Tens of thousands of Ukrainian refugees are expected to arrive in the UK next week, Michael Gove has said.
Mr Gove said it is expected the Government’s new sponsorship route will bring tens of thousands of refugees into the country.
Local authority areas will be entitled to more than £10,000 for each Ukrainian refugee taken in.
Asked for his estimate of the number of people who could come to the UK through the scheme, he said: “Tens of thousands.”
He told Sky’s Sophy Ridge on Sunday: “There’ll be money available for local authorities … there will be just over £10,000 per individual available to local authorities.”
He added that the allowance was actually “just over” £10,000 per Ukrainian for each local government area.
“Then there’ll be additional payments for those children who are of school age and who need to be accommodated within the educational system,” he said.
The first people to arrive through the scheme are expected next week, Mr Gove said.
He added that steps must be taken to ensure people who might be “intent on exploitation” are prevented from “abusing” the Government’s new refugee sponsorship scheme.
He told Sky’s Sophy Ridge on Sunday: “We absolutely do need to make sure, first of all, that the people in Ukraine are who they say they are, so there need to be some security checks there.
“There’s been understandable concern about the scheme being exploited possibly by criminal elements. So, that’s the first thing.
“Then the second thing is we do need to make sure that people here … are in a position to provide that support, which is why there will need to be security checks as well to make sure that those – and I think it would only ever be a tiny minority, but still – those who might be intent on exploitation can be prevented from abusing the system.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel