Yesterday during the Prime Minister Questions time, Boris Johnson made this claim that is so dishonest that he needs to be removed from Parliament and held for account. Are there any other Ministers who are willing to challenge his comment or does the whole of the Conservative Government wish to remain within his lying approach? He was asked a question by Liz Saville Roberts who is part of the Plaid Cymru political group regarding how can people from Ukraine arrive in our nation. He has been personally involved in the blocking of many Asylum Seekers from theatres of conflict with Priti Patel and other people in his Government over several years. When the Ukraine war began their openness for people from Ukraine was initially much more closed than it has now become which is of course a positive. However there are many thousands of people from Ukraine arriving in Poland each day and there is an estimate that at least 1 million will have travelled into Poland in the next few days. Over the last six years there have been far more people arriving in a number of the European nations than could ever have been located in our nation. This is what Liz Saville asked and what Johnson claimed. He needs to be held to account for this lie.
My Wales-based constituent works for the British International School in Ukraine. The school employs 60 British citizens, most of whom thankfully escaped via a bus over the weekend. I heard the Prime Minister’s response to my colleague the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford), but, given the lack of a humanitarian corridor, 173 Ukrainian colleagues from that school are stuck in Kyiv and Dnipro, and ineligible for the Home Office’s humanitarian sponsorship pathway due to the school being domiciled in Ukraine. Wales aspires to be a nation of sanctuary. Our neighbours in Ireland have waived all visa requirements for three years. Why will the Prime Minister not allow us to provide the same humanitarian welcome?
I thank the right hon. Lady very much and I know the whole House will want to help the 173 she mentions in Ukraine. I think the arrangements we have are right, and they will be very generous—they already are very generous indeed. The House should be proud, by the way, of what the UK has already done to take vulnerable people; I think we have taken more vulnerable people fleeing theatres of conflict since 2015 than any other country in Europe.