Homes for Ukraine Scheme

Stuart C McDonald Excerpts

Thursday 31st March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the SNP spokesperson.

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

Almost 200,000 volunteers is of course absolutely brilliant, but the fact that only 2,000 or 3,000 people have yet benefited from it is obviously far from that. Can I encourage the Government to keep working to simplify the process, but also to raise awareness of this scheme? We have had complaints that there is a lack of awareness of it among those fleeing Ukraine.

We have heard about the possible dangers of people trying to abuse the system for trafficking or exploitation purposes. Is that not also an argument for considering empowering local authorities to act as super-sponsors? That would allow a greater opportunity for safeguarding and for appropriate matching to be done.

May I ask about the co-ordination of the three different schemes that now exist? For example, could people who arrive under the family scheme who cannot be accommodated by their relatives instead be matched to one of the volunteers under the sponsorship scheme? That would seem a very simple and obvious way to avoid the homelessness we have heard about. It would also address the concerns expressed by the immigration Minister—the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster)—when I raised the prospect of seasonal agricultural workers being able to bring in their families. Even if the families cannot be accommodated with them, why not use a community sponsorship scheme to solve that problem?

Local authority funding under this sponsorship scheme is excellent, but why is there no funding for areas where significant numbers of Ukrainians are arriving under the family scheme, for example? Should that not be looked at again? May I ask what thinking there has been about what will happen later this year if significant numbers of Ukrainians are no longer able to remain with their hosts?

Finally, we still have several thousand Afghans in hotels. Can volunteers be asked if they would be willing to take an Afghan as well?