Chamber and committees

Dr Allan is correct that the UK is the only European nation that is requiring visas for those fleeing the war in Ukraine. We have to ask why that is the case, when every other European nation has opened its doors, has allowed people to enter and has put people before process.

I referenced Ireland because of its geographical location. Mr Mankovskyi articulated very well the fact that people want to stay close to Ukraine, which is understandable, because they have family reasons and property that they want to check. However, some people are perhaps looking for different opportunities, and are willing to travel further afield. We can see the difference in arrival numbers between Scotland and Ireland, and the major difference there is to do with the visa requirements. Ireland has welcomed 10 times the number of people that Scotland has. That should embarrass us all, because we all have a collective responsibility to do everything possible from a humanitarian point of view to support people who are displaced from Ukraine.

As I did when I was in Poland and Germany, I commend the efforts of the communities in other parts of Europe that are opening their doors, as I commend people in Scotland and the rest of the UK who are looking to do everything that they can to welcome people here.

That is a fair challenge, and I wish that I could give a definitive answer to it, but I cannot. Bob Doris and Paul Sweeney asked for the entitlement to be extended to asylum seekers and refugees in general, not just displaced Ukrainians. We are trying to ensure that, if possible, we provide something on a national basis, and that is where the additional complexity will lie. However, I give a commitment to write to the committee and to Mr Ruskell, given his interest in the area, to provide an update on how we are progressing with that.

Yes, I am aware of the circumstances. That particular weekend, we had challenges with temporary accommodation and ensuring that we had availability for people who we knew were going to be arriving into Edinburgh, which is, predominantly, the arrival point for the whole of Scotland. We asked some of the displaced Ukrainians, who were in a hotel in Livingston, whether they would be willing to move elsewhere, and a bus was put on for that to happen. Some people still travelled. There was a regrettable incident, and that issue caused additional harm and stress to those who were potentially travelling.

It is important to stress that lessons have been learned from that about the need for all of us to ensure that we communicate as well as possible, not just with displaced Ukrainians but with those who support them. I have already articulated, as has the committee, the challenges in Edinburgh and the local area and the need to ensure that there is a whole of Scotland approach. Different parts of Scotland provide different opportunities, and we need to make sure that we articulate to people why we sometimes need to move them.

However, I think that the necessity for such moves is much reduced, given the situation that we are now in. I want to reduce that even further by ensuring that we progress the matching service as quickly as possible and allow people to get into longer-term accommodation.

I hope that that provides further clarity, especially on the funding issue. Local authorities are only now getting the claim forms. We have had to provide letters of comfort, particularly around the £200 payment. That highlights the challenges that we have faced in knowing and confirming what will be happening as regards funding from a UK Government perspective.

We are working closely with UK Government ministers—in that regard, the relationship is positive. However, there are often challenging conversations about ensuring that the rhetoric is matched with action. We need to ensure that the funding scenario is resolved at a greater pace, because that is at least part of local government’s concern.

I thank the committee for having me along again this morning. As the convener mentioned, last week, I visited Poland to see first hand how it has responded to the arrival of more than 3 million displaced people from Ukraine, and to show our solidarity with the Polish people who are supporting them. When I was there, I met international aid organisations and the Polish Government, and was able to see how the £4 million of financial aid that we are providing has made a difference.

I also met inspirational leaders from civil society, who are supporting people from the moment that they arrive in Poland. I met volunteers at UNICEF’s blue dot centre. Blue dot centres are safe places at key transit points that provide families and children with critical information and services. UNICEF has used some of the £1 million from the Scottish Government to fund 24 blue dot centres in countries neighbouring Ukraine where there are a high number of displaced people.

