Refugees from Ukraine

(Urgent Question): To ask the Home Secretary if she will make a statement about refugees from Ukraine.

I am grateful for this opportunity to update the House on the Government’s humanitarian response to Putin’s depraved war on Ukraine. As the House knows, the UK’s humanitarian support for Ukraine has been developed following close consultation with its Government and Governments in the region. On 4 March, I launched the Ukraine family scheme, which applies to immediate and extended Ukrainian family members, and everyone eligible is granted three years’ leave to enter or remain. Today, I want to set out further changes that I am making to the process to make it quicker and simpler.

I have two overarching obligations: first, to keep the British people safe; secondly, to do all we can to help Ukrainians. No Home Secretary can take these decisions lightly, and I am in daily contact with the intelligence and security agencies, which are providing me with regular threat assessments. What happened in Salisbury showed what Putin is willing to do on our soil. It also demonstrated that a small number of people with evil intentions can wreak havoc on our streets.

This morning, I received assurances that enable me to announce changes to the Ukraine family scheme. Based on the new advice that I have received, I am now in the position to announce that vital security checks will continue on all cases. From Tuesday, Ukrainians with passports will no longer need to go to a visa application centre to give their biometrics before they come to the UK. Instead, once their application has been considered and the appropriate checks completed, they will receive direct notification that they are eligible for the scheme and can come to the UK.

In short, Ukrainians with passports will be able to get permission to come here fully online from wherever they are and will be able to give their biometrics once they are in Britain. That will mean that visa application centres across Europe can focus their efforts on helping Ukrainians without passports. We have increased the capacity at those centres to over 13,000 appointments a week. That streamlined approach will be operational as of Tuesday 15 March in order to make the relevant technology and IT changes.

I have to ask the Home Secretary, why does it always take being hauled into the House of Commons to make basic changes to help vulnerable people who are fleeing from Ukraine?

A maternity hospital was bombed yesterday in an attack on newborn babies and women giving birth. People are fleeing for their lives and, up to now, the response from the Home Office has been a total disgrace, bringing shame upon our country. A 90-year-old holocaust survivor was left in makeshift accommodation in Poland even though her granddaughter was struggling to get here. Mums with small kids have been told that they cannot get an appointment for weeks and have had to queue for days to get biometrics in freezing weather in Rzeszów, only to be told that they then have to travel 200 miles to Warsaw to pick up their visas.

It is welcome that the Home Secretary is now introducing the online approach. We know that different ways of doing this were tried for Hong Kong visas, but why has it taken so long when she has had intelligence for weeks, if not months, that she needed to prepare for a Russian invasion of Ukraine? If we still have to wait until Tuesday for this new system to come in, what is to happen for everybody else in the meantime? Why is she not bringing in the armed forces? They have offered to help. We have had 1,000 troops on stand-by to provide humanitarian help for two weeks, so why not use them now to set up the emergency centres and to get people passported through as rapidly as possible and get them into the country?

What about the Ukrainian nurse here on a healthcare visa? Is she finally to be allowed to bring her elderly parents to the country, which we have asked for for so long? Is this still just being restricted to those with family? Are they still going to have to fill in multiple online forms, or will the Home Secretary say that all those who want to come to the UK having fled the fighting in Ukraine can now come here without having to fill in loads of online forms or jump through a whole load of hoops?

As ever, I am delighted to be in the Chamber. In fact, Mr Speaker, as you know, we were intending to give a statement this morning, so far from the comments from the Opposition Members, the right hon. Lady should have some perspective on all this.

If I may, I will just respond to some of the points that the Opposition party has made—of course, it is the job of the Opposition to attack the Government rather than find collective solutions and support the approach that the Government are taking. First and foremost, I have always maintained that we will take a pragmatic and agile approach to our response. We are making important changes. The right hon. Lady has asked why we are not making these changes immediately. They are subject to digital verification. There is no comparison to British national overseas schemes because 90% of Ukrainians do not have chip passports, so they would be excluded from any such scheme and approach.

Visa applications are important in this process. It is important that we are flexible in our response, and we have been. We are seeing that many Ukrainians do not have documentation. This country and all Governments, including probably a Government that the right hon. Lady once served in, will recognise that there was something known as the Windrush scandal and it is important that everyone who arrives in the UK has physical and digital records of their status here in the UK to ensure that they can access schemes—[Interruption.] Opposition Members may holler, but the process is vital in terms of verification, notification and permission to travel. It is important to give people status when they come to the United Kingdom, so that they have the right to work, the right to access benefits and digital verification of their status. That is absolutely right.

