On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Have you had any notification from the Home Secretary, the Minister for Crime and Policing or the safeguarding Minister, the hon. Member for Redditch (Rachel Maclean), that they intend to respond to the independent safeguarding report published yesterday outlining the deeply disturbing circumstances in which a child was strip-searched in the most degrading way by police in her school with profound and distressing consequences for the child involved? The report is clear that this should not have been allowed to happen; it is extremely distressing that it did. The report raises very serious questions about safeguarding, policing, training, guidance, racism and protection for children, and it has recommendations for both the Home Office and the Department for Education. Given these very troubling circumstances, have you, Mr Speaker, had any notification that any Minister is planning to respond to this report?

I am grateful to the right hon. Member for giving me notice of the point of order. The issue she has raised is a very serious one, and I am sure she is correct that all Members will be concerned by it, as I am. I have not had notice of a statement; however, as the right hon. Member is aware, there are various ways in which the issue can be raised and I am sure that she and other Members will pursue the issue. I recognise that those on the Government Benches will have heard the point of order. It is quite right that we need an update to the House.

Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. The right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) is right. It seems that neither the parents nor the teachers were involved. I share her concern, as do others, to ensure that what has happened in this case does not happen in any other police forces across the United Kingdom. I again endorse what the right hon. Lady said. May I ask, through you, Mr Speaker, whether the parents and the teachers were notified? It seems that they were not.

Unfortunately, I am not answerable for that question. It is a very important question but I do not have that information. I assure the hon. Member that if I had had it, I would have answered the question.

I beg to move,

That leave be given to bring in a Bill to make provision about expediting the transfer of patients who are medically fit for discharge from acute hospitals to homely settings in the community.

I declare my interest as a doctor.

Twenty years ago, I asked that leave be given

“to bring in a Bill to provide an upper limit on the time that a person who is ready in all respects for discharge must wait before leaving an acute hospital.”—[Official Report, 12 February 2002; Vol. 380, c. 76.]

The context in 2002, as now, was severe congestion in health and social care. Bed blocking is a provocative term that I use to draw attention to the harm caused to patients and the burden on our national health service. At that time, on any given day around 6,000 beds were occupied by people who should not have been in them. Indeed, Tony Blair told the House that

“bed blocking is probably the most urgent problem that we face in the national health service.”—[Official Report, 4 July 2001; Vol. 371, c. 259.]

In November, my mother-in-law died in Salisbury’s renowned spinal unit, but Selma did not have a spinal problem. She had the general frailty and multiple comorbidities of advanced old age. Her overall management was good, in parts, but modern district general hospitals are not configured for the long-term care of the elderly or for terminal care, so a good and gentle person spent her final days in acute medicine’s bewildering freneticism, noise and clamour. It was very far from ideal. She deserved much better. I have seen much better, notably in community hospitals and intermediate care—settings that have, foolishly in my view, been deprioritised under successive Governments.

An acute hospital is no place for an elderly person who is no longer receiving active medical management. I would go further and say that our frantically busy acute units, operating in the white heat of high-tech, cutting-edge medicine, can be unsafe for them. They are in constant danger of the serious iatrogenic consequences of unnecessarily prolonged stays, including hospital-acquired infections, thrombosis, skin breakdown, mental illness and psychological distress. The care pathway must lead frail elderly people to homely settings in the community that are appropriate to their needs, without delay. That long-held conviction, and my recent family experience, has driven me, 20 years after my original Bill, to have another go.

Bed blocking is everybody’s business, because our relatively efficient health system is always running hot, with bed occupancy rates far higher than those in most comparable healthcare economies. The cost to healthcare is enormous: the cost per day of an acute medical bed far outstrips the cost of homely settings in the community, supported living at home, community hospitals or nursing homes. The charity, Marie Curie, puts the annual cost at £1.5 billion. This zero-sum gain is stoked up by an institutional conspiracy of inaction, and that is because there is a baked-in perverse incentive for cash-strapped local authorities to drag their feet when getting people out of hospitals and onto their books. Hospitals save because beds, once freed up, fill up with people requiring treatment and procedures, the costs of which are, of course, front loaded.

In February 2020, an average of 5,370 people per day were bed blocking. We do not know what has happened since as data collection was suspended. Up till then, delays attributed to the NHS were hovering at about 60%. Delays attributable to social care—that is to say local authorities—were consistent at about 30%. The remaining 10% were attributed to failures by both NHS and social care. It would be good to compare and contrast trust performance, but the data are no longer available.

Back in 2002, the main roadblock in the care pathway was different. Speaking to my Bill then, I said that

“insufficient community care and support is the greatest single impediment to timely discharge. The Bill would facilitate a model based on the Swedish approach to delayed discharges. That hugely successful innovation provides for cash transfers and penalties between agencies to achieve bed blocking targets.”—[Official Report, 12 February 2002; Vol. 380, c. 77.]

Indeed, the Blair Government went on to bring in legislation based on the Swedish model a year later in what became the Community Care (Delayed Discharges etc.) Act 2003. The Act permitted NHS trusts to charge local authorities £100 a day from 48 hours after patients were judged fit to leave hospital. A compensating £100 million three-year cash transfer from NHS to social services created a virtuous money circle.

Bed blocking was actually falling before those measures were introduced. However, evidence of the policy’s success came in the wake of the Care Act 2014. The 2014 Act amended the 2003 Act from a local authority “must make a payment” to one in which an NHS body “may” require the authority to pay up, and bed blocking started to climb once again. The number of delayed discharge days in the NHS increased from an average of 114,000 a month in 2012 to more than 200,000 in October 2016.

