The shadow home secretary says most refugees are being held up by bureaucracy or are turned away.
Image source, EPA
The UK government must set up emergency visa offices now and conduct on-the-spot security checks for refugees fleeing the war in Ukraine, the shadow home secretary has said.
Yvette Cooper said most refugees were “still being held up by Home Office bureaucracy or being turned away”.
Britain has granted family visas to about 500 Ukrainian refugees so far, a Home Office minister said.
Kevin Foster said 10,000 applications to enter the UK had been submitted.
The Home Office has been criticised over the way it has handled issuing visas for Ukrainians who want to join relatives in the UK.
Unlike the European Union – which is allowing Ukrainians three-year residency without a visa – the UK has retained controls on entry.
There are two main visa routes for those fleeing Russia’s assault on Ukraine – requiring them either to have family in the UK, or a British sponsor for their application.
It comes as Calais authorities said almost 300 Ukrainian refugees have been turned back at the French port by the UK Border Force, while hundreds were stuck trying to complete paperwork for visas.
Responding to an urgent question in the House of Commons, Mr Foster told MPs that a new visa processing centre would be established in the northern French city of Lille and that officials were looking at setting up transport from Calais to the new offices.
He insisted ministers would “not take chances with the security of this country and our people” before citing the Salisbury Novichok attack in 2018.
“A crucial part of the application process is providing biometrics so we can be sure applicants are who they say they are”, he said, before claiming officials had seen people at Calais “with false documents claiming to be Ukrainian”.
Criticising the absence of Home Secretary Priti Patel in the Commons, Labour’s Yvette Cooper called for visa centres to be established at all major travel points, on-the-spot security checks and for Ukrainians to be given emergency visas.
“The government should not be continuing to change this in a chaotic way, rather than opening the system properly,” she added.
Ms Cooper criticised the apparent lack of clarity over the locations and operation of visa centres.
She said: “Yesterday the home secretary told the House twice that a visa centre en route to Calais has now been set up but it still doesn’t exist.
“The foreign secretary just said it might be in Lille – nearly 72 miles from Calais.
“The Home Office said this morning that no decision had been taken. Well, which is it? Has it? Where is it? Can people get there yet?”
A string of Conservative MPs have joined opposition politicians in demanding further and faster action from the government in helping Ukrainian refugees enter the UK.
Conservative Mark Harper, a former immigration minister, said even if security checks were needed, the government needed to “grip the pace of this” and called for a minister to set out the details of the humanitarian sponsorship route within days – not weeks or months.
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