UK politics: Gove makes statement on homes for Ukrainian refugees as website for scheme opens – as it happened

6.12pm GMT

Early evening summary

• Around 1,500 people registered on a government website offering to host Ukrainian refugees within about an hour of it launching, Michael Gove, the levelling up secretary, told MPs. He disclosed the figure as he made a Commons statement giving details of the Homes for Ukraine scheme first announced over the weekend. The scheme, which will allow Ukrainian refugees without close relatives in the UK to come to the country where a sponsor has agreed to house them, was welcomed in the Commons by Tory MPs, who have been alarmed by how few people fleeing the war have benefited from the one scheme already operating (for Ukrainians with close relatives already in Britain). But Lisa Nandy, Gove’s Labour shadow, complained that the scheme involved too many bureaucratic hurdles, and charities working with refugees said what was proposed was far too limited given the scale of the crisis. (See 5.38pm.)

• Four squatters who have been surrounded by police on the balcony of a central London mansion owned by the oligarch Oleg Deripaska say they have “made their peace with getting arrested”.

• Petrol could soar to £2.50 a litre, while diesel could hit £3 and might even be rationed, experts told MPs on Monday, as they warned of worsening pain for consumers as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine hits global energy markets.

• Boris Johnson is expected to visit Saudi Arabia to push for an increase in oil output despite an outcry over the regime’s biggest ever mass execution and growing fears the prime minister may try to limit media scrutiny of the trip.

• All remaining Covid travel restrictions are to be dropped in England from later this week, despite a concerning rise in cases and hospitalisations.

That’s all from me for today. But our Ukraine coverage continues on our global live blog. It’s here.

Updated at 6.19pm GMT

5.50pm GMT

Matthew Ryder, a former deputy mayor for social integration in London (under Sadiq Khan), has posted a good thread on Twitter explaining why community sponsorship (of the kind announced by Michael Gove this afternoon) did not work as a means of housing Syrian refugees in any significant numbers. It starts here.

A thread on Ukrainian refugee COMMUNITY SPONSORSHIP.

When I worked at City Hall as Dep Mayor for Communities, there was a new UK Govt ‘community sponsorship’ scheme for settlement of Syrian refugees.

It didnt work well for Syrians.

So will it work better for Ukrainians?

1/13

— MR (@rydermc) March 13, 2022