The UK is extending its family visa scheme for Ukrainian refugees to include aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, cousins and in-laws.
The announcement was made in the House of Commons by Home Office minister Kevin Foster, who claimed that the government was making “significant progress” in responding to the refugee crisis and had now processed more than 500 Ukrainian applicants for sanctuary in the UK.
But the minister – who suggested at the outset of the invasion that Ukrainians fleeing war could apply for visas to pick fruit in the UK – was blasted by shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper.
She condemned the Home Office for a bureaucratic and “chaotic” response which had seen hundreds of desperate people turned away at Calais as they tried to reach the UK.
And Mr Foster faced a hail of criticism from MPs who said their constituents had been unable to bring Ukrainian relatives to safety in the UK.
Tory Tracey Crouch said MPs had been advised to tell people seeking help to go to the city of Rzeszow in Poland for biometric tests, but added: “Word on the ground is that there are no biometric appointments in Rzeszow until the end of next month.”
Labour MP Labour MP Clive Efford said he had heard that one visa centre in Poland had closed its doors.
“It’s no longer allowing walk-in appointments,” he told MPs. “It’s 81 degrees outside, there’s an 81-year-old woman outside and women and children.
“There’s plenty of room inside but they won’t open the doors. This is complete chaos and unacceptable.”
And SNP MP for Motherwell Marion Fellows said a constituent had been trying since 12 February to bring his wife to join him in Scotland but had been “lost in the system”. She said he had gone to Rzeszow, but found the unit was able to process only seven people in a day and he was told to go to the embassy in Warsaw instead.
Ms Cooper welcomed the extension of the family visa scheme, which was initially limited to spouses, partners, children under 18 and parents of under-18s but was later expanded to include grandparents and children over 18.
But she told the Commons that the Home Office should now “issue emergency visas for Ukrainians – all family but not just family – so they can come here and the UK can do our historic bit to help refugees fleeing war in Europe, as we’ve done before”.
Mr Foster rejected calls for visas to be waived, telling MPs that people had already been detected at Calais with false documents, trying to get through immigration checks by pretending to be Ukrainian.
He suggested that this might be a route for Russia to infiltrate dangerous people into the UK.
To groans of disbelief from opposition MPs, Mr Foster said: “I appreciate that some may think that’s not an issue, but we only need to look at some of the statements coming out the Kremlin to see which countries are very much in the crosshairs of Mr Putin’s Russian regime.”
In reference to the poison attack on former spy Sergei Skripal in Salisbury in 2018, he urged MPs to “look back a short period of time to see the impact on this country of attacks by those pretending they came here to look at a cathedral spire”.
But Scottish National Party home affairs spokesperson Stuart McDonald retorted: “Don’t quote Salisbury at us. That has absolutely nothing to do with this.”
And Tory former minister Caroline Nokes derided Mr Foster’s claim that the Home Office was moving “at pace” to help Ukrainians, telling him: “Snails also move at a pace.”
Conservative MP Steve Brine said: “Surely we are past the time for the UK saying we’re going to have a generous scheme. It’s time to deliver a generous scheme.
“The family scheme is too slow. The humanitarian response visa is still in design… At the very least can we have a very simple online gateway up and running tomorrow, where constituents who want to help can at least register their interest? There’s so much compassion and want to help, and people are not able to do so.”
The Independent has a proud history of campaigning for the rights of the most vulnerable, and we first ran our Refugees Welcome campaign during the war in Syria in 2015. Now, as we renew our campaign and launch this petition in the wake of the unfolding Ukrainian crisis, we are calling on the government to go further and faster to ensure help is delivered. To find out more about our Refugees Welcome campaign, click here. To sign the petition click here. If you would like to donate then please click here for our GoFundMe page.
