Visa shambles: Now even Tory MPs can’t bring refugees here

POLITICIANS looking to put up Ukrainians in their homes have criticised the UK’s ‘unwelcoming’ visa system, claiming delays are contributing to refugees’ distress.

Crossbench peer Baroness Finlay, who is hoping to host a mother and two children, expressed her frustration that the family has been waiting three weeks for visas to be granted through the Homes for Ukraine scheme.

As MPs hit out at the slow and ‘fiddly’ process, one Ukrainian teacher – who has been waiting three weeks for her visa – challenged Boris Johnson, saying: ‘It’s like I’m not welcome.’

Baroness Finlay said her husband Andrew spent eight hours filling out forms for refugees’ visas on March 18, the day the host scheme launched.

She complained the process was ‘confusing and complicated’, and that the silence over her application has been ‘awful’.

‘I think there is a failure of recognition that this uncertainty is adding to the trauma that these people have already experienced,’ she said. ‘These aren’t just pieces of paper; these are people who have lost everything.’

Baroness Finlay said the family she hopes to put up in her Cardiff home were already known to her and her husband before the Russian invasion. The father of the family, who remains in Kyiv, is a doctor who had worked with her husband.

She said each application had to be processed individually, leading to fears they might not be approved together.

Her complaints come as it emerged only two of at least ten Conservative politicians who sponsored refugees have welcomed them to the UK.

Alicia Kearns, Tory MP for Rutland and Melton, has sponsored four Ukrainians. She told the Sunday Times yesterday: ‘I know of at least ten [Conservative] colleagues [who are sponsoring Ukrainians]. Just two so far have got them here. If Conservative MPs can’t get people here, what hope do other people have?’

According to Miss Kearns, these two MPs are Duncan Baker, for North Norfolk, and Victoria Prentis, environment minister and MP for Banbury in Oxfordshire.

Miss Kearns, who plans to house the wife of a Ukrainian MP, their two young children and the wife’s sister, called the visa forms ‘an utter nightmare’. Meanwhile Helen Goodman, former Labour MP for Bishop Auckland, who is also hoping to be a host, called the process ‘too fiddly’.

On Friday Home Secretary Priti Patel apologised for visa delays after figures revealed only 1,200 refugees had arrived under the Homes for Ukraine scheme – a tenth of the 12,500 visas granted so far.

The Government said 31,000 applications were still waiting for approval due to checks on hosts and refugees.

The delays were yesterday condemned by Ukrainian teacher Katya Hatsenko, 39, who fled her industrial town near Dnipro with just two bags and her cats. She has a sponsor in the Scottish Highlands, but no idea when her application, submitted on March 18, will be approved.

Miss Hatsenko, who is at a refugee shelter in Amsterdam, said: ‘I would say [to Boris Johnson] thank you for all the weapons but it is equally important to help the people, to give women and children homes. This is so long a wait. It is like I am not welcome.’

A government spokesman said: ‘The Home Office has made changes to visa processing – the application form has been streamlined, Ukrainian passport holders can now apply online and do their biometrics checks once in the UK.’

‘These are people, not pieces of paper’