More than 10,000 Ukrainian refugees who escaped Putin’s war face being forced out of Britain after their visas expire
- Sir Robert Buckland suggested Ukrainians could get a more permanent status
Around 10,000 Ukrainian refugees who escaped Putin’s war face being forced out of Britain after their visas expire in 2025.
Conservative MPs have said refugees from Ukraine should be urgently informed about what happens when their visas run out.
The lack of guidance as to what will happen to those who leave to the UK once their three-year visas under the resettlement schemes expire has led to concern.
Sir Robert Buckland, the former justice secretary under Boris Johnson, said ministers should consider giving Ukrainians a more permanent status, the Telegraph reports.
Sir Robert said the ‘bespoke’ offer, designed for a ‘particularly urgent and unprecedented situation’, needs a ‘further bespoke response’.
Ukrainians board on evacuation trains as they try to leave the country in Lviv train station, western Ukraine, on March 7, 2022
People wait to board an evacuation train at a railway station in Kyiv (Kiev), Ukraine, on March 5, 2022
He suggested that this could be in the form of an arrangement with ‘higher degree of certainty’, while coming short of full citizenship.
Sir Robert said he would like to see work in preparation for this carried out in 2023 to allow for ‘as much stability and certainty as possible’ for the refugees, their employers and communities.
Conservative MP Bob Seely, co-chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on Ukraine, commended the Government for supporting Ukrainian families, but also highlighted the need for ‘important’ clarity.
He said: ‘With some having kids in school, we need to be able to allow them to plan.’
The Homes for Ukraine scheme and the Ukraine Family Scheme were brought in so that refugees could enter Britain following the invasion of Ukraine, with each of the programmes granting stays of up to three years.
The Ukraine Family Scheme allows Ukrainian nationals and their family members to join family members already residing in the UK.
Homes for Ukraine allows Ukrainian nationals and their family members to come to the UK if they have a named sponsor who can provide accommodation.
Evacuation train at a railway station in Kyiv. In March 2022 the Homes for Ukraine scheme and the Ukraine Family Scheme were brought in so that refugees could enter Britain following the invasion of Ukraine, with each of the programmes granting stays of up to three years
More than 182,100 Ukrainians have since entered the country using these programmes.
As most of them entered in the first six months, around 100,000 face being thrown out by September 2025.
Homes for Ukraine has welcomed more than 124,000 Ukrainians to the UK, with almost half of working-age nationals now in employment and settled into their local areas.
Kate Brown, CEO of Reset, a charity consulted on the Homes for Ukraine scheme, said the refugees required certainty as they had ‘started to rebuild their lives here’, securing jobs, developing their English language skills and building social networks.
Stan Beneš, from the charity Opora, also noted that issuing guidance one or two months prior to the visas starting to expire ‘doesn’t really give people much space’ for long-term decision making.
Many Ukrainians have expressed that they wish to stay in Britain even if the war comes to a close before 2025.
A woman and her daughter embrace their father at Lviv train station after he arrived from Kharkiv, a city shelled since the start of the war, on March 2, 2022
Half of Ukrainian adults plan to live mostly in the UK even when they feel it is safe to return, according to ONS data published in July.
Mr Beneš told The Telegraph: ‘The infrastructure in much of Ukraine has completely been destroyed. So if the war [ends] with a victory and every single person goes back, the infrastructure just wouldn’t be able to take it, there wouldn’t be enough resources to go around.
‘So in a way, it’s almost a better thing if it’s a slower or more targeted return back of those that once it is safe, do want to go back. It’s just important to have a positive framing around it and on the UK side signalling that we’re not trying to steal people away from the country of Ukraine and away from this effort to rebuild once it’s safe to do so.’
A Home Office spokesman said: ‘Through our Ukraine schemes, we have provided Ukrainians with access to a three-year visa for temporary sanctuary in the UK. We will keep this under review should an extension be required in the future, in line with developments of the situation in Ukraine.’
The Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 has led to a grave humanitarian crisis, with millions of people in dire need.
People wait to board an evacuation train at a railway station in Kyiv (Kiev), Ukraine, on March 5, 2022
Around 6 million refugees from Ukraine are recorded across Europe, and an additional 5.1 million are displaced within the country.
While Poland has seen the highest number of recorded border crossings from Ukraine since February 2022 (13.4 million), it no longer hosts the highest number of refugees.
Russia hosts the highest number, at 1.3 million and Germany, the second, at 1.1 million. Around 209,000 refugees are in the UK.
In March 2023, the World Bank, the Government of Ukraine, the EU and UN estimated that the cost of reconstruction and recovery in Ukraine stood at US$411 billion (£324 billion).
The Bank also estimates Ukraine’s gross domestic product fell 29 per cent in 2022.
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