Refugees from Ukraine

Stuart C McDonald Excerpts

Wednesday 16th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Stuart C. McDonald (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (SNP)]

I beg to move,

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.

It is a pleasure to move the motion, which is in my name and the name of my hon. Friends. President Putin’s atrocities in Ukraine continue to shock and appal: there have been maternity wards and nurseries bombed; apartment blocks and underground shelters destroyed; civilians targeted; journalists killed; and vacuum bombs deployed. On the other hand, the courage and bravery of the Ukrainians—from President Zelensky to the young volunteers putting their life on the line for their people—never ceases to amaze.

We Scottish National party Members have supported, and continue to support, the work that the Government have done to assist Ukraine with its self-defence. We have supported—with constructive criticism—work on sanctions, and we look forward very much to the day when Putin faces the consequences of his outrageous aggression at the International Criminal Court in The Hague. However, today’s debate focuses our attention on the victims of the invasion who have fled Putin’s atrocities and are seeking sanctuary elsewhere. We are witnessing the largest movement of refugees in Europe since the second world war, and we share responsibility for sheltering them with our European allies.

Across the nations of the UK, people have opened their heart and are volunteering to open their home to these refugees. Over 120,000 people have already signed up for the Homes for Ukraine scheme. That is extraordinary, but not a surprise; public opinion is massively behind our meeting our responsibilities and welcoming those who are fleeing Putin’s atrocities. Regrettably, we have been, and remain, disappointed and frustrated by the response from the Home Office, which we continue to regard as slow, piecemeal and too limited. While the public have opened their hearts and their homes, the Home Office has failed to open the door fast enough and wide enough to those fleeing Ukraine.

We hear talk of a humanitarian response, but in reality the Home Office is offering a managed migration response to the biggest refugee challenge this continent has faced for 80 years. The Home Office talks about unlimited numbers, but there are limits, not least because of the bureaucracy, which will make access impossible for many. It made something like nine changes to its family scheme in the scheme’s first 10 days. That does not seem like a Department that has been planning its response for months, in the light of intelligence that invasion was almost certain. Regret, frustration and anger has been evident right across the House, and in pretty much all corners of the media and beyond.

Of course, it is only right to acknowledge that there has been progress in recent days. We welcome the extensions to the family visa scheme; the announcement of the sponsorship scheme, though all sorts of questions around funding and safeguarding arise; and the work with the Welsh and Scottish Governments to enable them to act as super-sponsors. We hope that the move to online visa applications will help some.

This debate offers us a chance to probe further on the details of the schemes, and to suggest improvements. Most fundamentally, we urge the Government to think again about why they alone in Europe must ask those fleeing bombs and brutality to jump through the hoops and bureaucracy of gaining a visa before they can secure sanctuary here. None of our European neighbours requires Ukrainians to do that—neither those in the Schengen area nor our common travel area neighbours in Ireland. We Scottish National party Members support following their example, not only because we believe that that approach has huge public support, but because that is the right thing to do, and because we have been asked to do it by our Ukrainian friends.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Ind)]

I fully support the hon. Gentleman’s motion and the way in which he is speaking to it. Obviously, I totally condemn the Russian actions in Ukraine; huge numbers of people are now forced to flee. Does he recognise, though, that many people from other parts of the world—Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Eritrea and elsewhere—are also seeking asylum or a place of safety, and should absolutely be treated the same as anybody else seeking refuge in this country? There should not be a rule that applies only to Ukraine, and not to people coming from other war-torn countries—wars that, in some cases, we are associated with, through our supply of arms to Saudi Arabia.

[Stuart C. McDonald]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his question. What we have seen in Ukraine, and the response to it, raises all kinds of questions about the Government’s approach to refugees more generally, and about the fact that this country can be, and wants to be, much more welcoming. It certainly poses questions about the Nationality and Borders Bill, which we will debate next week, and which I shall come to shortly.

As we have heard in numerous Question Times and debates, the requirement to seek a visa is causing distress, upset and fury among those caught up in these processes. I have no doubt that we will hear that again today, from Members from across the House.