It is really important to remember again that although we have known that this attack has been coming, we have to work with the intelligence and security agencies. No disrespect to the right hon. Lady, but these checks and data—biographical and the warnings index—are important security checks that can be done through the digital process. They have been verified by the intelligence and security services, and we have to work with them in particular.

Of course my right hon. Friend is absolutely right that many of the people who are fleeing from this appalling murder and mayhem, from war crimes and from breaches of the international rules of war want to remain as close as possible to the areas from which they have been driven, so that when this appalling catastrophe is over, they can return. Will she keep in touch with our European partners on both their practices and procedures so that we help these desperate people whom our constituents are rightly intent on us assisting, and so we are part of a co-ordinated and effective European response to this horrendous humanitarian crisis?

My right hon. Friend is right to refer to the need for a co-ordinated approach, and also to the response within the region. It is very clear that families want to stay there. I receive calls every day from my counterparts in the region—Ministers of the Interior—who are asking for aid to support those families who want to stay in the region because they want to go back home; and the ambassadors in the region are saying the same.

My right hon. Friend asked about the EU in particular. I am in constant contact with Commissioner Johansson to discuss how we can support the region and, specifically, countries and Ukrainian nationals in the region. The need for that co-ordinated response is so important, and the British Government, through a whole-Government effort, are supplying not only financial aid and support but practical aid and equipment to many countries in the region on the Ukrainian border that are asking us for direct help and support.

I call the Scottish National party spokes- person, Brendan O’Hara.

We broadly welcome the Government’s U-turn—it is a big step forward—but, as we have heard, it did not have to be this way. This war was foreseen, and the humanitarian crisis that has resulted from it was widely predicted. As I said yesterday, the Government have lagged behind the public, and I suspect that public pressure in many Conservative MPs’ inboxes has brought about this change, welcome as it is.

Yesterday, at the Home Affairs Committee, the Ukrainian ambassador was shocked to learn from my hon. Friend the Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Stuart C. McDonald) that the Ukrainians who are currently here without permanent residency, namely students and workers, had absolutely no rights that would allow them to bring relatives to the UK under the bespoke system. The ambassador said that he would raise the issue with the Home Secretary. Did he do so, and is that loophole covered by the measures that she has announced? May I also ask what discussions she has had, and will have, with the devolved Administrations about how to ensure that these measures are successful?

I thank the hon. Gentleman for the approach and the tone that he has taken. It is important for us to work together, and the Immigration Minister is in touch with the devolved Administrations. As we have made clear from day one, these are important discussions about the need to work collegiately and collectively on our response. This cannot be done purely through central Government; we have to work across the country to provide the support that is needed. Yesterday I was in Manchester and Derby, meeting members of the Ukrainian diaspora community to hear about their needs and to discuss how we can work not only centrally but with local authorities to give wider support.

The hon. Gentleman asked some important questions about, for example, students. There are many others who have leave to stay in this country and can have their leave extended to 36 months, and we are making that clear across the board. I have also been clear about the agility of our response, and about our approach to enabling family members to come here as well. That work is under way in the Department, and is taking place right now. As I have said, I will come back to update the House. I am also in touch with the Ukrainian ambassador nearly every day, primarily because a range of cases inevitably arise and casework is complicated. Many Members of Parliament have been using caseworking facilities that have been provided for them in Portcullis House. As we identify challenges—not everyone has documentation, not everyone has a passport—we need to find ways in which we can work together to bring people here, which is why everything is under review and why we have that agile response.

I welcome the Home Secretary’s announcement. May I make a further suggestion—a practical one, I hope—that could alleviate the situation? According to the House of Commons Library, there are 35,000 Ukrainian citizens in the UK, and I know that they are sick with worry—worried to death—about their elderly mothers, their babies, their grandchildren and so on. Would it not be possible for us to have a hub for them here in the UK, so that everything could be done from here and they could be given provisional visas to come into the country, and we could then check the biometrics here?

