfil that legal and moral duty, because I do not think they think there is a legal duty, and judging by the way they continually invite pats on the head and talk of how generous they are, I do not think they believe they have a moral duty either. They would not bring forward a Bill such as the Nationality and Borders Bill—which, ironically, returns from the Lords next week—if they had any desire, or believed they had any duty, to protect people fleeing war, violence and terror. The Nationality and Borders Bill, widely known as the anti-refugee Bill, is clearly trying to send a signal that benevolent Britain is no more: “Do not come here, because you will not be welcome.”

As I said, the Government are not doing nothing to help Ukrainian refugees, but they must understand that our duty, not just as Opposition MPs but as Members of this Parliament, of whatever party, is to speak up when we think the Government have got it wrong and to say where we believe the Government need to go on this issue. Otherwise we might as well just go home, take the salary and do nothing for it. I will list some of my concerns, many of which have been raised by colleagues but which I want to reinforce.

The response to refugees has been chaotic. I do not believe the Government have got it right yet, but they have had to be dragged, kicking and screaming even to get to the stage they have currently reached. Those of us who regularly have contact with the Home Office know that its modus operandi is to change the rules regularly and blindside people. Immigration lawyers can hardly keep up, MPs and caseworkers cannot keep up, refugees cannot keep up; that is the Home Office MO, and it is deliberate. It is adopted to deny people their rights, and the chaotic way in which the current situation was handled is that MO in microcosm. Anybody would think the Home Office did not want people to come here! From 24 February to 14 March it updated the guidance 11 separate times.

I want to say something about the children we were talking about earlier, and which my right hon. Friend the Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford) raised in Prime Minister’s questions, and the chaotic way in which that has been dealt with. We are failing in our duty to those children, and—[Interruption.] If the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Corby (Tom Pursglove) will let me finish, I want to say this. His colleague, the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster), who is no longer in his place, said that the Ukrainian Government have to give permission. That is right—we agree with that—and there is a Ukrainian Government Minister at the child processing centre right now who can give permission, yet the Westminster leader of the SNP must arrange it, because somehow it is not the Home Office Ministers’ job. Well, it is their job. [Interruption.] The Minister is shaking his head; so surely after this debate he will get that sorted so that those children will be brought to safety.

That aside, progress is being made, but why does it have to be so chaotic? Why do we have to make it so hard for people, and why are we still not offering anything comparable to what EU countries are offering? I know the Government do not like it when we compare what is happening here with EU countries, but we are not doing that because they are European; we are doing it because they have comparable economies and population size and we do not compare favourably, no matter what others think. I will come on to that shortly.

Nevertheless, we are slowly getting there, and one method is the Homes for Ukraine scheme. That cannot replace our legal duty, but I am delighted that so many people—120,000—have registered so far, opening their hearts and their homes to others. However, safeguarding remains a concern, and I know that it is a shared concern. Most of those using that scheme will be traumatised women and children and those men who are too vulnerable to be able to stay and fight, and we must ensure that they have the knowledge and means to reach out if it goes wrong; we must ensure they have the confidence to tell somebody if the placement is not working. They need to know who they can go to, and they also need to know they can approach them for any reason. They might just not feel comfortable, for instance. Perhaps a woman on her own with children is staying with a male who makes them feel a little uncomfortable and they might not be able to put their finger on why—perhaps it is just an inability to communicate with their hosts. I am sure most of those offering to share their homes do so from a place of compassion and would agree that we need to be careful in our vetting and follow-on, so that we do not end up inadvertently helping to traffic people into the sex trade who are then terrorised by their captors into not reporting it. That is what often happens now, and we must be very clear that they will be protected if they report such things. I know the Government have said that they will take that on board.

[Mr Bone]

The hon. Lady is making a crucial point about the way traffickers will bring people into this country, but they also coach people in this country, and they will threaten people so they do not report that. That is why vetting, checking and wraparound support from local councils is so important. The hon. Lady has touched on an extremely important point that we all must be aware of.

[Anne McLaughlin]

The hon. Gentleman has done so much in this respect for victims of trafficking.

