As part of my role as the Co-Chair of the APPG on Migration, and my campaigning around safe routes for refugees, I have been working to hold the government to account on the few ‘safe routes’ they currently operate. The two major safe routes that have sought to support people fleeing conflict in the past year have been the bespoke schemes for Ukrainian and Afghan refugees. While I am advocating for Ukrainians and Afghans to be able to access the routes that are available to them so they can reach safety, I am also highly critical of the government’s choices to focus on narrow, bespoke schemes, while restricting people’s options to travel to the UK and claim asylum. I believe in asylum as a universal human right that should be available to anyone in need of protection, and assessed on their personal circumstances that could have led to persecution in their countries of origin.

However, even within the Ukraine and Afghanistan scheme, there are many problems that the government needs to urgently address. 

This week marks the second-year anniversary of the fall of Kabul. The government’s response to support Afghan refugees has been woefully inadequate. Too few people have been resettled in the first place, and many of those who have made it here have been stuck in hotel accommodation for the longest time. Now, they face homelessness. Just this weekend, two people from Afghanistan died as they tried to cross the Channel in a small boat. This should never have happened, and the government must be held to account. 

I have sought to raise the problems with the Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme in parliament on multiple occasions and have worked with partners across the refugee sector. I contributed to a Westminster Hall debate on the opening of Pathway 3 of the Afghan Resettlement Scheme in January this year, in which I highlighted the shocking discrepancy between the numbers of Afghans who arrive on small boats, which made up 15% of all nationalities between January 2022 and September 2022, according to Home Office data. At the time of the debate, only 6,000 people had come to the UK through pathway 1 of the scheme, while 4,781 arrived by small boat. This underlines that the real crisis we are facing is a lack of safe and legal routes for people fleeing persecution and conflict. 

On the issue of Ukraine, I have hosted a Westminster Hall debate to mark the anniversary of the Homes for Ukraine scheme in March this year. A report by the British Red Cross had found that well over 4,000 Ukrainian households in England have been homeless or at risk of homelessness in the past year, which marked a 97% increase on the October 2020 figures. According to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, here in Sheffield, a total of 30 Ukrainian households (17 of which are here under the Homes for Ukraine Scheme, and 13 under the family scheme), half of which included children, have been offered homelessness prevention relief duty services by Sheffield City Council. As the cost of living crisis continues to bite, many hosts simply cannot afford to host much longer, while council housing waiting lists are long, and the privately rented sector is often inaccessible for refugees and migrants. In Sheffield, out of 322 families who arrived here under the Homes for Ukraine scheme, only 44 managed to move into privately rented accommodation.

In response, I have called on the government to make available more funding for local authorities to help with housing provisions, including to act as a guarantor for those seeking to rent privately. I have also highlighted the issues of skills and employment, raised to me by the local Ukrainian association, to ensure cross-departmental work is taking place so that Ukrainians can either access training and qualifications, or have their qualifications recognised, so they can return to employment. 

I will strive to continue working towards holding the government accountable over the schemes they have opened, especially in the light of the upcoming review into safe and legal routes, that was promised within six months of passing the Illegal Immigration Act.