A Government website where Brits can sign up to take refugees from Ukraine into their homes has been launched - but a key detail of the scheme was missing today.
The Homes for Ukraine website opened this afternoon for people to express their interest in hosting a family fleeing Ukraine. Refugees will be able to live, work and claim benefits in the UK for three years under a sponsorship visa - up from 12 months under a previous vow.
While visa applications under the scheme will open on Friday, they will only be for people who know by name which Ukrainian or Ukrainians they intend to take into their home, the Mirror reports. Those who want to accommodate a refugee, but do not know any Ukrainians, cannot yet be matched to those coming to the UK.
Sponsors offering a spare room will have to guarantee accommodation for at least six months, in exchange for being paid £350 a month by the government. Matching of strangers to those who want to give refugees a home will happen in the future, but Levelling-Up Secretary Michael Gove was unable to name the date when it would begin.
He told MPs: "Because we want the scheme to be up and running as soon as possible, Homes for Ukraine will initially facilitate sponsorship between people with known connections. We will rapidly expand the scheme in a phased way with charities, churches and community groups to ensure many more prospective sponsors can be matched with Ukrainians who need help, and we are of course working closely with the devolved administrations to make sure that their kind offers of help are also mobilised.”
Pressed to give a timescale, he said only “we are working this week with civil society” and “we will update the house in real time over the next few days”. Government sources told the Mirror this was a sensible approach because matching Brits with refugees would be time-consuming.
But Shadow Levelling-Up Secretary Lisa Nandy said: "A press release is not a plan and we are deeply concerned about the lack of urgency." She raised concerns over matching Ukrainian families to sponsors and claimed the Government was suggesting people should advertise on Instagram via a “DIY asylum scheme”.
She told the House of Commons: “On his tour of the TV studios, he suggested several times that people who are willing to sponsor a Ukrainian family need to come to the Government with the name of that family who will then rubber stamp it. He can’t seriously be asking Ukrainian families who are fleeing Vladimir Putin, who have left their homes with nothing, to get on to Instagram and advertise themselves in the hope a British family might notice them. Is this genuinely the extent of this scheme?”
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