Covid catalysed the discharge to assess—D2A—and home-first models, first trialled in 2016. The Coronavirus Act 2020 brought a relaxation of the duties around NHS continuing healthcare. This meant the assessment and organising of ongoing care taking place when people were back at home. The immediate utility of D2A became clear in spring 2020: 30,000 acute beds were freed up immediately. Although the longer-term benefit is more difficult to measure in the absence of publicly available data, anecdotally, Marie Curie and other organisations in the field report success.

There are grounds for optimism, too, in the anticipated shift to a more joined-up system of health and social care. Since I introduced my Bill 20 years ago, the main cause of delayed discharge appears to have shifted from local authorities to the NHS, but, wherever the block lies, the new ecosystem encourages collaboration through integrated care partnerships, with more accountability upwards where there has been very little in recent times.

Drawing all this together, my Bill, first, requires lead hospital clinicians to certify daily which of their patients are fit for discharge. Secondly, it defines delayed discharges as a delay of more than 48 hours beyond the date of the lead clinician’s certificate. Thirdly, it establishes delayed discharge as a patient safety issue and includes it under the definition of a qualified incident for investigation by the health service’s safety investigation body, established under health and care legislation. Fourthly, it requires local authorities to transfer to relevant NHS trusts the daily rate it pays for nursing home care for each delayed discharge day attributed by the health service’s safety investigation body to a failure of social care at the point of the move. Fifthly, it transfers the aggregated delayed discharge levies back to social care centrally in a virtuous money circle. Sixthly, it requires delayed discharge data to be published in a league table of NHS trusts and integrated care partnerships every three months. Seventhly, it requires the Care Quality Commission to investigate the worst-performing decile in the league tables within three months of publication to specify the deadline for itemised remedial action, to identify the body or bodies on which actions are placed, and to report to the Secretary of State. Eighthly, the Bill would require integrated care partnerships to include delayed discharges as a standing agenda item.

Finally, Selma’s Bill would have a special category of asterisked delayed discharge for those judged by lead clinicians to be entering their final days. People in this category, which will be reported on as a subset, will be subject to fast-tracking, so that we can speed the transfer of the most vulnerable from inappropriate acute settings to more appropriate, homey settings in the community.

Question put and agreed to.

Ordered,

That Dr Andrew Murrison, Tracey Crouch, Nick Gibb, Steve Brine, Dr Luke Evans and Dr Caroline Johnson present the Bill.

Dr Andrew Murrison accordingly presented the Bill.

Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 6 May, and to be printed (Bill 283).

I beg to move,

That this House once more condemns President Putin’s illegal invasion of Ukraine and the war crimes being perpetrated by the Russian state there; reiterates the House’s solidarity with Ukrainians in their resistance to Russia’s invasion of their sovereign state; recognises that Europe is now seeing the largest movement of refugees since the second world war, for whom the UK shares responsibility; warmly welcomes the significant and widespread offers of support for those fleeing the invasion from people and organisations across the UK; supports expansion of the family visa scheme and Homes for Ukraine scheme; and calls on the Government to go further and faster in its response, including waiving requirements for Ukrainians to apply for visas in advance of their arrival in the UK so as to facilitate speedy access to international protection here, working with international partners to ensure vulnerable people can be resettled here and providing full and sustained funding and safeguarding to support people to rebuild their lives.

It is a pleasure to move the motion, which is in my name and the name of my hon. Friends. President Putin’s atrocities in Ukraine continue to shock and appal: there have been maternity wards and nurseries bombed; apartment blocks and underground shelters destroyed; civilians targeted; journalists killed; and vacuum bombs deployed. On the other hand, the courage and bravery of the Ukrainians—from President Zelensky to the young volunteers putting their life on the line for their people—never ceases to amaze.

We Scottish National party Members have supported, and continue to support, the work that the Government have done to assist Ukraine with its self-defence. We have supported—with constructive criticism—work on sanctions, and we look forward very much to the day when Putin faces the consequences of his outrageous aggression at the International Criminal Court in The Hague. However, today’s debate focuses our attention on the victims of the invasion who have fled Putin’s atrocities and are seeking sanctuary elsewhere. We are witnessing the largest movement of refugees in Europe since the second world war, and we share responsibility for sheltering them with our European allies.

Across the nations of the UK, people have opened their heart and are volunteering to open their home to these refugees. Over 120,000 people have already signed up for the Homes for Ukraine scheme. That is extraordinary, but not a surprise; public opinion is massively behind our meeting our responsibilities and welcoming those who are fleeing Putin’s atrocities. Regrettably, we have been, and remain, disappointed and frustrated by the response from the Home Office, which we continue to regard as slow, piecemeal and too limited. While the public have opened their hearts and their homes, the Home Office has failed to open the door fast enough and wide enough to those fleeing Ukraine.

We hear talk of a humanitarian response, but in reality the Home Office is offering a managed migration response to the biggest refugee challenge this continent has faced for 80 years. The Home Office talks about unlimited numbers, but there are limits, not least because of the bureaucracy, which will make access impossible for many. It made something like nine changes to its family scheme in the scheme’s first 10 days. That does not seem like a Department that has been planning its response for months, in the light of intelligence that invasion was almost certain. Regret, frustration and anger has been evident right across the House, and in pretty much all corners of the media and beyond.

Of course, it is only right to acknowledge that there has been progress in recent days. We welcome the extensions to the family visa scheme; the announcement of the sponsorship scheme, though all sorts of questions around funding and safeguarding arise; and the work with the Welsh and Scottish Governments to enable them to act as super-sponsors. We hope that the move to online visa applications will help some.

This debate offers us a chance to probe further on the details of the schemes, and to suggest improvements. Most fundamentally, we urge the Government to think again about why they alone in Europe must ask those fleeing bombs and brutality to jump through the hoops and bureaucracy of gaining a visa before they can secure sanctuary here. None of our European neighbours requires Ukrainians to do that—neither those in the Schengen area nor our common travel area neighbours in Ireland. We Scottish National party Members support following their example, not only because we believe that that approach has huge public support, but because that is the right thing to do, and because we have been asked to do it by our Ukrainian friends.

