Hundreds of thousands of Brits are willing to help Ukrainian refugees fleeing the conflict by putting them up in their own homes, a minister has said.
Michael Gove said the first refugees arriving in the country under the new Homes for Ukraine programme will be here in a week.
The levelling up secretary said he is "exploring what he can do" when asked if he would take in a refugee himself, but added that he understands "one in 10" British citizens want to help.
READ MORE:
The new scheme will allow individuals, charities, community groups and businesses to bring people escaping the war to safety – even if they have no ties to the UK. Until now, the visa route for people fleeing the war in Ukraine has been limited to those with family members settled here.
Asked for his estimate of the number of people who could come to the UK through the scheme, Mr Gove told Sky’s Sophy Ridge on Sunday: “Tens of thousands.”
Mr Gove said there are potentially “hundreds of thousands of people” in the UK willing to take Ukrainians into their homes through the Government’s new sponsorship scheme.
Brits who provide accommodation to Ukrainian refugees through the new route will be required to commit to the scheme for a minimum of six months. They will also receive a “thank you” payment of £350 per month, the government has announced.
Ukrainian applicants will undergo security checks, and those offering up their homes in the UK will also be subject to a vetting process.
People will be able to express their interest in hosting refugees via a website, which is set to launch on Monday, March 13.
Mr Gove said: “Matching will be taking place from Friday. I would expect that in a week’s time we’ll see the first people coming here under the scheme.”
Ukrainians who are sponsored through the new humanitarian route will be granted three years’ leave to remain in the UK, with entitlement to work and access public services.
Mr Gove said he is in the process of “seeking to see what I can do” as an individual to help Ukrainian refugees.
Asked if he would be signing up to offer a room, he said: “I’m going to make sure that I do everything I can as an individual to support. And, again, each individual will have their own circumstances.
“It is the case that something like one in 10 UK citizens, which is an amazing amount, have said that they want to do something to help. But we want to make sure that people are in a position to help, because inevitably it’s a significant commitment.
“I recognise that we need to operate in different ways and in different phases to help people who are fleeing persecution.”
Pressed on whether that meant he would be offering a room, he said: “I’m in the process of seeking to see what I can do, yes.”
Asked the same question on the BBC's Sunday Morning programme, he added: "Without going into my personal circumstances, there are a couple of things I need to sort out – but yes.”
The Cabinet minister also said he wants to “explore an option” of using sanctioned individuals’ properties to house Ukrainian refugees.
Asked about reports in the Daily Mail that he wants to seize Russian oligarchs’ mansions and use them to accommodate people fleeing the war, he said: “I want to explore an option which would allow us to use the homes and properties of sanctioned individuals – as long as they are sanctioned – for humanitarian and other purposes.”
He added: “There’s quite a high legal bar to cross and we’re not talking about permanent confiscation.
“But we are saying: ‘you’re sanctioned, you’re supporting Putin, this home is here, you have no right to use or profit from it – and more than that, while you are not using or profiting from it, if we can use it in order to help others, let’s do that’.”
Asked about safety concerns over the new scheme, Mr Gove said steps must be taken to ensure people who might be “intent on exploitation” are prevented from “abusing” the scheme.
He told Sky: "We do need to make sure that people here … are in a position to provide that support, which is why there will need to be security checks as well to make sure that those – and I think it would only ever be a tiny minority, but still – those who might be intent on exploitation can be prevented from abusing the system.”
It comes after Conservative former immigration minister Caroline Nokes said security checks must be carried out at an “impressive speed” on the “brilliant people” wishing to offer homes to refugees under the new sponsorship scheme.
She told BBC Breakfast: “My big concern is – and there have been lots of calls to waive visas and just let Ukrainians come here with no checks and no oversight – now look, what’s really important is we do not want vulnerable people lost to, potentially, the asylum system, which has a massive, massive backlog with thousands and thousands of people.
“We don’t want them falling into the hands of human traffickers and modern slavery. So it’s really important – these are vulnerable, largely women and children – and so it’s absolutely imperative that there are systems in place so that they’re properly supported and looked after.”
She added: “It is imperative that all these brilliant people who are contacting me and contacting charities offering up their homes, they do need to be checked. That’s a sad, stark reality. But that has to happen quickly.
“They can’t get lost in whatever part of the system does the DBS checks … it’s really important that this is all done at a very, very impressive speed and no foot-dragging can be allowed to happen.”
Mr Gove was also asked this morning for an update on the number of visas that have been granted to Ukrainians so far, after the Government came under fire for the speed and scale of its efforts to bring people fleeing the war to the UK.
He said “more than 3,000 visas” have now been issued, up from the 1,305 figure given by Home Office minister Baroness Williams of Trafford on Friday, correct as of Thursday morning.
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer claimed the government’s handling of refugees fleeing Ukraine has been “an embarrassment for the United Kingdom”, as he said there should be no cap on the number of people the UK takes in.
He told Sky News: “The likelihood of an invasion of Ukraine was known weeks ago.
“The Home Office have been far too slow, far too mean in relation to this, and frankly the last few weeks have been an embarrassment for the United Kingdom in the way that it has dealt with refugees.”
Read more:
Read all of our Ukraine coverage here.
