Homes for Ukraine: Visa silence unwelcoming, Cardiff peer says

Hundreds of refugees have been living in an athletics centre in Moldova

The UK's Ukrainian visa scheme is "unwelcoming", a crossbench peer offering her home to a fleeing family has said.

Baroness Ilora Finlay of Llandaff has been waiting three weeks for visas for a mother and two children to be cleared through the Homes for Ukraine scheme.

She and her husband have already prepared their Cardiff home for them.

The UK government said it was working "as quickly as possible, but accept progress has not been quick enough".

Baroness Finlay told the PA news agency she did not wish to identify the refugee family but said they were known to her and her husband, Prof Andrew Finlay, before the Russian invasion.

She said visa issues are causing uncertainty and adding to refugees' trauma.

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She said the father of the family is a doctor in Ukraine who had worked with her husband and remained in Kyiv.

They have also submitted an application for him in the event he also leaves Ukraine due to injury or other reasons.

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Prof Finlay spent eight hours filling out forms for their visa applications on 18 March, the day the scheme launched.

"We've said we will do whatever is needed for however long to support them, and we know that it might be years," said Baroness Finlay.

She explained that each of the four visa applications have been processed individually, which has made her concerned they may not be approved together.

Despite repeated efforts in person at a visa information centre and over the phone, she said the only information she has received has been four separate emails to say each applicant is "in the system" to be processed - which arrived on Thursday.

Baroness Finlay: "This uncertainty is adding to the trauma that these people have already experienced"

"The silence is awful... nobody can help me find out what's happened to these people's applications," she said.

"I think there is a failure of recognition that this uncertainty is adding to the trauma that these people have already experienced.

"The message from the system is that the country is not welcoming them."

The couple have bought an extra bed and fridge, among other things, for the family, clearing space in their kitchen cupboards so they can have space to cook their own meals.

A government spokesperson said: "The Home Office has made changes to visa processing - the application form has been streamlined, Ukrainian passport holders can now apply online and do their biometrics checks once in the UK, and greater resource has gone into the system."