I fully support the hon. Gentleman’s motion and the way in which he is speaking to it. Obviously, I totally condemn the Russian actions in Ukraine; huge numbers of people are now forced to flee. Does he recognise, though, that many people from other parts of the world—Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Eritrea and elsewhere—are also seeking asylum or a place of safety, and should absolutely be treated the same as anybody else seeking refuge in this country? There should not be a rule that applies only to Ukraine, and not to people coming from other war-torn countries—wars that, in some cases, we are associated with, through our supply of arms to Saudi Arabia.

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his question. What we have seen in Ukraine, and the response to it, raises all kinds of questions about the Government’s approach to refugees more generally, and about the fact that this country can be, and wants to be, much more welcoming. It certainly poses questions about the Nationality and Borders Bill, which we will debate next week, and which I shall come to shortly.

As we have heard in numerous Question Times and debates, the requirement to seek a visa is causing distress, upset and fury among those caught up in these processes. I have no doubt that we will hear that again today, from Members from across the House.

My hon. Friend is making a very good and useful speech. One of the people facing frustrations is my constituent Valentyna, who has been a British citizen for 17 years. She wants to bring her family to safety in Glasgow, but she feels as though her family are going round in circles in Poland and not getting anywhere with regard to visas, and they have nowhere to stay. Does my hon. Friend agree that this delay is causing much distress to people in Poland, Ukraine and Scotland?

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Every Member of this House will almost certainly have constituents who have faced similar battles. Newspapers report people speaking of “A humiliating process”; of being

“tied up by Home Office red tape”;

and of the

“trauma of UK visa processing”.

Moving the process online will hopefully make things easier for some, as I say, but “online” is not necessarily “straightforward” or “fast”. The Government are still telling the women and children who are fleeing bombs and brutality to use a smartphone to: complete a complicated online form in English; upload documents that prove that they were resident in Ukraine before the invasion, and that prove a family relationship; and wait for a decision. Meanwhile, the sparse and subcontracted visa application centres are not set up to cope with the many who still need their services. Hours are too limited and the centres are spread too far apart. There is talk of surging staff, and many staff are no doubt working hard, but they have been handed an impossible task.

I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will join me in asking the Minister when exactly the application system will allow applications to be made in Ukrainian, as we were promised a week or so ago would be possible.

That is a very good question, and one that we touched on in the Home Affairs Committee this morning, but it would be useful to hear again from the Minister, from the Dispatch Box, about the work being taken forward.

Staff in visa centres face an impossible task. Worse still, there are persistent reports of some subcontractors charging fees for appointments outside business hours, or for uploading documents. The Government knew that was a problem; the independent chief inspector of borders and immigration recently reported that subcontractors’

“sole focus is income generation. The human aspect is not at all valued”.

The pantomime about processes in France was also an absolute farce. At the rate we are going, it will be months until we play our part properly.

We are three weeks on from Putin’s first escalation of the conflict in Ukraine, and around a fortnight on from the launch of the family scheme, and as I understand it, 5,500 visas have been granted, but that is in the region of 0.18% of the number of people who have fled Ukraine—and the UK’s population is 15% of that of the EU.

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving voice to our many constituents who want a compassionate and expansive humanitarian response. Certainly, in Northern Ireland, many people see that just a few miles south, the Republic of Ireland is offering a broad-based welcome. People in Northern Ireland are dismayed that they are unable to give practical support. They see efforts to achieve the society that we want being thwarted again by the UK Government’s policy. The hon. Gentleman mentions processing issues; does he agree that those issues highlight the culture of “no” that exists in the Home Office? That culture has prevented people around the world who are fleeing conflicts from making a new life here—from being able to work, and from receiving the sanctuary that most of our constituents want them to receive.

I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention. I think that a lot of this is tied up with Home Office culture. She is right to raise the Irish example, which I will come to in a moment.

At this rate of progress, it will be many months before we get even close to the 100,000 that the Prime Minister first spoke about, never mind the subsequent 200,000 that he has referred to. This is an acute crisis that is happening now, and we need to be meeting our responsibilities now, not a few months down the line. On the Irish example, Ireland has taken almost 7,000 already. I am not saying that because this is some sort of competition to see who can take in the most Ukrainians. I am pointing it out because it illustrates precisely the impact that visa restrictions are having. The United Kingdom is 13 times bigger than Ireland and has a Ukrainian diaspora that is larger by a similar magnitude, but three weeks in, we have granted refuge to and welcomed a smaller number. The difference is that we require visas and the Irish do not.

Just to be clear, is the hon. Gentleman saying that there should not be any checks at all? Does he not share the concern that some people in this country might on the face of it look very welcoming but would actually do harm to people coming over here? Would he just consider that he might be the first to object if that eventuality were to occur?

Nobody on these Benches is suggesting that no checks should be required. I will come to that later in my speech. The Irish carry out checks on people coming in, although I do not have the details of how they arrange the accommodation thereafter. Nobody is suggesting that this should be a check-free or security-free process.

Iryna Terlecky of the Association of Ukrainians in Great Britain told the Home Affairs Committee that

“it is quite an indictment of the system and how it is working that everybody needs an immigration lawyer, and this is just for family members coming over”.

That is why we believe that the requirement for a visa should be waived. We simply do not have the infrastructure to process them fast enough. The Ukrainian ambassador, whom we recently welcomed into this Chamber with a well-deserved standing ovation, said to the Home Affairs Committee on lifting visa requirements:

“We will be happy if all the barriers are dropped for some period of time when we can get the maximum of people. Then we will deal with that, and my embassy is here to help: to organise for those people”.

