“I am really grateful to a [group] in my constituency called Refugees Welcome in Richmond, who came to see me on Friday. They are very concerned that the renewed focus on Ukrainian refugees will obscure the effort that is still going on to rehome our Afghan refugees. So many of them are still in hotels and I would really like to see a renewed focus on getting them resettled. I think the situations are different: we need immediate, potentially temporary shelter for women and children fleeing Ukraine; and our Afghan refugees—whole families—need permanent resettlement. The requirements are different. The effort to resettle one group does not need to take up the efforts already employed in resettling the other.”
Sarah Olney MP speaking in Parliament on 15th March 2022.