I thank my hon. Friend for her suggestion and comments. We are actually doing this across the country now. Yesterday I was in Manchester, where we are working with the Ukrainian community group, and also in Derby. There is a whole network in the Ukrainian diaspora, and they have asked us not for a hub in London—we have one in the Ukrainian social club in London, and we stepped that up at the beginning of the week—but for hubs within community centres. We are establishing that and working with the community to do that.

I call the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee, Dame Diana Johnson.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. While I welcome the changes for Ukrainian passport holders, many Ukrainians do not have passports, as the Home Secretary has just said. I want to ask her about TLScontact, which has been subcontracted by the Home Office to carry out biometric checks. The chief inspector of borders and immigration told the Home Secretary that TLScontact was so hellbent on making profit that its use posed a risk of “reputational damage” to the UK. With Ukrainians fleeing for their lives and the chaos at the visa application centres with long waits and few appointments, can the Secretary of State tell me why that company is allowed to profit from the suffering and misery of Ukrainians by telling them that if they make additional payments, their cases will be expedited and they will get appointments more quickly? Is that right?

Let me just share the information I know about the contracted service with TLScontact. First and foremost, we have surged capacity at visa application centres, as I have said several times in the House. That is a contractual process that we have, alongside working with Home Office staff in country, and further staff have been sent out. The right hon. Lady asked specifically about the contractual arrangements with TLScontact. Our priority has been to surge its staff in country to create more appointments, and we have surged appointments. There have been 6,000 appointments available this week, and as of Tuesday 15 March, there will be 13,000 appointments for people who do not have documentation and passports. We can prioritise those without documentation and passports. Those with passports can use the digital service that will be set up and go live from Tuesday. I will come back to the Chair of the Select Committee on the contractual details, primarily because these details are organised through the Departments and there is a procurement process that goes on. I will write to her on the specifics. With regard to Ukrainian nationals coming to the United Kingdom to be reunited with their families, this is a free service. There are no charges in place whatsoever.

I welcome the measures announced today. They will be coming in next Tuesday, but could not the Home Secretary today suspend the carrier liability duty for Ukrainian passport holders presenting at Krakow or Warsaw airports to come to the UK so that they can have the checks done in a secure setting here and be granted at least a visitor’s visa? Or could she not remove Ukraine from the list of excluded countries so that they could come here in the same way as an American tourist and be granted a visitor’s visa, subject to checks being carried out in a secure setting? Am I wrong?

As ever, my hon. Friend is making practical suggestions, but I am afraid that those checks cannot be suspended. There has already been work across Government to look at the carrier liability aspect. It is the electronic authorisation to travel that we are speeding up through this digital system, so that once the individual receives the authorisation, they can go straight to a port, show they have authorisation to travel and then board a train or plane to get the United Kingdom. We cannot make any other travel changes on that basis because of the wider implications that that has for other carriers.

I think the whole House just wants the Government and the UK to be as generous and unbureaucratic as possible, and if that is where we are getting to, we are pleased, but there is something that still nags away at me. As I understand it, from what we were told in the Foreign Affairs Committee, the Government have known since October or November last year that Putin either wanted or intended to do this. So, on so many levels we have been really running to catch up, and a lot of us are asking why we did not know that we needed to put all this in place two months ago. Also, I want Putin to be in a court of law, but the International Criminal Court cannot judge a leader just on the basis of initiating a war of aggression, so will the Home Secretary work to change that law?

The hon. Gentleman is right that we knew this attack was planned. Our schemes have obviously been developed with the Governments in the region, which I must emphasise. Right now, the countries in the region have different requirements of the Home Office in how we undertake our checks and process individuals. We are trying to simplify this to make it easier across the board.

Last week, the Polish Government asked us not to process people in close proximity to the border but to use our visa application centres. The Hungarian Government have asked us for a totally different approach, and they have asked for liaison officers on the ground. The Romanian Government are asking us to come to the border. We have deliberately chosen to use the facilities of the visa application centres to give certainty and consistency of approach. Clearly, our objective throughout has been to try to streamline the process.

The digital piece is challenging; it is not straightforward. We have to change our codes, our systems and our structures, while recognising that many Ukrainians do not have electronic passports. Passports and travel documentation are not consistent around the world, hence my comment about the chip checker on the BNO scheme, under which 97,000 visas have been granted.

The hon. Gentleman asked about President Putin and war crimes, and I assure the House that significant work is taking place in this area across Government and with the police and the Crown Prosecution Service.