These calls are supported by the Governments of Scotland and Wales, as well as by numerous organisations here including the Refugee Council, the Scottish Refugee Council, the Immigration Law Practitioners Association, the Red Cross and many more. They also have public support, with one recent poll showing 60% in favour of, and just 15% opposed to scrapping the visa requirements.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North East (Anne McLaughlin) pointed out during Monday night’s petition debate on a similar subject, not requiring an advance visa for someone travelling here is far from a novel idea. Many thousands of people arrive in the UK each and every day without having obtained a visa in advance. Around 90 countries operate this system, from Brazil to Botswana and Malaysia to Mexico, as well as the whole European Union. Many people will have biometric passports and many will not, but the border functions smoothly enough. That does not mean there are no security checks. We run checks on advance passenger information provided by the companies bringing people in on ferries, trains and planes, and there are checks at the border. Biometrics can still be taken, by using apps for those who can, by reusing biometrics for people who have been here before, or by doing the biometrics at the border on or after arrival. And as the ambassador said, we will have the assistance of the Ukrainian Government in doing the checks.

Salisbury has been invoked in this Chamber, but while that illustrates what Putin is capable of, it has nothing to do with visas. Neither in that outrageous attack nor in the murder of Alexander Litvinenko was there any requirement for the murderers to use anything other than a Russian passport with a false identity and to seek a visa for the UK directly. The security concerns that we have heard about are hard to pin down. In the reports of the Home Secretary’s embarrassing representations to Ireland, reference was made to briefings about gangs. Here, Minsters have spoken about “false documents”. Other briefings have blamed No. 10 for blocking Home Office proposals to simply waive visa requirements. If that is so, the Home Office was clearly not overly concerned about the security challenges that have repeatedly been referenced. None of these concerns can be ignored, but in the grand scheme of things the Home Office has done nothing to persuade me or my colleagues—or, I suspect, Members right across the House—that security justifies keeping those fleeing persecution at arm’s length, potentially for months on end.

As usual, my hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. Is he aware of the views of Lord Peter Ricketts, the former national security adviser, who has said that because the majority of refugees coming to this country are women and children, we should take

“a much more humane and open approach…and should not be requiring visas”

and that we should do the security checks after they get here? Is my hon. Friend anxious, as I am, to hear from those on the Government Front Bench why they think Lord Peter Ricketts is wrong?

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.

I welcome this debate and the opportunity it provides for a constructive and pragmatic discussion in the House this afternoon. Russia’s attack on Ukraine is both monstrous and unjustified. We are united across this House in horror at the unfolding situation, and the entire country stands with the brave people of Ukraine. They are an inspiration to us all. This Government recognise that Europe is now seeing the largest movement of refugees since the second world war. We recognise the urgency of what is a rapidly evolving situation, and in response we have doubled down on our resolve to help those Ukrainians who want to come to the UK to escape the conflict in their homeland.

We are taking comprehensive action, including opening two new visa routes and adapting existing processes, making it easier and safer to bring Ukrainians swiftly and securely to the United Kingdom. We are creating safe and legal routes for Ukrainian nationals coming to the UK. Earlier this month, we announced our bespoke Ukraine family scheme, which significantly expanded the ability of British nationals and Ukrainian nationals settled in the UK to enable family members to join them in this country. The scheme went live on 4 March and, as of 4 pm on 15 March, has already seen 39,000 applications started and 20,000 being submitted, resulting in 5,500 visas being issued at this point.

As well as immediate family members, we have extended eligibility for this scheme to adult parents, grandparents, children over 18, siblings, aunts and uncles, nephews, nieces, cousins and in-laws, as well as all their immediate family members.

The Minister has set out the number of applications that have been made, completed and processed. Can he tell me the timescale for the completion of all those that have not yet been processed?

I am grateful to the hon. Lady. I would expect to see a real surge in the numbers of applications being granted. That is something we all very much want to see. I think that is likely to happen within the space of the next week or so. We are working tirelessly on this, and I place on record my thanks, gratitude and appreciation for Home Office staff and the case working teams who are working day and night to do this work with the urgency that it rightly warrants, and that we as Members of this House and our constituents across the country expect.

A couple of weeks ago I, again through the Home Office and others, helped a family to arrive in Northwich in my constituency—Hannah, her daughter Viktoria and her six-year-old daughter Annastasia. They would say to Ministers, as they certainly said to me, that the process for visas is far too cumbersome. They are 50-page forms. I know the Minister will have heard this from Members right across the House, but we certainly need to move forward on that.

I thank the hon. Gentleman for the work he has been doing as a constituency MP in aiding his constituents to come across to the United Kingdom. I hope I can give him a little bit of reassurance by saying that we are working tirelessly to simplify those processes. I know the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Liz Saville Roberts) asked specifically about translation; on the translation of those web forms, I can tell her that work is going on at pace to provide translation of the appropriate guidance to help people to complete those forms in both Russian and Ukrainian. I hope that answers her point.

Given that the United Nations is reporting that some 3 million people have fled Ukraine over the past number of weeks, half of them children, is 5,500 really something to crow about? Why can the Government not get a move on with this, allow people to get to safety, do the security checks when they are here and speed up the process so that more people are brought to a safe place out of the horrendous crisis they face?

The hon. Gentleman speaks with great passion about these matters. I have set out some detail about the work that is going on to speed up those processes, and I will come on to greater detail about that in my remarks. One point that it is important to place firmly on the record is that, in relation to children, particularly unaccompanied asylum-seeking children, there are sensitivities involved. It is obviously very important that all the right safeguarding checks and processes are in place.

I also recognise that there are issues here where we need the agreement of the Ukrainian Government, to ensure that we are working in lockstep with them to get this right. I am sure the hon. Gentleman will recognise why that is crucial.

