The UK government’s response to the Ukrainian refugee crisis descended into further chaos as Priti Patel contradicted visa figures issued by her own Home Office department and then contradicted herself on a possible new route for arrivals.
The Home Secretary faced intense criticism in the Commons after figures issued by the Home Office showed that only 50 Ukrainian refugees had been given visas to come to the UK.
Patel said the information was “absolutely inaccurate” and the true figure would not be known until later on Monday evening.
Patel then sparked fresh chaos by saying a visa centre “en route” to Calais had been set up only to suggest minutes later that it is not yet ready to operate.
The Home Secretary told MPs “we have set up” a “bespoke” visa application centre “en route” to Calais after families had to travel to Paris or Brussels to give biometric data like fingerprints.
But minutes later, she claimed she had never said that and suggested it was not ready.
She told MPs: “I actually said that I can confirm we are setting up another VAC en route to Calais. I made that quite clear in my remarks earlier on.”
Her comments came following intense criticism over the apparent failure of the UK’s refugee scheme to admit enough people fleeing war.
On Sunday Patel suggested a third scheme, saying: “I’m urgently escalating our response to the growing humanitarian crisis. I am now investigating the legal options to create a humanitarian route. This means anyone without ties to the UK fleeing the conflict in Ukraine will have a right to come to this nation.”
But then Downing Street and Prime Minister Boris Johnson made it clear that only the two existing routes, family applications and sponsorship, were currently open to refugees.
A third scheme has not been totally ruled out as 1.5 million Ukrainians flee from the Russian invasion.
Meanwhile, refugees arriving at one centre in Calais were met with the message: “No visas delivered in Calais.”
Labour leader Keir Starmer said: “The Home Office is in a complete mess about this – they keep changing the rules, the stories of what is actually happening on the ground contradict what the Home Office say."
He added: “They have got to sort this out. There should be a simple route to sanctuary for those that are fleeing for their lives.”
SNP Westminster leader Ian Blackford tweeted: “This is simply unacceptable it is a massive fail by the Home Office.”
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