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

My hon. Friend is making a very good and useful speech. One of the people facing frustrations is my constituent Valentyna, who has been a British citizen for 17 years. She wants to bring her family to safety in Glasgow, but she feels as though her family are going round in circles in Poland and not getting anywhere with regard to visas, and they have nowhere to stay. Does my hon. Friend agree that this delay is causing much distress to people in Poland, Ukraine and Scotland?

[Stuart C. McDonald]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Every Member of this House will almost certainly have constituents who have faced similar battles. Newspapers report people speaking of “A humiliating process”; of being

“tied up by Home Office red tape”;

and of the

“trauma of UK visa processing”.

Moving the process online will hopefully make things easier for some, as I say, but “online” is not necessarily “straightforward” or “fast”. The Government are still telling the women and children who are fleeing bombs and brutality to use a smartphone to: complete a complicated online form in English; upload documents that prove that they were resident in Ukraine before the invasion, and that prove a family relationship; and wait for a decision. Meanwhile, the sparse and subcontracted visa application centres are not set up to cope with the many who still need their services. Hours are too limited and the centres are spread too far apart. There is talk of surging staff, and many staff are no doubt working hard, but they have been handed an impossible task.

[Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will join me in asking the Minister when exactly the application system will allow applications to be made in Ukrainian, as we were promised a week or so ago would be possible.

[Stuart C. McDonald]

That is a very good question, and one that we touched on in the Home Affairs Committee this morning, but it would be useful to hear again from the Minister, from the Dispatch Box, about the work being taken forward.

Staff in visa centres face an impossible task. Worse still, there are persistent reports of some subcontractors charging fees for appointments outside business hours, or for uploading documents. The Government knew that was a problem; the independent chief inspector of borders and immigration recently reported that subcontractors’

“sole focus is income generation. The human aspect is not at all valued”.

The pantomime about processes in France was also an absolute farce. At the rate we are going, it will be months until we play our part properly.

We are three weeks on from Putin’s first escalation of the conflict in Ukraine, and around a fortnight on from the launch of the family scheme, and as I understand it, 5,500 visas have been granted, but that is in the region of 0.18% of the number of people who have fled Ukraine—and the UK’s population is 15% of that of the EU.

[Claire Hanna (Belfast South) (SDLP)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving voice to our many constituents who want a compassionate and expansive humanitarian response. Certainly, in Northern Ireland, many people see that just a few miles south, the Republic of Ireland is offering a broad-based welcome. People in Northern Ireland are dismayed that they are unable to give practical support. They see efforts to achieve the society that we want being thwarted again by the UK Government’s policy. The hon. Gentleman mentions processing issues; does he agree that those issues highlight the culture of “no” that exists in the Home Office? That culture has prevented people around the world who are fleeing conflicts from making a new life here—from being able to work, and from receiving the sanctuary that most of our constituents want them to receive.

[Stuart C. McDonald]

I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention. I think that a lot of this is tied up with Home Office culture. She is right to raise the Irish example, which I will come to in a moment.

At this rate of progress, it will be many months before we get even close to the 100,000 that the Prime Minister first spoke about, never mind the subsequent 200,000 that he has referred to. This is an acute crisis that is happening now, and we need to be meeting our responsibilities now, not a few months down the line. On the Irish example, Ireland has taken almost 7,000 already. I am not saying that because this is some sort of competition to see who can take in the most Ukrainians. I am pointing it out because it illustrates precisely the impact that visa restrictions are having. The United Kingdom is 13 times bigger than Ireland and has a Ukrainian diaspora that is larger by a similar magnitude, but three weeks in, we have granted refuge to and welcomed a smaller number. The difference is that we require visas and the Irish do not.

[Huw Merriman (Bexhill and Battle) (Con)]

Just to be clear, is the hon. Gentleman saying that there should not be any checks at all? Does he not share the concern that some people in this country might on the face of it look very welcoming but would actually do harm to people coming over here? Would he just consider that he might be the first to object if that eventuality were to occur?

[Stuart C. McDonald]

Nobody on these Benches is suggesting that no checks should be required. I will come to that later in my speech. The Irish carry out checks on people coming in, although I do not have the details of how they arrange the accommodation thereafter. Nobody is suggesting that this should be a check-free or security-free process.

