Steve Brine join Members of Parliament from across the House in impassioned calls for action to help Ukrainian refugees.
Mr Brine raised the Government’s humanitarian sponsorship scheme in the House of Commons yesterday afternoon and joined colleagues in voicing his despair at a lack of movement from the Government.
MPs shared the experiences of the many Ukrainians fleeing Russia’s aggressive invasion of their country and the issues they’ve faced at Visa Application Centres across Europe.
Steve Brine agreed with the words of Member of Parliament for North Antrim, Ian Paisley Jr MP, saying “All of this is far too robotic and to pick up the point made on the other side; there's very little Christian compassion being shown at the moment.”
Following Minister’s stating that a “generous scheme” would be introduced, the Winchester and Chandler’s Ford MP has been perplexed that the country is still waiting to see it.
Steve continued saying; “The family scheme is too slow, the humanitarian sponsorship scheme which I raised in the Commons yesterday with the Secretary of State, is still in design over at the department for communities and I do not want to hear the Minister say "that's another department", he's the Minister at the box.
At the very least can we have a very simple online gateway, up and running tomorrow, where constituents who want to help can at least register their interest. There's so much compassion and want to help and people are not able to do so.”
Kevin Foster MP, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Safe and Legal Migration, who was responding to the urgent question on behalf of the government looked to alleviate concerns.
Mr Foster responded to Steve directly saying; “I must say, the vast majority of councils in this country took part in the Afghan resettlement scheme, including my own, and many are already offering to take registrations of details and offers of help as part of a process of preparing for the launch of the humanitarian sponsorship route.”
He continued; “So, certainly it's something that, you know, I'd encourage my own constituents to do and I know he'll be encouraging his own to think of what offers that they can make and as I say the compassion that this country has shown by the fact that this will be an unlimited scheme on top of the family and potentially could be one of the biggest movements into communities in the UK since evacuation in the 30s.”
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