The UK’s host and guest scheme for refugees from Ukraine is novel and differs greatly from other established schemes for refugees from Afghanistan, or Syrians in Lebanese and Jordanian refugee camps. While this scheme has been broadly successful for refugees from Ukraine, it would be near impossible to replicate in other refugee schemes at the same scale.
The UK Government’s Homes for Ukraine Scheme
Refugees from Ukraine can apply for visas for entry in the same way as anyone else can. The UK Government set up the Homes for Ukraine Scheme which enabled potential hosts to register their interest in accommodating Ukrainian refugees for up to 6 months, and for refugees to register their interest in coming. The idea was that through the scheme potential hosts and refugees would be matched. In practice, that didn’t seem to happen, and the matching process was delegated to RESET and other independent organisations/websites. Asylum claims are not processed through this scheme. That happens after matching when either the host or the refugee applied to UK Visa and Immigration for a visa.
Roland Ward, who kindly shared his valuable insights on the scheme, hosts a family from Ukraine in Caerwys, North Wales. They were matched after Roland registered as a host on the website Opora, and the family contacted him. Once they made contact, Roland agreed to sponsor them and submit the visa application. This was a private arrangement of sponsorship.
All visa applications are processed by the UK Home Office, but Wales and Scotland have devolved ‘super sponsor ‘ schemes, where they take responsibility for a certain number of refugees, submit the visa applications, get them there to reception centres, and sort out NHS numbers, health screening and finance. The idea was that they would then be assigned to hosts in cooperation with local authorities. Unfortunately, both schemes have run out of hosts, and there are many refugees accommodated in hotels, and in Scotland, in cruise liners. The Welsh scheme is now paused.
On Expanding the Homes for Ukraine Scheme
Roland shared that he has heard no such calls to expand the Homes for Ukraine Scheme. He noted that it was significant how quickly the supply of hosts dried up here with refugees from Ukraine. Roland sees that the strength of his arrangement is that the family is self-contained. They are not being hosted in private houses. They are in a residential caravan but are being supported by a team of locals and are now identified as the Caerwys Ukrainians. For the longer term, that model of community sponsorship in self-contained accommodation would seem to him to hold promise more so than private hosting which relies more on individuals than communities. It has been a long process of support to achieve integration and independence for the family from Ukraine that Roland hosts, and it is still ongoing. Devolved Governments should consider carefully how to achieve quality in induction and integration. At present they are swamped, and so the chances of encouraging settlement of refugees from Afghanistan, Syria and elsewhere through a host and guest scheme are limited.
Rattan Singh, who works in the migration department in Coventry City Council, also kindly shared his valuable insights and expressed that it is unlikely that the Homes for Ukraine Scheme would be expanded. The Homes for Ukraine Scheme has been broadly successful in England, with few problems concerning moving the refugees from some houses as the initial six-month host agreements are drawing to a close. This is because hosts tend to be retired, with children moved out, so their spare rooms are permanently spare. Rattan finds that refugees from Ukraine are progressing with English and getting into work more quickly relative to other groups. This may be because pre-conflict Ukraine and the UK have similar levels of employment compared to Syria or Afghanistan, and more similar work cultures. These factors and relative cultural similarities likely contribute to the success of the host and guest scheme for refugees from Ukraine.
Rattan does not think that extending the host and guest scheme to other existing schemes for refugees from Syria and Afghanistan at the same scale as the one for Ukraine would be seen. This is largely down to varying cultural factors. However, Afghan and Syrian communities in the UK can and do reach out and accept refugees from these schemes. The host and guest scheme does not have to be one-size-fits-all; it can work at varying degrees and scales. Instead, getting the public involved in this way at any scale increases public sympathy and engagement and vitally lessens the ‘them and us’ divide between the existing British population and refugees or asylum seekers.
Some hosts of refugees from Ukraine have asked why such a scheme was not available before for others. Clearly there are people who would take on other refugees, and perhaps the Homes for Ukraine Scheme has improved scope for integration and community involvement with migrants. Nonetheless, replicating the scheme for other migrant groups at such a scale would be near impossible.
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