To ask Her Majesty’s Government what arrangements they have made for Ukrainian nationals who lawfully arrived in the United Kingdom on visitor visas before the war broke out and now cannot safely return to Ukraine.
Ukrainians on visitor visas can now have them extended automatically—since the war broke out, obviously, they cannot safely return to Ukraine. They will be extended for six months. Alongside this, we have made it easier for Ukrainians on work, study or seasonal work visas to remain in the UK by extending leave or allowing individuals to switch routes fee-free. I assure my noble friend that people will be treated kindly and sympathetically by Border Force officers.
My Lords, can my noble friend give an assurance that the Government will consider extending the right to stay to three years, to put these people on the same footing as Ukrainian nationals arriving in the United Kingdom as refugees?
I can confirm to my noble friend that we are looking into this at the moment, and it would seem sensible to extend the scheme to 36 months and allow those people the same benefits of living in this country that are extended to people on the other schemes.
My Lords, underlining the point about the dire situation that the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, described, will the Minister respond to reports that, according to the United Nations, the number of people who have now fled their homes in Ukraine totals 10 million—a quarter of the population—that mass deportations and abductions from Mariupol into locations deep inside Russia have been instigated and that an art school sheltering some 400 people has reportedly been destroyed? Did the Minister have the chance to read the letter in Times on Saturday which highlighted the plight of the 100,000 orphans, half of whom are disabled, housed in 700 children’s homes? Is the noble Lord, as our Refugees Minister—where he is doing a terrific job—able to instigate and co-ordinate international efforts to ensure the safe evacuation of those, clearly very vulnerable, children?
I thank the noble Lord for his question. We have done quite a lot of work on orphans in the countries around Ukraine. The problem is that the policy of the Ukrainian Government, which we have to respect, is that orphans are to be kept in countries adjacent to Ukraine. In the vast majority of cases, they do not want them brought to the UK or other countries. It is therefore our role, predominantly, to support the Ukraine Government by providing aid, hospitality and all the facilities that we can in those countries.
My Lords, my noble friend has been very helpful. What happens to those to whom permission for three years is given when the six months for which the Government are paying elapses? Are the Government prepared to continue paying those families or are they expecting those refugees to move elsewhere?
My Lords, I will just clarify the situation. The six months to which my noble friend refers is the six months of the sponsorship scheme. That is the minimum period for which individual sponsors may be asked to provide accommodation. That, of course, is extendable. All the benefits, rights to education and all the other facilities extend for the full three years. Depending on what the sponsor wants, however, those people might have to move to another sponsored accommodation or elsewhere after six months.
My Lords, I have not yet had the chance to congratulate the Minister on his new post. Many of us have quite high hopes for what he is going to achieve; I hope that does not damage his political future. Will the Minister have a look at the difficulty Ukrainians are having in getting visas to come here? There is still a very slow rate of progress, so could he do something to speed it up, please?
I thank the noble Lord for his kind words but I think my political prospects diminished several years ago. I am doing this job, as the noble Lord knows, because I was involved with the Syrian refugees. I thank him for his help then and for his candid, but always polite, criticism of what we did. The visa process has been greatly expedited: now, refugees with Ukrainian passports can download the form on their phone with the passport, and will get a response very quickly, without having to go to the visa centres, which have caused such delays. I regard that as a major improvement.
My Lords, following up on that question, the noble Lord last week, in answering questions on the Statement, said that the intention was to greatly shorten the visa application forms and, I think, to make them available in Ukrainian. How long is the visa form now, compared to the 50 pages that it was originally? Is it available in Ukrainian?
I thank the noble Lord. I can assure him that it is a lot shorter. I am afraid I cannot give him the exact number of pages, but the Home Secretary and I have been through it line by line. It is shorter and, I hope, will get even shorter. As for the language, while the form itself is in English, at each section a drop-down column comes out with the Ukrainian translation. It is not quite what the noble Lord wants, because we also have to think of all the officers who have to work on it who are not trained in Ukrainian, but every single word is translated in those drop-down boxes.
My Lords, I am co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Human Trafficking and Modern Slavery. Our group is very concerned about the plight of vulnerable children on the borders of Ukraine, where they are at huge risk of human trafficking. What are the Government doing about that?