A few days before the two-year anniversary of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the UK government announced a series of sweeping changes to the Ukraine schemes, giving just four hours’ notice of their implementation.

Among the most significant changes are the closure of the Ukraine Family Scheme, and a new requirement that sponsors under the Homes for Ukraine Scheme can now only be British, Irish or settled in the UK. Both of these changes came into force at 3pm on 19 February 2024 and made it more difficult for Ukrainians to come to the UK.

There are also unanswered questions about how the newly announced Ukraine Permission Extension Scheme will work, leading to concerns that Ukrainians who fail to make an extension application before the expiry of their leave could become subject to hostile environment measures.

Few could see the above changes coming, let alone the speed with which they would be implemented. Work Rights Centre, together with other organisations assisting Ukrainian nationals, has sought to engage with the Home Office around the issue of Ukrainians being able to extend their permission to remain in the UK beyond the initial grant of three years. At no point during these discussions were we, or our counterparts, given any indication of the changes of 19 February.

We outline the impact of these announcements, the explanations the government has given until now for them, and why we view ministers’ departure from due process in this instance should not be permitted.

Closure of Ukraine Family Scheme

In announcing the closure of the Ukraine Family Scheme, the Minister of State for Legal Migration and the Border stated that the government wanted to provide a single overseas application route for Ukrainians seeking to come to the UK; the Homes for Ukraine Scheme, which would feature its requirements for accommodation checks, a minimum accommodation commitment from the sponsor and safeguarding checks.

These requirements did not apply to the Ukraine Family Scheme, and the government has therefore said its closure will lead to a reduced risk of homelessness and reliance on emergency support provided by local authorities. The government also said the Ukraine Family Scheme’s closure will do away with the inconsistency between it and the Homes for Ukraine Scheme in terms of financial support given to sponsors.

Having allowed the Ukraine Family Scheme to operate for nearly two years, and ourselves and other frontline organisations assisting Ukrainians having raised the various risks of homelessness for them during this period, it is difficult to understand why the government has taken this drastic step. There are a multitude of other, more meaningful steps that could be taken to tackle those risks for Ukrainian nationals and other migrants in the UK.

In closing the Ukraine Family Scheme, the government has significantly narrowed the scope of family members who can apply to join their relatives in the UK. Under the Ukraine Family Scheme, the definition of a family member included an immediate family member of a UK-based sponsor, an extended family member or immediate family member of an extended family member – the sponsor could also be British, settled, have limited leave as a refugee or person granted humanitarian protection or hold pre-settled status.

The definition of family member under the Homes for Ukraine Scheme is more restrictive – the only non-Ukrainian family members who can apply under the Homes for Ukraine Scheme are immediate family members. The nationality and immigration requirements of a sponsor, as explained further below, are also now far stricter under the Homes for Ukraine Scheme.

Having scrapped the Ukraine Family Scheme, many Ukrainians and their family members will now either be unable to be suitably accommodated by their UK-based relative under the Homes for Ukraine Scheme, struggle to find another eligible sponsor who can meet the requirements of this scheme, or not even be eligible in the first place to apply as a non-Ukrainian family member.

It is inaccurate, as the government has stated, that ‘the same sponsors [under the Ukraine Family Scheme] can be matched to their guests under the HFU scheme, subject only to a process in which accommodation is checked’.

The Work Rights Centre opposes moves to make it more difficult for Ukrainians to reunite with their family members in the UK, through both the closure of the Ukraine Family Scheme and tightening of the Homes for Ukraine Scheme. We also oppose the roll-back of rights of others impacted by the war in Ukraine, including third-country nationals in Ukraine who are the family members of Ukrainians with a relative in the UK.

Changes to Homes for Ukraine Scheme

Prior to the changes of 19 February 2024, a person could be a sponsor under the Homes for Ukraine Scheme if they had at least six months of immigration permission left. In justifying the new requirement for sponsors under the Homes for Ukraine Scheme to be British, Irish or settled in the UK, the government has stated that this change will align the sponsor eligibility requirements more closely with those in Appendix FM, the main provision of the immigration rules for family applications.

In aiming for this alignment, however, it is unclear why holders of temporary immigration status such as refugees and holders of humanitarian protection or pre-settled status, who can sponsor a family immigration application under Appendix FM, can no longer do so under the Homes for Ukraine Scheme.