One part of my visit will stay with me for a long time. At the start of the war, an unoccupied, disused shopping centre in Krakow was repurposed to welcome people who had fled Ukraine. It provides temporary accommodation and food, alongside support, mainly for women and children. Donations of clothing and footwear are put on display—like they would be in a department store—giving people dignity when choosing the clothes that they need. It was incredibly hard for me to see how women and children in particular are living in that refugee centre. The people around them are absolutely doing their best to make it the best place possible for them. However, seeing, feeling and smelling first hand the difficult situation that the Ukrainian people are facing has given me even greater determination to ensure that we in Scotland are doing everything that we can to provide the support that people arriving here need and deserve.

It is clear to me that Scottish support for agencies on the ground in the region is still very much needed, but I am also determined to do everything that we possibly can to support Ukrainians while Scotland is their home. One of the major lessons from my visit is that there is a need for local and national Government in Scotland to fully utilise the power of the third sector and engage volunteer networks to support displaced people to settle in our communities. I am immensely proud that we in Scotland have opened our homes to people fleeing this awful war, but it is clear that our work is far from done.

You have already heard from my friend the consul general about the work that is on-going and the challenges that we have ahead. When we met in March, Scotland was preparing to welcome displaced people. We were determinedly pressing the UK Government to waive visa requirements. At that time, very few people had arrived in Scotland. We have moved on considerably since then. Since I last gave evidence to the committee, more than 4,000 people with a Scottish sponsor have arrived. The Scottish Government has sponsored around 70 per cent of those arrivals.

We have provided a safe and quick route for people to find safety in Scotland. Our local authorities have been working hard, supported by third sector partners, to do all that we can to work within the UK Government visa scheme to welcome and support people arriving from Ukraine.

A national matching service, delivered by the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, has been set up to match people arriving under the supersponsor scheme to longer-term accommodation and make use of the generous offer of the use of their homes that has been made by the people of Scotland.

My concerns about the UK Government’s bureaucratic approach to the humanitarian crisis are well documented. We continue to press it to waive visas, put people before process and provide local authorities with the funding that they need to support people to rebuild their lives.

Last week, the Welsh Government announced that it was pausing its supersponsor scheme. I am very sympathetic to its situation, and I know that that will have been a very hard decision to reach. However, that underlines the challenges that we are all facing in this situation.

The First Minister has made it clear that her intention is for Scotland to welcome a fair and proportionate number of displaced people from Ukraine who arrive in the UK. We are not planning to pause the Scottish supersponsor scheme. Our energy and focus are on building up the national matching service and providing people with longer-term accommodation and integration support to make Scotland their home for as long as they need it to be.

I am happy to take questions.

It is important that I stress the incredible on-going effort from third sector partners and local authorities in Scotland. The work that they are doing is phenomenal and self-starting. You have heard from Yevhen Mankovskyi about some of the direct support that is going to Ukraine and the impact that that is having.

The third sector in Poland is far more involved at the initial welcoming stage and is doing a lot more on the ground, whereas in Scotland matters are being co-ordinated by local government with support from the third sector. I am very grateful to the Scottish Refugee Council and others for all the work that they are doing in that regard.

On what more our third sector partners might be able to do, we need to ensure that the full team Scotland approach can be deployed. We are all facing a huge challenge. We all want to overcome that and ensure that our approach works incredibly well for those who are arriving from Ukraine.

The other lesson that I have taken from the visit to Poland is that our Scottish Government support is leading to tangible results—that was clear to me. I visited the blue dot centre; Caritas, which we work with; the Scottish Catholic International Aid Fund, which we have funded; and the Red Cross centres. I saw the work that they are doing to support people as they arrive in Poland, and I know what they are doing on the ground in Ukraine as well.

From that, it was clear to me that our support is being well used and that, sadly, there is a job to do, both for large non-governmental organisations that we have supported and for smaller NGOs. Some of the smaller NGOs, such as Open Krakow, which is led by Maria Wojtacha, are incredible. I take my hat off to them for the support that they are providing alongside accommodation and for the way in which they are giving dignity to people in a really challenging situation. I was able to articulate that and pass on my thanks to them for the work that they are doing.

It was a useful trip for me in terms of taking back lessons that we are already trying to deploy in the response in Scotland.