I am grateful to the Minister for taking a further intervention on this point. He talks correctly about safeguarding. Nobody is suggesting there should not be safeguarding for children; it is absolutely critical that children are safe—but children must be safe. Cannot the children be safe first, and then we do the safeguarding? Can we not speed up the process so that the checks are done when children are in a safe place—as opposed to an unsafe place, which many are in at the moment?

To illustrate the point I was making for the hon. Gentleman’s benefit, I repeat that it is important that we have agreement with Ukraine on how those matters are approached. It would not be right, for example, for us to remove unaccompanied children from Poland without that agreement in place. Of course, as he would rightly expect, and because it is something that we as Ministers are very mindful of, we will continue to work constructively with the Ukrainian and Polish authorities to ensure that we get it right and that we do our bit on this.

On that point, surely if there is an unaccompanied child in Poland, say, we would want that child looked after safely in Poland so that it can reunite with its parents when they are free to escape Ukraine. What are the Government doing to support bordering countries with humanitarian aid for that purpose?

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to raise that particular perspective on this issue, and I will happily have a further discussion with him outside the Chamber about the constructive work we are doing with the Polish authorities in particular. It is important, where possible, that we help to provide appropriate humanitarian assistance in the region. Of course, as he rightly says, wherever possible we want to see families reunited as quickly as possible, and there is an argument that having those children cared for closer to home makes it easier to facilitate that, but we will keep that under constant review to ensure that we are doing everything we can as a country to support those unaccompanied children and see that they are properly cared for. That is something people in our country would rightly expect.

Returning to the Ukraine family scheme, we have ensured that the scheme is easily accessible and fee free, and that it will not include any salary or language requirements. People who successfully apply to the scheme will have three years’ leave to remain and can work and access public services during that time. We will ensure that there will be avenues for people to stay if they are unable to return. We will never seek to return those to whom we give shelter if the situation in Ukraine remains as dangerous as it is today.

One thing drawn to my attention by my constituent Gareth Roberts, who is presently travelling with his wife Nataliia and her daughter and granddaughter, Angelina and Albina, is whether the Government will consider onward travel funding for Ukrainian refugees arriving in the United Kingdom, as has been provided by other nations in the EU.

I will gladly take that point away and raise it with the noble Lord Harrington, who, as the right hon. Lady will recognise, has assumed his new role in the past few days. I am sure he will be looking at the package of support we are providing in the round and will want to make a judgment on whether that would be an appropriate form of support that we could offer. I am keen to do that and, if she would like to write with further details, I will gladly ensure that that letter reaches him.

On biometrics, we are ensuring that the process of applying to the scheme is as straightforward as possible. To further support the Ukrainian people, holders of valid Ukrainian passports who are outside the UK and making applications under the Ukraine family scheme will no longer be required to provide their biometric information at a visa application centre before they travel. Instead, they will be able to make the application entirely online.

The Ukraine family scheme applications will continue to be assessed as a priority. Once applications have been processed, individuals will receive a permission letter enabling them to travel to the UK and will not be required to collect a vignette in their passport. Applicants who hold identity cards and do not have a valid passport will still need to attend a visa application centre in person and provide their biometric information.

As the House is aware, the Home Secretary has also announced plans for a new sponsored route for Ukrainians with no ties to the UK to come here, and the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities will set out further details as soon as he is able. The scheme is the latest in a package of humanitarian support to help the Ukrainian people and has been brought forward following extensive discussion with the Ukrainian leaders and other countries in the region. This uncapped route allows individuals and organisations, including businesses, charities and NGOs, to welcome Ukrainians to the UK. As our Homes for Ukraine webpage sets out, if someone has a residential spare room or separate self-contained accommodation that is unoccupied, please come forward.

I am pleased to hear that we are going to make these efforts to ensure that any Ukrainian who wants to come here to live safely can get here. Will there also be a package of support for local authorities to provide the necessary back-up services? Clearly educational and mental health support will be needed, as well as all kinds of community support, and local authorities are best placed to deliver that.

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for the spirit in which he comes at this issue. I can provide him with reassurance that there will be £10,500 of support for local authorities per individual refugee supported, to provide exactly the sorts of services that he has identified as being so important—school places and support for health provision and mental health provision—recognising the huge trauma that many of these individuals will have been through in recent days and weeks. We want to help ensure we do as much as we can in communities, properly supporting people to address those needs and challenges.

I apologise to the Minister, because this is specific. He mentioned individuals who have a spare room and the Homes for Ukraine scheme. In my constituency, a GP is looking to sponsor a lady and her 12-year-old child. In such a situation, does that require two rooms, or will one room suffice? I know that is specific, but if the Minister knows the answer, I would love to hear it and take it back to the GP.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising that point in some detail. It is probably best for me to take that point away as a pragmatic illustration of the sorts of challenges that we will have to address in the coming weeks in delivering this scheme. That is exactly the sort of issue we want to ensure is picked up as part of the announcements that I have alluded to and that I expect to be made in relatively short order. A proper answer to that will then hopefully help to unlock opportunities to provide support and sanctuary for someone in his community. I am very grateful to his constituents for their keen engagement in these matters.

The Minister is being very generous in giving way. We have many questions that are often best asked directly to him, so I thank him for that. In a circumstance where someone in Glasgow perhaps knows someone in Ukraine and wants to host them, how do they go about that process to make sure that they can say to the system that exists, “I have a room. I know a person”? How does that person then get to Glasgow to take up that room and that offer of generous support?

From Friday, individuals will be able to come forward and where they have that existing relationship or an individual they particularly want to support, they will be able to provide that information to aid with the matching process. There are huge advantages to using those existing relationships and synergies, and that system will go live on Friday. I hope that answers the question and provides the reassurance that the hon. Lady is looking for. I thank the constituent she has in mind for the work they are willing to do and the support they are keen to provide to those individuals, which I know will be of huge value and will be massively appreciated by all concerned.