Ukrainian nationals who submitted an application under the Homes for Ukraine Scheme after 3pm on the same date, and who succeeded in their application, would now be granted 18 months’ permission to be in the UK, as opposed to 36 months as had been the case for applicants ever since the introduction of the Ukraine schemes. Ukrainians with permission under one of the Ukraine schemes will be able to apply to extend it for up to 18 months as of early 2025 under a new Ukraine Permission Extension Scheme.

The government likewise adds that Ukrainians with permission under the Ukraine schemes, and who will now be excluded from acting as sponsors under the Homes for Ukraine Scheme, ‘were never intended to be allowed to function as sponsors themselves,’ – if this was the original policy intention for the Homes for Ukraine Scheme, it is unclear why Ukrainians were able to sponsor under the scheme until now.

The government has stated that ‘there is little evidential basis to suggest that changes to Homes for Ukraine sponsor eligibility criteria would restrict sponsor availability to the point where it could constrain new arrivals’. Our frontline advisers have witnessed applicants under the Homes for Ukraine Scheme being increasingly sponsored by family members in the UK with permission under a Ukraine scheme.

In a context where there are already not enough available sponsors in the UK and no longer a Ukraine Family Scheme, it is hard to see how the changes to the Homes for Ukraine Scheme will not restrict Ukrainians’ ability to come to the UK under this scheme. 

Ukraine Permission Extension Scheme

The government has stated that the announcement of the Ukraine Permission Extension Scheme provides Ukrainians who have sought sanctuary in the UK with ‘certainty.’ While we welcome the announcement of an extension for Ukrainian nationals, we cannot agree this particular one constitutes certainty.

In UK immigration law, migrants often need to have spent a minimum of five years under a particular immigration route before they become eligible to apply for indefinite leave to remain. Ukrainian nationals who currently have permission under one of the Ukraine schemes, and are then granted a further 18 months’ permission to stay under the Ukraine Permission Extension Scheme, will have accrued a total of 54 months’ stay in the UK. This is six months short of the usual 60 months required to apply for indefinite leave to remain. In effect, Ukrainians are still no clearer than before the announcement of 19 February as to whether they will eventually qualify for indefinite leave to remain.

It appears that Ukrainians will be required to make a further application, under the Ukraine Permission Extension Scheme, to obtain a further 18 months’ permission to remain in the UK, but it is unclear what requirements Ukrainians will need to meet in making this application. If the government’s priority is ‘certainty’, it should make these requirements clear now, to avoid Ukrainians suddenly realising they are not eligible for an extension of their stay in the UK.

We would like to know why the government has not implemented an automatic extension of status, as recently seen in respect of holders of pre-settled status, to enable Ukrainians to live in the UK for a further 18 months. There will be Ukrainians in the UK, among the tens of thousands who have made it their home in the last two years, who will fail to make an extension application before the expiry of their leave, and therefore become subject to hostile environment measures – many of them have fled war and are coming to terms with significant recent and ongoing trauma.

With the Home Office’s backlogs for asylum and humanitarian protection, as well as complex family and human rights claims, as significant as they currently are, there are more efficient ways to further Ukrainians’ stay in the UK rather than through an additional application process.

Summary

While the government has made no mention of seeking to cut the numbers of Ukrainian nationals coming to the UK, it is difficult to divest the above changes from others made on the same day to ban overseas care workers from bringing their dependants to the UK, as part of the government’s plan to cut net migration. As outlined above, it has now become more difficult for Ukrainians to come to the UK, and that may also translate into the lower net migration figures the government is aiming for.

In announcing the changes without warning, ministers said they wanted to “prevent a rush of applications”, and so departed from the usual convention of allowing a consultation period of 21 days. We are concerned that this action undermines democratic procedures of accountability and any sense of legal certainty, stability, and predictability. We have, therefore, written to the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, in conjunction with the Immigration Law Practitioners’ Association (ILPA), recommending that the statement of changes be annulled.

The Ukraine schemes have enabled tens of thousands of Ukrainian nationals to seek safety in the UK. At a time when the future direction of the war in Ukraine remains uncertain, and people continue to leave the country in search of safety abroad, it is unfortunate that the government has made it only harder for those people to find it in the UK, through the closure of the Ukraine Family Scheme and tightening the sponsor requirements under the Homes for Ukraine Scheme. 

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