The former housing secretary Robert Jenrick has taken in a Ukrainian refugee family under a government scheme.
The Tory MP for Newark took in 40-year-old Maria and her two children Christina, 11, and Boden, 15, earlier this week. He is understood to be the second MP to take in refugees under the Homes for Ukraine scheme, after Victoria Prentis, the MP for North Oxfordshire, last month became the first to offer shelter to a Ukrainian refugee called Vika, who was living in Kyiv.
However, the former cabinet minister, who lives with his wife and three children, criticised the scheme for being too complicated.
“I do think the process has been overly bureaucratic and I think the Home Office often falls into this trap,” he said in The Daily Telegraph’s Chopper’s Politics podcast.
“There were simple things that we could and should have done from the outset, like having the form in Ukrainian, for example.”
Speaking about the visa process, he added: “Truth be told it has been a bumpy start to the scheme. It’s taken too long to get visas, for us it took about three weeks to get all three visas approved.”
The Homes for Ukraine scheme, which opened last month, allows British people to host Ukrainian refugees, regardless of whether they have ties to the UK.
Anyone with a room or home available for at least six months can offer it to a Ukrainian individual or a family, with hosts being vetted and Ukrainian refugees undergoing security checks.
Government figures show as of Wednesday, 25,100 visas have been issued under the scheme, from 55,600 applications.
However, only 12.7% of visa-holders have arrived in the UK.
More than 200,000 people in Britain have applied to host refugees under the scheme.
Very nice, but he’s not the first. Victoria Prentice, MP in north Oxfordshire has had a Ukrainian refugee with her for about three weeks already.
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