The accommodation must be available for at least six months, be fit for people to live in and be suitable for the number of people to be accommodated. The response of the British public has been overwhelming. More than 100,000 people have expressed interest in sponsoring, and that number is going up all the time. We are engaging with local authorities on the development of the scheme to ensure that those expressing an interest in sponsoring an individual or family understand the process and our expectations.

We will ensure that those who want to sponsor an individual or family can volunteer and be matched quickly with Ukrainians in need, working closely with local authorities across the country. We know that charities, faith groups, universities and other organisations have already reached out to those leaving Ukraine. We will be working closely with them to ensure that people who want to help are matched to Ukrainians in need. We will also work closely with international partners to ensure that displaced Ukrainians forced to flee their homes are supported to apply.

Phase 1 of the scheme will open on Friday 18 March for visa applications from Ukrainians who have named people willing to sponsor them. People or organisations wanting to be sponsors who do not personally know anyone fleeing Ukraine can now record their interest. They will then be kept updated as the scheme develops. We believe that for those eligible, our offer is comparable in generosity to that proposed under the EU’s temporary protection directive.

I just have a quick practical question about the matching process. How will that be done for this scheme?

There has been a little commentary around this matter, including at the Home Affairs Committee session this morning. It is fair to say that one important strand of work in getting this right is working intensively with NGOs to develop the system in the most appropriate and streamlined way. We have touched on the safeguarding issues in the course of this debate, and we will want to get those right as this is rolled out, but it is fair to say that further, imminent announcements will provide more detail on the specific point the hon. Gentleman raises. I think he will welcome the work going on with NGOs, which have real expertise and experience with these issues, to develop this scheme so that it is the very best it can be from the very start.

We hear the offers from the devolved Administrations. Our colleagues at the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities will be working with them to ensure that individuals and organisations that want to sponsor an individual or family can volunteer to do so. Local authorities will play a crucial role in the delivery of the Homes for Ukraine scheme and in support for Ukrainian beneficiaries, including on integration, English language support, health, education, employment and housing.

Alongside the generous offer of accommodation that sponsors will be making, we are providing a substantial level of funding to local authorities to enable them to provide wider support to families to rebuild their lives and fully integrate into our communities. For those arriving via the Homes for Ukraine scheme, we will provide a substantial level of funding, at a rate of £10,500 a person, to local authorities, as I touched on earlier. There will be an additional top-up for child education to enable them to provide much wider support for families to rebuild their lives and fully integrate into our communities. Further details will be shared shortly.

As stated by the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary, we will not be issuing blanket visa waivers in response to this crisis. The visa process is vital, not only to keeping British citizens safe, but to ensuring that we are helping those in genuine need. We are already seeing people presenting false documents, claiming to be Ukrainians. Because of that, security and biometrics checks remain a fundamental part of our visa process, and that is consistent with our approach to the evacuation of Afghanistan.

What I do not understand is why this is any different for the many thousands of peoples who come into this country every single day without a visa. People will try to present false documents for those nationalities, too, but we have border guards for that very purpose. What is the specific risk? It seems incredibly difficult to pin down.

I know that the hon. Gentleman feels passionately about this particular point. In response, I cannot say too much on the Floor of the House, for obvious reasons, but people would rightly expect the Government to act in accordance with the security advice we receive at any given point in time and to do so responsibly. I also make the point, touching again on a point that we have been discussing this afternoon, that there is a safeguarding issue in relation to travel to this country. We will obviously want to know who vulnerable children and adults are travelling with and ensure that they are kept safe, because that is an absolute imperative. That is the position of this Government.

On the security issue, the Minister will have heard my intervention earlier, citing the views of Lord Peter Ricketts, a former National Security Adviser, that visa-free access could be safely afforded and that the biometric and security checks could be done largely once women and children Ukrainian refugees arrive here. Why is Lord Ricketts wrong? I tried to get an answer on that from the Minister’s colleague, the hon. Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster), on Monday without success. I need one today, please.

I never like to disappoint the hon. and learned Lady in my answers, but clearly, we have to act in accordance with the latest up-to-date advice that we receive, which is precisely what we are doing. Of course we have been looking at, and will continue to look at, how those processes can be expedited as far as possible. We have been consistently clear about the position in relation to visa waivers and the checks. That is the position as it stands at this point.

Is the Minister saying that the UK is receiving different security advice from all those European countries and our near neighbours Ireland, or is he saying that they are putting their people at risk?

Again, I make the point that we have to act in accordance with the advice that we receive. I am simply not in a position to pass meaningful comment on the advice that other Governments may or may not be receiving. Of course there are marked differences between the United Kingdom and many of our European friends, in the sense that we are not part of Schengen and they are. That is a considerable difference that is materially relevant when we discuss these matters.

Perhaps I can pass on some advice that I received from a constituent who is Ukrainian. She made it clear to me that if her former partner, who domestically abused her, ended up in this country because we did not do any checks, she would hold me personally accountable. Does the Minister not think that she also deserves respect? We absolutely have to look after people. We cannot just talk about domestic abuse in this place and then ignore it when there is a greater cause—that is wrong.

It is fair to say that Ministers in government have at the forefront of their minds, as my hon. Friend does, all our safeguarding responsibilities, of which the British people would rightly expect us to be conscious and mindful, and to act in accordance with them.

Will the Minister give way?

I have been very generous, but I will give way to the hon. Gentleman one last time.

I apologise to the Minister, because in a sense I am making a point to the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman) rather than to the Minister. We do checks on thousands of people who come in every day from countries that do not require a visa—from the whole European Union and all the countries that I listed earlier. We do criminal record checks on the advance passenger information that we get; we do not need a visa to do those checks. We are not saying, “Let in any old person from Ukraine.” We should do the check at the border with the advance passenger information; we do not need a visa process to do that.