I want to repeat that Positive Action in Housing based in Glasgow has a rooms-for-refugees scheme; it is not a paid scheme, but none the less over 20 years there have been 4,000 successful placements. It has great experience in this field and the Government could usefully speak to it and other organisations about their experiences.

I raised the issue of visas and asked a number of pertinent questions on Monday, but the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Torbay chose to ignore them, so I tried to intervene, and he refused to engage at all. He continued with the pretence that what we on the Opposition Benches, and many on the Government Benches, are asking for is unusual. Yet thousands of people enter the UK every day without visas: anyone from Australia can come here without a visa; anyone from Mexico can come without a visa; and anyone from Costa Rica can come without a visa. Thousands every week, too, from Canada, from Japan, from Namibia, from South Korea, and from the US, arrive here without a visa.

The Government say that to allow Ukrainians to do so in their moment of need would somehow pose a threat to our safety. As if having a visa is in itself a safeguard: as my hon. Friend the Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East mentioned, the two Russian military intelligence officers who entered the UK and made their way to Salisbury to carry out a revenge attack on a former MI6 spy, which resulted in the death of local woman Dawn Sturgess, applied for and got their visas before they arrived. A visa is no safeguard.

In Monday’s debate, my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry) raised the fact, as she has again today, that Lord Ricketts, who I am willing to bet has much more experience than any of us in this House—

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[Eddie Hughes]

That is fantastic news. I particularly thank my hon. Friend for his contribution to that effort.

Madam Deputy Speaker, you normally have the peroration at the end of the speech, so I am sorry for starting with it, but this is the final point of my opening remarks. Tens of thousands of people have already signed up to our Homes for Ukraine scheme. I am delighted to say that 7,000 of them have come from Scotland—these are not official figures, but the ones that I managed to squeeze out of the Department earlier.

The hon. Member for Glasgow North East also said that the Government needed a pat on the head when they feel that they are being generous. This is not the generosity of the Government—this is not our money. This is the generosity of the British people. This is the generosity of Scottish households. Seven thousand of them have come forward to open up their homes, and we should welcome and embrace that idea.

The hon. Lady also said, as did several other Scottish contributors, that the Government needed to be dragged kicking and screaming to this, and that it is against our better judgment, which is kind of weird when we have introduced an uncapped scheme. We are not putting any limits on the number of people who are coming here despite what Members might think from what they have heard from the SNP Benches so far.

I will now get back to my actual speech. I start by saying a huge thank you to everyone who has gathered and contributed to the debate today. The contributions, which I will come on to, possibly in detail—time allowing—later, show the strength of feeling that exists in this House and the importance that we all place on getting this right and doing the right thing by Ukrainian refugees.

As we meet today, thousands of Ukrainians are at the border of their country, trying to escape the horrors of war. They are overwhelmingly women, children, and the elderly—mothers, daughters, wives, and grandmothers. They are people left with no choice but to leave the country that they love. They are exhausted, distraught and desperate. Some have queued in traffic jams for 20 miles—the hon. Member for Gordon (Richard Thomson) referred to a case of someone who queued for 40 miles. Others have boarded trains that are packed to the rafters. Many have watched in horror as their homes and cities have been destroyed by Putin’s bloody invasion. This unprovoked invasion is bringing about a humanitarian crisis on a scale that we have not seen in Europe since the end of world war two, with the United Nations estimating that some 4 million people could end up fleeing their country.

Members across this House are determined that we, as a country, should open our arms to these people, and this determination has been on full display today. The scenes of devastation and human misery inflicted by President Putin’s barbarous assault on what he calls “Russia’s cousins” in Ukraine have unleashed a tidal wave of solidarity and generosity across the country. British people always step forward and step up in these moments, and since the first tanks rolled into Ukraine, they have come forward in droves with offers of help: community centres have been flooded with critical supplies; the Association of Ukrainians in Great Britain has received millions in donations; and charities such as the Red Cross have been overwhelmed with people giving whatever they can. The outpouring of public support has been nothing short of remarkable.