Iryna Terlecky of the Association of Ukrainians in Great Britain told the Home Affairs Committee that

“it is quite an indictment of the system and how it is working that everybody needs an immigration lawyer, and this is just for family members coming over”.

That is why we believe that the requirement for a visa should be waived. We simply do not have the infrastructure to process them fast enough. The Ukrainian ambassador, whom we recently welcomed into this Chamber with a well-deserved standing ovation, said to the Home Affairs Committee on lifting visa requirements:

“We will be happy if all the barriers are dropped for some period of time when we can get the maximum of people. Then we will deal with that, and my embassy is here to help: to organise for those people”.

These calls are supported by the Governments of Scotland and Wales, as well as by numerous organisations here including the Refugee Council, the Scottish Refugee Council, the Immigration Law Practitioners Association, the Red Cross and many more. They also have public support, with one recent poll showing 60% in favour of, and just 15% opposed to scrapping the visa requirements.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North East (Anne McLaughlin) pointed out during Monday night’s petition debate on a similar subject, not requiring an advance visa for someone travelling here is far from a novel idea. Many thousands of people arrive in the UK each and every day without having obtained a visa in advance. Around 90 countries operate this system, from Brazil to Botswana and Malaysia to Mexico, as well as the whole European Union. Many people will have biometric passports and many will not, but the border functions smoothly enough. That does not mean there are no security checks. We run checks on advance passenger information provided by the companies bringing people in on ferries, trains and planes, and there are checks at the border. Biometrics can still be taken, by using apps for those who can, by reusing biometrics for people who have been here before, or by doing the biometrics at the border on or after arrival. And as the ambassador said, we will have the assistance of the Ukrainian Government in doing the checks.

Salisbury has been invoked in this Chamber, but while that illustrates what Putin is capable of, it has nothing to do with visas. Neither in that outrageous attack nor in the murder of Alexander Litvinenko was there any requirement for the murderers to use anything other than a Russian passport with a false identity and to seek a visa for the UK directly. The security concerns that we have heard about are hard to pin down. In the reports of the Home Secretary’s embarrassing representations to Ireland, reference was made to briefings about gangs. Here, Minsters have spoken about “false documents”. Other briefings have blamed No. 10 for blocking Home Office proposals to simply waive visa requirements. If that is so, the Home Office was clearly not overly concerned about the security challenges that have repeatedly been referenced. None of these concerns can be ignored, but in the grand scheme of things the Home Office has done nothing to persuade me or my colleagues—or, I suspect, Members right across the House—that security justifies keeping those fleeing persecution at arm’s length, potentially for months on end.

[Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)]

As usual, my hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. Is he aware of the views of Lord Peter Ricketts, the former national security adviser, who has said that because the majority of refugees coming to this country are women and children, we should take

“a much more humane and open approach…and should not be requiring visas”

and that we should do the security checks after they get here? Is my hon. Friend anxious, as I am, to hear from those on the Government Front Bench why they think Lord Peter Ricketts is wrong?

[Stuart C. McDonald]

I agree with my hon. and learned Friend. I know that she made a similar point in Monday night’s debate, and that she is still waiting for a response to those concerns. We expect to hear that response today.

At the end of the day, we are not the ones asking the Government to do anything wild or outlandish. It is the Government who are asking us to go along with a policy that is totally out of kilter with that of our neighbours and with public opinion and that does not meet the urgent humanitarian challenge that we face today. I very much fear that we will regret it if we do not waive these visa requirements, and we should encourage the Government today to take action on that.

As the motion states, we welcome the further extension to the family scheme and the launch of the sponsorship scheme. I know that hon. Members will have a million questions to ask about them, some of which we were helpfully able to put directly to the Minister this morning. I will briefly touch on just a couple. As I argued this morning, I see no reason why many thousands of Ukrainians who are here on time-limited visas should be excluded from bringing relatives in on the family scheme, whether they are students, workers or visitors. There will be particular issues for seasonal agricultural workers in accessing even the sponsorship scheme, given the accommodation that they are generally provided with. I welcome the fact that Lord Harrington told the Committee this morning that he would give that matter his consideration, because we could be talking about 10% to 20% of the Ukrainian diaspora here being in that very situation and still struggling to be joined by any family at all. It is important that we resolve that.