I hear what the hon. Gentleman says. The fact is that I would like to think that we all recognise the lengths to which the Kremlin regime is willing to go, as we saw vividly in relation to Salisbury. We are incredibly mindful of that. We are simply not willing to take chances with the UK’s national security and we are acting in accordance with the advice.

I suspect that if that sort of issue were to be repeated in this country—it is unthinkable—the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues would understandably ask us why we had allowed that to happen needlessly. We simply cannot take that chance. I add that nothing that we are doing is inconsistent with the approach that Canada and the United States—our Five Eyes colleagues—are taking. They are adopting similar arrangements on biometrics and security checks.

We believe that we are offering a substantial package that will enable the British public and the Ukrainian diaspora to play their part in supporting displaced Ukrainians into the United Kingdom. We keep our support under constant review and our new routes will continue to respond, develop and keep pace with the rapidly shifting situation on the ground. I certainly welcome hearing further contributions from right hon. and hon. Members during the debate and I will of course reflect on the suggestions and ideas that are put forward.

I am hugely proud of the big-hearted and generous reaction that we have seen from the British people in response to the crisis. In response, as a Government, we have developed a comprehensive package to mobilise those offers in reality. This is a whole United Kingdom effort with Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales and England coming together in solidarity to show our support for the Ukrainian people. We are not just talking about it; our actions will match our words. Together, I know that we will deliver.

There are turning points in history when the constant struggle between freedom and tyranny comes down to one fight in one place. In 1940, that fight took place in the skies above Britain. Today, 82 years later, it is taking place in the forests, fields and war-torn towns and cities of Ukraine. Today we pay tribute to President Zelensky, who has stood strong and resolute in these dark times in the face of Vladimir Putin’s senseless war of choice.

Volodymyr Zelensky is without doubt the leader of the free world, and the bravery, dignity and defiance of the Ukrainian people will never be forgotten. They have not yet won this war, but let us make no mistake: they will eventually triumph over the forces of darkness that have invaded their country. When they do, the United Kingdom and every other democracy across the world will be forever in debt to the heroes of the Ukrainian resistance.

The courage and fortitude of the Ukrainian people stands in stark contrast to the mean-spirited and inept way in which the Home Secretary has responded to the crisis. We should not be surprised by that, however, as the utter shambles of the last few weeks is simply part of a pattern of behaviour. From the Windrush scandal to the small boats crisis, and from the Nationality and Borders Bill to the response to Putin’s barbaric assault on Ukraine, we are witnessing a Government Department whose approach is defined by a toxic combination of incompetence and indifference.

We have had to endure the embarrassing spectacle of the Home Secretary contradicting her own Department’s announcement on the number of visas granted, and then compounding the confusion by claiming that an application centre for Ukrainians had been opened in Calais when that was patently not the case. While I commend the Immigration Minister for deleting the tweet in which he suggested that Ukrainians fleeing the horrors of war should apply for fruit picker visas, I nevertheless repeat my request that he apologise for that tweet, as it is clear that such an apology would go a long way to reassuring the public that the Government have grasped the horrific reality of the situation.

A Government who fail to plan are a Government who plan to fail. Vladimir Putin has been showing the world for years that he is a war-mongering gangster who will stop at nothing in his relentless campaign to crush democracy and the rule of law. From the assassination of Alexander Litvinenko to the invasion of Georgia, and from butchery in Syria to the illegal annexation of Crimea and the state-sponsored hit on the Skripals, Mr Putin’s track record of murder and mayhem since he came to power is not exactly a state secret.

Putin has been massing his troops on the Ukrainian border since October last year. That is five months that the Home Secretary could have used to put plans in place for every possible scenario, so that if an exodus were to be triggered by an invasion, we would have had a well-organised and effective response ready to roll out. Instead, we have seen the Government scrambling, making policy on the hoof and constantly being on the back foot.

As a consequence of that basic failure to plan and prepare, we have witnessed the Government having to perform U-turns on an almost-daily basis. First, the Home Secretary said that the family reunion scheme would be open only to dependants, thus preventing Ukrainians in this country from bringing in their elderly parents, grandparents or extended family. We on the Opposition Benches protested, and the Home Office grudgingly extended it to parents and adult children. We protested again, and the Government finally relented, so thankfully all extended family members are now included in the scope of the family reunion route.

Then the Home Secretary was insisting on Ukrainians with passports and family in the UK having to wait for days in visa application centres rather than applying online and doing the biometric checks here in the UK. Again we protested and again the Home Secretary was forced to U-turn. It took weeks of pressure to force the Government to set up a scheme for Ukrainians who do not have family connections in the UK.

While I am on the subject of the Homes for Ukraine scheme, the fact that the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities has been given responsibility for it speaks volumes, because it is a clear signal that the Prime Minister has completely lost confidence in the Home Secretary.

Would the hon. Gentleman not find it odd if the Department responsible for housing were not responsible for trying to provide housing for vulnerable people?

The vast majority of the issues that need to be resolved around bringing Ukrainians into this country are clearly to do with immigration. The fact that this brief has been shifted is a clear indication that the Prime Minister has lost confidence in the Home Secretary.

Does the hon. Gentleman share my confusion about that comment by the Minister, given that the Home Secretary was responsible for putting refugees in deeply unsuitable circumstances in Penally camp in Pembrokeshire, which has since had to be closed?

The right hon. Lady is absolutely right. Operation Warm Welcome, the scheme for Afghans, has completely stalled and thousands of Afghans are stuck in hotels. That was completely on the watch of this Home Secretary, so I will take no lectures on that from the Government Members.

I say to the shadow Minister that the SNP has moved the motion sensibly, criticising the Government in a constructive way. The shadow Minister’s remarks are in danger of turning into a more party political attack. May I suggest that that is not what the House wants at the moment?

