Closing from Wednesday ‘ensuring support can continue after large increase of new applications’
A three-month pause on new visa applications for displaced Ukrainians to come to Scotland will be in place from 9:00 am on Wednesday 13 July.
The pause on new applications will not affect anyone who has already made an application or had their visa granted.
With visa applications listing the Scottish Government as sponsor up 21% on the previous week as of 5 July, visas issued up 27%, and arrivals under the super sponsor scheme up 20%, a temporary suspension is needed to ensure safe accommodation can continue to be provided to those who have already applied and may now travel to Scotland.
A total of 21,256 visas have been issued naming a Scottish sponsor – more than 20% of the UK total, and the highest number per head of population in the UK. Scotland is currently providing sanctuary for over 7,000 people, two-thirds of whom applied under the Scottish super sponsor scheme.
This exceeds the 3,000 the Scottish Government committed to welcome when the scheme launched in March, to provide a rapid route to safety for those fleeing the crisis caused by Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine.
In addition to the pause, the following actions are being taken:
- the chartering of a passenger vessel the M/S Victoria, which will be docked in Leith in Edinburgh to provide an additional 739 rooms where people can be temporarily accommodated
- the refurbishment of 200 unused council properties in North Lanarkshire to provide more longer-term accommodation, supported by £5 million of Scottish Government funding
- additional staff will be deployed in ‘surge teams’ to assist local authorities matching those in temporary premises to suitable longer-term accommodation
- the Wheatley Housing Group, Scotland’s largest social landlord, has pledged to make 300 homes available to local authorities across Scotland to house displaced people from Ukraine
- Minister with Special Responsibility for Refugees from Ukraine, Neil Gray will also meet today with Lord Harrington, UK Minister for Refugees, to seek clarity on existing funding arrangements for the Ukraine Sponsorship Scheme and, given the very high demand experienced by the Welsh and Scottish Government schemes, ask whether the UK Government will consider introducing its own super sponsor arrangements
Mr Gray said: “As a nation Scotland has risen in solidarity with Ukrainians in their hour of need. I am proud that thanks in large part to our super sponsor scheme, we are now providing safe accommodation to the most Ukrainians per head of population in the UK.
“We have been able to ensure thousands of people displaced by Russia’s horrific and illegal war were able to travel immediately and receive support and a place to stay without the need to be matched with a private host first.
“Our absolute priority has been to respond quickly to support those forced to flee their homeland and I thank all local authorities, third sector organisations, the private sector and the public, who have all mobilised in a major effort to help – together we have coordinated accommodation and delivered essential services at a large scale and in a very short space of time.
“With a recent decrease in people applying for private sponsorship in England, and Wales having paused their own scheme, the number of applications naming the Scottish Government as sponsor has increased considerably in recent weeks. For this reason we have taken the incredibly difficult decision to follow Wales in pausing our scheme so we can continue to provide a high level of support and care to everyone who has already been granted a visa.
“We will review our position in three months, but of course if circumstances change during that time we will bring that date forward. In the meantime we are taking significant action to increase the capacity of our temporary accommodation and are also boosting our matching system to maximise the number of displaced people placed with volunteer hosts who have completed the necessary safeguarding checks.”
Responding to the news, Labour MSP Foysul Choudhury said: “I have been warning the Scottish Government for months that while they congratulated themselves for welcoming thousands of new refugees, hundreds of Afghan and Syrian refugees had been stuck in hotels and other temporary accommodation for years on end with seemingly no plan to tackle this accommodation shortage.
“Now we finally have the admission that the Scottish Government cannot house many of the refugees who have arrived, to the point where they are suspending the Super Sponsor Scheme and chartering a ship to hold refugees instead.
“I cannot overemphasise the disruption that this will cause to the lives of refugees who have arrived in Scotland seeking sanctuary. Being stuck in temporary accommodation means that people are unable to put down roots and begin to rebuild their lives, because they never know when they might be moved on and forced to start again. It is safety without security.
“I have spoken to many refugees from Syria and Afghanistan who have now been stuck in hotels for several years, often accommodation that is unfit for the family they have with them. Since the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, I have urged the Scottish Government to learn the lessons from the experiences of these previous waves of refugees. That they have failed to do at best demonstrates their unrealistic expectations and at worst represents negligence.
“The Scottish Government must ensure that its plans to charter a ship to hold refugees are truly only temporary, and that conditions aboard are sanitary and fit for purpose in the meantime. We cannot afford to end up in a situation where people are still stuck on the ship as many years later as the previous waves of refugees have now been stuck in hotels.”
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