Boris Johnson insists UK Government has 'proud record' on refugees despite 760 visa approvals in two weeks

Boris Johnson has insisted the UK Government has a “proud record” on refugees after being confronted over the numbers coming in from Ukraine.

The SNP Westminster leader Ian Blackford challenged the Prime Minister over the numbers at PMQs, pointing out the Home Office had approved just 760 visas in two weeks.

Mr Blackford also accused the Home Secretary of overseeing one of the “slowest, most bureaucratic, and incompetent refugee responses in the whole of Europe”.

He said: “We are now 14 days into Putin’s war in Ukraine, and in that time, I have genuinely tried to work constructively with the government.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson defended the UK Government over the number of refugees coming from Ukraine

"I will continue to seek to do this. However, nobody should support this government when it comes to their response to the refugee crisis.

"760 visa approvals in 2 weeks is disgraceful.”

Mr Blackford pointed in the same time Poland has taken in over 1.2 million refugees, Hungary over 190,000, and Germany 50,000.

He continued: “These numbers don’t lie, and they tell a devastating truth.

“In the face of the biggest refugee crisis in Europe since the Second World War, the UK Government won’t set aside the hostile environment… we’ve seen this too many times from a Tory Home Office."

The Prime Minister said: “I think everybody sympathises with the plight of refugees and this Government wants to do everything we can to welcome them, and that is indeed what we are doing and the numbers are almost 1,000 as I speak to him today, and they will rise very sharply. They are uncapped. We expect those numbers to rise in the region of the hundreds of thousands.

“As Vladimir Putin doubles down in his attacks, we will go further and there will be routes by which the whole country can offer a welcome to people from Ukraine… and the Secretary of State for Levelling Up will be setting out that route in the course of the next few days.”

Mr Johnson was also confronted by his own MPs, with Conservative former minister Julian Smith asking for “more human approach”.

He added: “I commend the Prime Minister’s response to this Ukrainian crisis, but I think people across the country are genuinely concerned on our response on refugees, on the bureaucracy, on the tone of our response.”