On visas, an example that best illustrates the position is to compare the arrival numbers of just over 4,500 in Scotland with those in the Republic of Ireland. The countries are of a similar size and in a similar geographical location. One has a visa requirement; the other does not. Ireland has more than 10 times the number of arrivals of displaced Ukrainians. That helps to illustrate the barrier that visa requirements are putting in the way of people coming to Scotland and, for that matter, to the rest of the UK.

You are absolutely right to underline the challenges that Ukraine’s neighbouring countries are facing. A couple of weeks ago, for a different reason, I was in Germany, where I was able to visit community groups in Offenburg, in the German state of Baden-Württemberg, that are supporting displaced Ukrainians in the area. Baden-Württemberg alone has welcomed more than 100,000 displaced Ukrainians. There are real challenges with those numbers, understandably.

Similarly, when I was in Poland last week, it was clear that the third sector input there is massive. There is also support in place from local and national Government. However, there are clear challenges in the neighbouring countries.

Given what I saw in the disused shopping centre that supports displaced Ukrainians, where women, children and their pets are living cheek by jowl on camp beds in unbearable heat, it is incumbent on us all to do everything that we can to support as many people as possible—Ukrainians and others in similar situations who are fleeing conflict—to come to Scotland .

We have been doing a huge amount already, but there is clearly more that can be done. I was at the solidarity rally a week past Sunday, which started at the Russian consulate and ended up outside the Scottish Parliament. The support on the streets was incredible. Like you, as I go back and forth in my constituency of Airdrie and Shotts and around Scotland, I see Ukrainian flags and colours everywhere, as Mr Mankovskyi mentioned. I am wearing the Ukrainian tartan, as is the convener.

We are doing everything that we can in ways that feel small. However, as Mr Mankovskyi articulated, every small gesture—when we use the hashtag #standwithUkraine or the phrase “Slava Ukraini!”—matters to the people I spoke to in and around Poland and to those I speak to in Scotland. The situation is incredibly challenging, as we have heard. People are worried about their family members, their property and the future of their nation, so everything that we can possibly do to support them and show solidarity is worth doing.

I understand all those concerns. We do not want people in hotel rooms any longer than necessary. We are working with local authorities to build the capacity of the matching service and have committed resource to that. We are in constant dialogue with our local authority partners to ensure that there is as much clarity as possible around how that process works, that we get feedback and that we can ensure that there is flexibility around local matching. Where possible, that will allow the local authority teams to use their local knowledge to take matches forward more quickly. I am looking for us to do anything and everything to ensure that things get moving as quickly as possible.

There is no judgment from me over what Wales has done over the past couple of weeks, because I understand the pressures that they will have been under, but it shows the challenge that we face. The challenge is a result of the scheme being an immigration one rather than a formal resettlement one—the two approaches have different levels of support. However, we will certainly do everything that we can to ensure that we are responding appropriately.

You are absolutely right that, even in hotel accommodation, people start to put down roots and make community connections and their children start to make friend networks. That is great, but that makes it challenging if there is a need to move people on to other areas. We want to be as sympathetic as we can be to that issue, but it shows why it is important that we get the matching service operational as quickly as possible, so that we are able to provide people with a settled community that allows them to put down those roots as quickly as possible. I am alive to all those issues. We are constantly monitoring the situation. We are in constant dialogue with our colleagues in local government and the local authority teams, and will continue to provide the support that they feel is necessary to ensure that we get people into longer-term secure accommodation as quickly as possible.

I am happy to discuss any concerns that Highland Council or any other local authority has about the challenges that it faces in the longer term. We work with local government organisations such as the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives and Senior Managers and COSLA to ensure that there is long-term planning in place. I am grateful to local government for the work that it is doing, and if there is anything more that the Scottish Government can do to ensure that local government is able to support the system that we have in place, I would be more than happy to hear about that. We will work with local government to ensure that we are providing the warm Scottish welcome that we and our constituents expect but, more importantly, that is expected and deserved by the people who are arriving from Ukraine.