I remind the hon. Gentleman that what is going on in Ukraine is a fight for democracy. In this House we act on the basis of democracy; it is the Opposition’s duty to hold the Government to account and to scrutinise them. If I were saying these things in Russia right now, I would be carted out and sent to the gulag, so I will take no lectures from him on the purpose of this debate and on our purpose, as Her Majesty’s loyal Opposition, in a democracy. This House has lost confidence in the Home Secretary and, frankly, the entire country has too.

I turn now to the day-to-day misery and chaos that Ukrainians seeking sanctuary in our country are experiencing. We are still hearing stories from Ukrainians who have made it to Poland, Hungary and other bordering countries that they are having to wait for days on end to be granted a UK visa. Given that we know that it takes only 10 minutes for a biometric test to be completed and only a matter of minutes to print a visa, why on earth are people having to wait for so long? As one Ukrainian refugee on the Polish border said, “It was hell”. Another called it “a humiliating process”.

This incompetence is leaving a stain on our international reputation. Have these poor people not dealt with enough stress already? We have also heard that the visa centre in northern France was originally supposed to be in Calais, then Lille, and that now it will be in Arras, another 30 miles from Lille. If the Home Office cannot even decide where the visa centre will be, how on earth will the people on the ground know where to go?

Let us not forget that the Home Secretary cited security concerns as the explanation for her refusal to set up a visa centre in Calais, while we have a Prime Minister who repeatedly overruled the advice of our security services in awarding a peerage to the son of a KGB agent. That tells us all we need to know about the priorities of this Government.

I turn to the Homes for Ukraine scheme that was announced on Monday. As I mentioned earlier in my remarks, Labour managed to shame the Government into introducing a sponsorship scheme to allow those without family to come to our country. It is a matter of profound regret that the Government have not heeded our calls for a simple emergency visa scheme that would have avoided the huge amount of bureaucracy, uncertainty and red tape that they have chosen to introduce. Nevertheless, this scheme is better than nothing.

However, on Monday the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities stood at the Dispatch Box and bellowed at the top of his voice about being fed up with people saying that the British people are not generous. His histrionics were yet another example of the deeply disingenuous behaviour of Conservative Ministers who come to this Chamber and deliberately misrepresent the Opposition’s criticisms of their dismal performance. Nobody is criticising the public for lack of generosity; our criticisms are levelled directly at this Government who have utterly failed the Ukrainians who are fleeing the horrors of war. If Ministers were to spend half as much time actually getting on with their jobs as they do desperately deploying smoke and mirrors to conceal their failings, then we might all be in a better place.

Is the visa application not still a fundamental flaw in the Homes for Ukraine scheme? The considerable bureaucracy of a 50-page form will still be required. That really needs to be dealt with, and soon.

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The bureaucracy of a 50-page form could so easily be cut through if the Government were to heed our calls for an emergency visa scheme. The bureaucracy being imposed on these poor people who are feeling the horrors of war should shame us all.

Arguably, the most serious design fault in the Homes for Ukraine scheme is that people who wish to support Ukrainians must track them down themselves. My hon. Friend the shadow Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities rightly described this as a “DIY asylum scheme” that risks leaving refugees without refuge. Are the Government seriously suggesting that Ukrainians fleeing the horrors of war should advertise themselves on social media or that Brits who are happy to offer their spare rooms should be searching on Instagram for Ukrainian families to sponsor? Will the Minister commit today to the Government’s implementing a pairing system to help sponsors find Ukrainian refugees who wish to come here?

We can only speculate on why the Home Secretary has chosen to burden those fleeing the horrors of war with the confusion and chaos that we have seen. Is she simply incompetent or is she being driven by the hostile-environment ideology that has propelled her to the upper echelons of the Conservative party? Only the Home Secretary can answer that question, but whatever her motivations the shambolic consequences are plain to see.

I began my speech by saying that there are moments in history when the great struggle between freedom and tyranny comes down to one fight, and I say today, without an iota of doubt, that freedom will win the day. Until that victory comes, we must do all we can to offer safe sanctuary to those Ukrainians who have made the perilous journey from their war-torn homeland.

As we have all seen, the Ukrainians are a passionately patriotic people and they will be utterly focused on returning home to rebuild their lives and their country as soon as the enemy has been defeated and expelled. In the meantime, they need to be treated with dignity and respect, but instead the Home Secretary’s response has been mean spirited, short sighted and shambolic.

I agree with much of what the shadow Minister has said, but can he be clear that Labour’s position is not to waive visa requirements altogether? How can he be so certain that the emergency visa he describes will resolve waiting times and bureaucracy? Why does he not join the SNP in calling for waiving visa requirements altogether?

The hon. Gentleman is right that we are not suggesting that security checks be waived. We are making it clear that those security checks should take place in the United Kingdom when people have got here. The emergency visa has a rapid application process. On that basis, people would come into the UK and the biometric checks would take place here.

The hon. Gentleman is saying that Labour would have the checks in the UK. What would happen if somebody failed the checks when they were already in the UK? Would they be deported? How would they be dealt with if they failed those checks?

That is a matter for Border Force. They would take the action that they take with any individual who enters this country and does not pass the security checks. It would be exactly the same as any other person who fails security checks; it is very simple and not rocket science.

rose—

Traumatised people, whose lives have been turned upside down, are being pushed from pillar to post and having the door to our country slammed in their faces by this Home Secretary. This is a profoundly unserious Government who are led by profoundly unserious people; what a contrast with the bravery of the Ukrainians and the warmth and generosity of the British people. The British people have stepped up and now it is time for the Government to catch up.

The Minister, hon. Members and right hon. Members from across this House are today calling on the Government to put people before paperwork. The British people are urging the Government to get a grip so that we can once again be confident in our proud record as a nation of sanctuary.

It is traditional to thank the previous speaker for their remarks, but regrettably I can find little on which I agree with the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock), and I fear his tone was wrong.