Defence officials are to help process visa applications from Ukrainians fleeing the war amid continuing criticism over the slow rate at which refugees are being admitted to the UK.
The Home Office disclosed on Monday night that just 300 visas have been issued out of a total of 17,700 family scheme applications that have been started, 8,900 of which have been submitted.
With 1.7 million people having fled the fighting so far, Defence Secretary Ben Wallace acknowledged that the Government needs to move quicker and said he is offering Ministry of Defence (MoD) support to speed up the work.
“The first and foremost duty for all of us is to make sure that people get to safety,” he told Sky News.
“Once they’ve got to safety, making sure we just check their identity before they come to this country – it is incredibly important that we do that.
“It shouldn’t take time. And I’ve offered, I will be offering, to the Home Office assistance from the MoD in the same way we did in Op Pitting (the evacuation of Afghanistan) to increase the processing time to help those people.”
He added: “Of course, we can do that quicker, we are leaning into that, the Home Secretary is determined to do that quicker, I will give her all the support I can.”
Mr Wallace was also critical of reports that hundreds of Ukrainians who have reached Calais have been told they need to travel back to Paris or Brussels to apply for a visa where they face a lengthy wait.
“It’s difficult for those people – why wouldn’t it be? – to go all the way back to Paris,” he told BBC Breakfast.
“We can do more, we will do more.”
“It’s not the case that we are only allowing 300 people in; it is the case that the system has not been quick enough, which is what we’re going to address.”
His comments will increase the pressure on Home Secretary Priti Patel, who is facing growing criticism over the Home Office’s response in the face of a growing humanitarian crisis.
Labour said the numbers being admitted are “shockingly low”, while senior Tory MP Simon Hoare said it is “simply not good enough”.
“The Home Office needs to move today from pettifogging process to active delivery. Stop ‘computer says no’ mindset and get on and help,” he tweeted.
The row comes as Prime Minister Boris Johnson is hosting leaders of the Visegrad Four central European nations – Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic – who have seen some of the heaviest influxes of refugees.
Meanwhile Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is set to deliver a “historic address” to the House of Commons after Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle approved a request for him to speak directly to MPs.
He is expected to use his speech – delivered by video link from Kyiv – to issue a renewed appeal for Western support, including a Nato no-fly zone.
Britain and other allies have ruled that out, warning that it could bring Nato and Russian jets into direct conflict, potentially sparking a wider European war.
Mr Wallace said that however the conflict in Ukraine played out, it was clear that Russian President Vladimir Putin was a “spent force”.
He said Mr Putin would not break the people of Ukraine and that he potentially faced decades of occupation which would be impossible to sustain.
“Whatever we think about President Putin, he is done. He is a spent force in the world. No-one will be taking his phone calls in the long term,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
“He has exhausted his army, he is responsible for thousands of Russian soldiers being killed, responsible for innocent people being killed, civilians being killed in Ukraine.
“He is reducing his economy to zero, because the international community has decided that is absolutely unacceptable, what he’s done.
“So he is a spent force in the world and I don’t know whether he thinks that’s a clever thing to be, but that diminishes his own country in the world and he has to take responsibility for that.”
