James Cleverly appeared on Sky News to defend the Government after the Home Office announced only 50 Ukraine refugee visas have been allocated despite some EU member-states waiving visas and taking in hundreds of thousands. Mr Cleverly said the Government was working at pace to process the applications and said they were also sending support to neighbouring countries to help the refugee programmes there. But Mr Cleverly, who said he had to rush due to another interview appearance, clashed with Kay Burley who wanted straight answers from him and accused him of going off on a tangent during a harsh back and forth.
Mr Cleverly appeared on Sky News and was shown a video of a Brit and his family being refused entry to the UK following their retreat from Ukraine.
Ms Burley wanted to know why he was not being allowed in with Mr Cleverly stating he would need to look at his case before anything could be done.
Ms Burley asked: “We’ve only got a limited amount of time, 13,500 people have applied to come to the UK, visa applications so far.
“One can only imagine how difficult it is to do that in a war zone.
“They have, we have allowed 50 to be granted, that is not acceptable.”
Mr Cleverly said the situation had only broken out within “the last couple of days” with Ms Burley interrupting and saying over a million people have arrived in Poland.
The minister added: “What we are saying, is we are supporting them [at the neighbouring countries].
“We have allocated hundreds of millions of pounds worth of humanitarian and economic support.
“We are also going to make sure that we host Ukrainians here in the UK, whether temporarily until they want to go back…”
Ms Burley intervened once again to know what processes were in place with a frustrated Mr Clever scolding her and saying: “Kay, if you’re going to ask questions you gotta let me answer them.”
The Sky News presenter accused him of “going off a tangent” as they only had a limited amount of time.
MORE TO FOLLOW…