While this Government, and this whole House, have risen to the occasion with our offer of support to Ukrainians fleeing war, our lethal aid and our stranglehold on economic sanctions on Russia have clearly shown that we will keep upping the ante to ensure that Putin fails. As Members have argued today, it has been abundantly clear in recent days that we can and must do more. It is exactly right, therefore, that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities set out on Monday the new and uncapped sponsorship scheme, Homes for Ukraine. It is a scheme to allow Ukrainians with no family ties to the UK to be sponsored by individuals or organisations that can offer them a home. It is a scheme that draws not only on the exceptional good will and generosity of the British people, but one that gives them the opportunity to help make a difference.

As Members across the House have recognised today, the answer to that call has been truly emphatic. It sparked a Glastonbury-style rush to register to help, which did, temporarily, crash the website. Since Monday, more than 130,000 have stepped forward to offer an empty room or an empty home.

I appreciate that people are gathering for the statement, but I just want to briefly touch on the comments of some Members. My hon. Friends the Members for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) and for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman) talked about support for local councils. Obviously we will provide £10,500 per person, plus additional funding for education. Clearly, there are roundtable discussions ongoing with local councils and local resilience forums to ensure that they are well prepared for the arrival of these people. They will be responsible for going out and checking that the accommodation is of an appropriate standard and helping with those vital safeguarding concerns.

The hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) and the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry) would clearly like to see visas scrapped, but, in the meantime, they will be delighted to know that the Government have stepped up efforts to provide extra support to ensure that we can handle 13,000 appointments per week, which will dramatically surge the number of people that we are processing, as the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Corby (Tom Pursglove), mentioned.

The right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Liz Saville Roberts) asked us to work with the devolved Assemblies. Now, I mentioned the figure for Scotland, but I also understand that the number of applications from Wales for the Homes for Ukraine scheme is 9,000 so far, so we need to ensure that the system works and that those people can serve the purpose for which they have signed up. We will be working closely with charities to ensure that the support is provided right across the country.

Finally, one Member also raised concerns about those people who are coming with disabilities. As the disability champion for our Department, this is clearly something that I am particularly concerned about. We will work with local councils to ensure that the provision that is necessary—the support that needs to be provided for those people with disabilities—is available when they come to this country.

I wish to conclude, in this dark time, on a very optimistic note. At a time when the British public were needed to come forward and to open their hearts and their homes, they have done so emphatically—more than 130,000 homes have been offered so far. These are exciting times in terms of the contribution that we can make as a country to support the people of Ukraine at their time of greatest need. Slava Ukraini.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House once more condemns President Putin’s illegal invasion of Ukraine and the war crimes being perpetrated by the Russian state there; reiterates the House’s solidarity with Ukrainians in their resistance to Russia’s invasion of their sovereign state; recognises that Europe is now seeing the largest movement of refugees since the second world war, for whom the UK shares responsibility; warmly welcomes the significant and widespread offers of support for those fleeing the invasion from people and organisations across the UK; supports expansion of the family visa scheme and Homes for Ukraine scheme; and calls on the Government to go further and faster in its response, including waiving requirements for Ukrainians to apply for visas in advance of their arrival in the UK so as to facilitate speedy access to international protection here, working with international partners to ensure vulnerable people can be resettled here and providing full and sustained funding and safeguarding to support people to rebuild their lives.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. This will take one minute and 30 seconds. It is important that the public realise that sometimes, when the House is not packed, it is not because it is not interested in what is happening. Today, there are Ukrainian MPs in the Palace, and hundreds of MPs have gone to see them. The last debate was very important and well attended, and those speaking in it made their constructive points in a very sensible way. We should, though, make the public aware that there were other things going on in the House at the same time.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I am extremely grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his point of order. I am happy to give him a direct answer. First, I agree with him entirely. It was noted earlier this afternoon that although we were having an extremely important and topical debate about Ukrainian refugees, the Benches were sparsely occupied. It is important to note—the hon. Gentleman put this very well—that in another room at that very moment, there were four Ukrainian Members of Parliament, who are most welcome here. Many colleagues, rather than being in the Chamber, had gone to that meeting, which I gather was extremely fruitful.