We must also resolve the issues around people’s leave to remain here as early as possible, preferably matching it to the leave to remain that people coming in are being offered, rather than giving them just a few months until the end of the year. There are other questions about the nature of the leave to remain that people are being offered and about what happens at the end of the three years. There are questions about the safeguarding and protection of vulnerable people entering on the sponsored route. What happens if a sponsorship breaks down? What happens at the end of the six months? Colleagues will speak in much more detail about these points, but we offer our questions and criticisms constructively, because we all want to see these schemes work.

As I have said, our fundamental disagreements with the Government are over their stance that visas should still be required at all. Our other fundamental disagreement is about the Nationality and Borders Bill, which will come back to this House next week when we will debate the Lords amendments to it. That legislation is predicated on a totally misguided belief that refugees must always seek asylum in the first safe country, and that those who do not must be criminalised, offshored and stripped of their rights to family life and public funds. This last month illustrates as never before in the starkest terms the importance and relevance of the refugee convention, 70 years on, and also how the anti-refugee Bill is simply not fit for purpose. We will be constructive critics wherever we can, but on those two fundamental points we are absolutely clear: scrap visas for Ukrainians, and scrap the anti-refugee Bill.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tom Pursglove]

There has been a little commentary around this matter, including at the Home Affairs Committee session this morning. It is fair to say that one important strand of work in getting this right is working intensively with NGOs to develop the system in the most appropriate and streamlined way. We have touched on the safeguarding issues in the course of this debate, and we will want to get those right as this is rolled out, but it is fair to say that further, imminent announcements will provide more detail on the specific point the hon. Gentleman raises. I think he will welcome the work going on with NGOs, which have real expertise and experience with these issues, to develop this scheme so that it is the very best it can be from the very start.

We hear the offers from the devolved Administrations. Our colleagues at the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities will be working with them to ensure that individuals and organisations that want to sponsor an individual or family can volunteer to do so. Local authorities will play a crucial role in the delivery of the Homes for Ukraine scheme and in support for Ukrainian beneficiaries, including on integration, English language support, health, education, employment and housing.

Alongside the generous offer of accommodation that sponsors will be making, we are providing a substantial level of funding to local authorities to enable them to provide wider support to families to rebuild their lives and fully integrate into our communities. For those arriving via the Homes for Ukraine scheme, we will provide a substantial level of funding, at a rate of £10,500 a person, to local authorities, as I touched on earlier. There will be an additional top-up for child education to enable them to provide much wider support for families to rebuild their lives and fully integrate into our communities. Further details will be shared shortly.

As stated by the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary, we will not be issuing blanket visa waivers in response to this crisis. The visa process is vital, not only to keeping British citizens safe, but to ensuring that we are helping those in genuine need. We are already seeing people presenting false documents, claiming to be Ukrainians. Because of that, security and biometrics checks remain a fundamental part of our visa process, and that is consistent with our approach to the evacuation of Afghanistan.

[Stuart C. McDonald]

What I do not understand is why this is any different for the many thousands of peoples who come into this country every single day without a visa. People will try to present false documents for those nationalities, too, but we have border guards for that very purpose. What is the specific risk? It seems incredibly difficult to pin down.

[Tom Pursglove]

I know that the hon. Gentleman feels passionately about this particular point. In response, I cannot say too much on the Floor of the House, for obvious reasons, but people would rightly expect the Government to act in accordance with the security advice we receive at any given point in time and to do so responsibly. I also make the point, touching again on a point that we have been discussing this afternoon, that there is a safeguarding issue in relation to travel to this country. We will obviously want to know who vulnerable children and adults are travelling with and ensure that they are kept safe, because that is an absolute imperative. That is the position of this Government.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tom Pursglove]

It is fair to say that Ministers in government have at the forefront of their minds, as my hon. Friend does, all our safeguarding responsibilities, of which the British people would rightly expect us to be conscious and mindful, and to act in accordance with them.

[Stuart C. McDonald]

Will the Minister give way?

