UK residents who offer to host people fleeing Ukraine will undergo criminal record checks, the health secretary.
Sajid Javid said the UK needed to “get the right balance” between aiding refugees from the Russian invasion and efficiency.
The Bromsgrove MP said the government did not plan to enforce a cap on numbers.
“With the hosts in particular there will be a DBS style check,” Javid explained in an interview with Times Radio.
Speaking on Sky News’ Breakfast programme later this morning, Javid went on to say: “It will work with the charities that we are working closely with, so there are a number of charities on the ground in Poland and Moldova. There’s no cap and there shouldn’t be because we don’t know, sadly, where this war is going to end.”
The minister said that around 3,000 visas had been granted but that the process had been a “difficult” one.
Javid also indicted in a conversation on BBC Breakfast, that he might act as a host himself, explaining: “I’m starting to have a conversation with my wife on that and I think many households – as you say, and I’m pleased you brought this up – are probably thinking about this across the country.
“It’s important that anyone that becomes a host that they can fulfil the obligations of a host, that they can spend time with these families and help, but there are many ways that we can all help and whatever I do at a personal level, I will most certainly be helping,” he went on.
However when speaking with ITV’s Good Morning Britain, Javid suggested he may not have the time to act as a host.
Levelling up secretary Michael Gove will explain more details to MPs later today.
