A visa centre for desperate Ukrainians in Calais will be in Lille - 70 MILES away, the government let slip today.
Hundreds of terrified Ukrainians have started to arrive in the French port - but they have to submit a visa application if they have family in the UK.
Currently this involves an in-person trip to Paris or Brussels to give fingerprints and other information. Refugees arriving at one centre yesterday were met with the message: "NO VISAS DELIVERED IN CALAIS."
Home Secretary Priti Patel told MPs "we have set up" a "bespoke" visa application centre "en route" to the port. But minutes later she claimed she never said that - and in fact the Home Office was still “setting up” the centre.
Now ministers have confirmed it will be in Lille and it is planned to open in the next 24 hours. Not all applicants will be able to use it - only Ukrainians referred to the centre by Border Force.
Furious Tory MPs today lined up to blast the government’s response for Ukraine refugees after just 500 family visas were issued since Friday.
In an urgent Commons debate, Tory MP Caroline Nokes said: “Snails also move ‘at pace’." And Tory MP Roger Gale suggested Priti Patel should resign.
DUP MP Ian Paisley Jr said: “Where is the Christian compassion that this nation was known for?”
Tory MP Steve Brine added: “So much about this doesn’t feel right and my constituents know what they see. All of this is far too robotic, and there’s very little Christian compassion being shown at the moment. Surely we are past the UK saying we’re going to have a generous scheme - it’s time to deliver a generous scheme.”
Tory MP Tracy Crouch said there were no available appointments at the UK’s application centre in Rzeszow, Poland until ”the end of next month".
Immigration Minister Kevin Foster said people in Calais are "pretending to be Ukrainian" with false documents in a bid to smuggle themselves into the UK, and could commit another Salisbury-style attack.
But Tory MP Andrew Murrison said: “Salisbury borders my constituency. I fully accept the need for security checks, particularly on adult males.
"But the fact remains that Ireland, with which we share a common travel area, has a population of 5million but has committed to 100,000 refugees from Ukraine and has admitted already over 2,000. This country, population 67million, has come nowhere even close to that. Why not?”
The UK has currently just 400 visa appointments this week at its Paris application centre, the only one in France, with only 100 of those guaranteed for Ukrainians.
Meanwhile the United Nations refugee agency today said 2million people have fled Ukraine in less than two weeks - Europe's biggest refugee crisis this century.
As of last night, the UK had only granted 300 family visas to Ukrainians to come to the UK out of 17,700 applications started.
Yesterday a builder spoke of his devastation after rescuing his wife and children from Ukraine but being banned from getting them into the UK.
Vitalie Turetska has been living and working in north London for the past three years.
When Russia started bombing his home country he jumped in his car and drove to the Ukraine/Romania border to get wife and Helena and sons Danya, six and two-year-old Mapk.
Vitalie said he was told he was allowed to return but he would have to leave his wife and kids behind in France. He said: “I’ve been told they don’t have the correct paperwork so they can’t come in.”
A full family visa scheme for Ukrainians opened on Friday allowing applications from immediate family; extended family; and immediate family members of extended family.
Immediate family are a spouse or civil partner, unmarried partner in a cohabiting relationship for two or more years, a child under 18, a parent if their child in the UK is under 18, or a fiancee or proposed civil partner.
Extended family include grown-up children or their parents, grandparents, grandchildren or partners’ grandchildren, and brothers and sisters.
There will also be a sponsorship scheme for firms, charities and individuals to bring Ukrainians with no family links to the UK for 12 months, but it is not up and running yet.
EU officials have said the bloc could see some 5 million arriving.
The World Health Organisation today said attacks on hospitals, ambulances and other health care facilities in Ukraine have increased rapidly in recent days.
Ukraine says its forces have killed more than 11,000 Russian troops. Russia has confirmed about 500 losses.
Moscow claimed it was was opening corridors today to allow people to leave five Ukrainian cities: Cherhihiv, Kharkiv, Mariupol and the capital Kyiv, as well as Sumy. But ceasefires have been repeatedly breached and civilians attacked.
The UK today said Justice Secretary Dominic Raab - a former war crimes prosecutor - will "travel to the Hague" to help an international effort to gather evidence for Vladimir Putin's war crimes.
Shadow foreign secretary David Lammy said: "The world watched Putin's premeditated stalking of Ukraine. We saw the lies, the false diplomacy and the manufactured grievances, and then we witnessed the destructive invasion of a sovereign state.
"This was a crime of aggression. The creation of a special tribunal will help the global community hold Vladimir Putin and his cronies personally responsible for this war, and it will complement the International Criminal Court's investigation.
"Ukraine's foreign minister backs it, several of our allies and partners back it, leading lawyers back it. Will the Foreign Secretary now do the same?"
The Foreign Secretary replied: "I completely agree with him that we are seeing horrific crimes taking place in Ukraine which are the responsibility of President Putin. That is why the United Kingdom have worked with our allies to put a case to the ICC.
"There were 38 states, which is the biggest-ever group referral to the ICC. I think that is the right route to tackle the war crimes which we consider could have taken place or are taking place in Ukraine, and what we want to do is work with countries to collect the evidence.
"The Justice Secretary will be travelling to the Hague to work on that specific issue."