[Tom Pursglove]

I have been very generous, but I will give way to the hon. Gentleman one last time.

[Stuart C. McDonald]

I apologise to the Minister, because in a sense I am making a point to the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman) rather than to the Minister. We do checks on thousands of people who come in every day from countries that do not require a visa—from the whole European Union and all the countries that I listed earlier. We do criminal record checks on the advance passenger information that we get; we do not need a visa to do those checks. We are not saying, “Let in any old person from Ukraine.” We should do the check at the border with the advance passenger information; we do not need a visa process to do that.

[Tom Pursglove]

I hear what the hon. Gentleman says. The fact is that I would like to think that we all recognise the lengths to which the Kremlin regime is willing to go, as we saw vividly in relation to Salisbury. We are incredibly mindful of that. We are simply not willing to take chances with the UK’s national security and we are acting in accordance with the advice.

I suspect that if that sort of issue were to be repeated in this country—it is unthinkable—the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues would understandably ask us why we had allowed that to happen needlessly. We simply cannot take that chance. I add that nothing that we are doing is inconsistent with the approach that Canada and the United States—our Five Eyes colleagues—are taking. They are adopting similar arrangements on biometrics and security checks.

We believe that we are offering a substantial package that will enable the British public and the Ukrainian diaspora to play their part in supporting displaced Ukrainians into the United Kingdom. We keep our support under constant review and our new routes will continue to respond, develop and keep pace with the rapidly shifting situation on the ground. I certainly welcome hearing further contributions from right hon. and hon. Members during the debate and I will of course reflect on the suggestions and ideas that are put forward.

I am hugely proud of the big-hearted and generous reaction that we have seen from the British people in response to the crisis. In response, as a Government, we have developed a comprehensive package to mobilise those offers in reality. This is a whole United Kingdom effort with Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales and England coming together in solidarity to show our support for the Ukrainian people. We are not just talking about it; our actions will match our words. Together, I know that we will deliver.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Kinnock]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The bureaucracy of a 50-page form could so easily be cut through if the Government were to heed our calls for an emergency visa scheme. The bureaucracy being imposed on these poor people who are feeling the horrors of war should shame us all.

Arguably, the most serious design fault in the Homes for Ukraine scheme is that people who wish to support Ukrainians must track them down themselves. My hon. Friend the shadow Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities rightly described this as a “DIY asylum scheme” that risks leaving refugees without refuge. Are the Government seriously suggesting that Ukrainians fleeing the horrors of war should advertise themselves on social media or that Brits who are happy to offer their spare rooms should be searching on Instagram for Ukrainian families to sponsor? Will the Minister commit today to the Government’s implementing a pairing system to help sponsors find Ukrainian refugees who wish to come here?

We can only speculate on why the Home Secretary has chosen to burden those fleeing the horrors of war with the confusion and chaos that we have seen. Is she simply incompetent or is she being driven by the hostile-environment ideology that has propelled her to the upper echelons of the Conservative party? Only the Home Secretary can answer that question, but whatever her motivations the shambolic consequences are plain to see.

I began my speech by saying that there are moments in history when the great struggle between freedom and tyranny comes down to one fight, and I say today, without an iota of doubt, that freedom will win the day. Until that victory comes, we must do all we can to offer safe sanctuary to those Ukrainians who have made the perilous journey from their war-torn homeland.

As we have all seen, the Ukrainians are a passionately patriotic people and they will be utterly focused on returning home to rebuild their lives and their country as soon as the enemy has been defeated and expelled. In the meantime, they need to be treated with dignity and respect, but instead the Home Secretary’s response has been mean spirited, short sighted and shambolic.

[Stuart C. McDonald]

I agree with much of what the shadow Minister has said, but can he be clear that Labour’s position is not to waive visa requirements altogether? How can he be so certain that the emergency visa he describes will resolve waiting times and bureaucracy? Why does he not join the SNP in calling for waiving visa requirements altogether?

[Stephen Kinnock]

The hon. Gentleman is right that we are not suggesting that security checks be waived. We are making it clear that those security checks should take place in the United Kingdom when people have got here. The emergency visa has a rapid application process. On that basis, people would come into the UK and the biometric checks would take place here.