Refugees from Ukraine — House of Commons, 2022-03-16
Topic: Immigration
Stuart Campbell McDonald (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): 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.