2 March 2022
The former SNP Deputy Leader, Jim Sillars, pictured right, and Health Secretary, Alex Neil have today called on Nicola Sturgeon to establish a Ukraine Refugee Office in Scotland in order to coordinate and swiftly process an expected influx of Ukrainian refugees.
In an open letter to the First Minister, they point out that “the Scottish Government is best placed to be the central organisation” for refugee processing in Scotland and suggest, the creation of “a Ukraine Refugee Office, equipped with all necessary powers, from within the Scottish Government, headed by a cabinet secretary, and staffed by civil servants.” They propose that such an office “should be the single portal through which visa sponsorship applications, from all sponsors, are directed to the Home Office.”
2 March 2022
Dear Nicola,
Organising Scotland for Ukrainian Refugees
We see the Ukraine situation, both constitutionally and historically as sui generis. We know that you, like us, will want the UK Government to go much further on the admission of Ukrainian refugees than the policy set out yesterday by the Home Secretary. However, that is the policy all must work with at present.
There is a weakness in that part of the policy enabling various bodies, businesses, community groups and local authorities to sponsor a 12 month work visa for individual Ukrainians. The weakness is that it begs the question of how this is to work swiftly without a national organisation to make it effective. As the Prime Minister expects 200,000 refugees coming to the UK, we can anticipate, perhaps, 20,000 arriving in Scotland.
We make the following suggestions on the organisational role that the Scottish Government can adopt to bring that needed effectiveness. A single national organisation will ensure that identification of work justifying work visa applications is recorded and compliant with Home Office policy. The Scottish Government is best placed to be the central organisation. We suggest as follows:-
1 You create a Ukraine Refugee Office, equipped with all necessary powers, from within the Scottish Government, headed by a cabinet secretary, and staffed by civil servants who have recent successful experience with organising emergencies, such as the Syrian and Afghan resettlement programmes.
2 That office should be the single portal through which visa sponsorship applications, from all sponsors, are directed to the Home Office, so that it is not dealing with a variety of un-coordinated sponsors, but with a fellow government department which has already acted as coordinator.
3 That office request individual businesses to notify it of how many work visas it can sponsor, with accompanying detail.
3 That office request civic and community groups to notify it of how many work visas they wish to sponsor, with accompanying detail.
4 That office, from the contingency fund, inform local authorities that it will match their expenditure on works justifying work visa applications pound for pound; and that they should within a short period to inform it of the number of work visa applications each can make.
Organisation will be key to making the road into Scotland for each refugee as smooth as possible. But more is required. We shall be meeting people who have been through trauma, and who have nothing but the clothes on their backs.
Accommodation, food, medical care, advice, communication with families, are all central to the life of a refugee. There too is the role for the Scottish Government, with advice and co-working with the Scottish Refugee Council, whose knowledge and expertise will be essential to the development of Scottish policy.
We suggest, for your consideration, that the Scottish Government set-up with the Scottish Refugee Council, and the churches, a number of centres to which Ukrainians can go for advice, and which can also act as medical centres operated by doctors, paramedics and nurses to treat injuries and trauma as a result of their flight from the conflict.
We further suggest that the Scottish Government take temporary possession in agreement with their managers, of hotels that are currently nowhere near capacity, and fund the stay of refugees. As a supplement to that, should individual families wish to offer accommodation to a Ukrainian refugee, we suggest the Scottish Government request each local authority to compile a list of those who wish to do so, and provide the advice centres with that information.
We hope you will take our suggestions into consideration as you develop your Government’s policy towards a Scottish contribution to easing the enormous difficulties, and personal tragedies, that have fallen upon the Ukrainians from the criminal acts of the Russian President.
Yours sincerely
Jim Sillars
Alex Neil