A Leeds MP accused the Home Office of failing to do enough for Ukrainian refugees and branded their response to the crisis a ‘disgrace’.
Alec Shelbrooke, the Conservative MP for Elmet and Rothwell gave a fiery speech in the House of Commons and asked the Home Office Minister Kevin Foster to tell his officials to ‘get a grip’.
He said: “Does the Home Office recognise that this is a war of the likes that has not been seen for 80 years in Europe?
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“We don’t want to stand in this house and listen to plans and processes. We want dates, we want action and the Home Office must react far more quickly than it’s doing and get to the point of hubs of people and get them in.
"This is a disgrace, when the minister leaves this dispatch box I ask him to go back to the Home Office and tell them to get a grip.”
His speech was greeted by cheers in from other MPs.
Kevin Foster responded by pointing towards changes the government was making and the scale of the problem.
He said: “As I’ve outlined already we’re making a number of changes, we met officials this morning to push further ones through, we’ve extended the entitlements and who can apply.
“This will become one of the biggest relocations of people since the wartime evacuations, let's just get this into perspective and scale.”
It comes as West Yorkshire MP Yvette Cooper, the Shadow Home Secretary, slammed the UK Home Office for issuing just 250 visas a day to allow Ukrainians fleeing the conflict to join family in this country.
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"Most people want to stay close to home but some want to come here to join friends or family and we should be helping them. Instead most people are still being held up by Home Office bureaucracy or being turned away."
Ms Cooper said that there are “600 people in Calais right now who have been turned back”.
She called on the Government urgently to set up emergency visas as major travel points to get Ukrainians emergency visas so they can come here "and the UK can do our historic bit to help refugees fleeing war in Europe.
Figures from last Friday showed 8,900 applications to come to the UK under the Ukrainian Family Scheme but only 300 visas had been issued.
One man from Leeds described his frustration at trying to get his girlfriend, who is Ukrainian, a visa from the Home Office.
If you want to help Ukraine and Ukrainian people check our article here for help and advice.
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