Hansard

I declare an interest, having been a sponsor or host under the homes for Ukraine scheme for nine months and also having been placed under official sanction by the Russian Federation.

I thank the Government for bringing this important debate to the chamber. In an excellent speech at the start of the debate, the cabinet secretary said that, right now, there is tight competition for the worst place in the world. She rightly mentioned Gaza, but also right up there would be the east bank of the Dnipro river, where the fighting men and women of Ukraine have established a tiny bridgehead from which they hope to launch a full-on counter-offensive. We wish them well in that regard. They are fighting not only for their own sovereignty but for the free democracies and the principal democracies of the entire world.

As, today, we remember the refugees to whom we have opened our homes, it is important to remember the war from which they are fleeing, because the west is in real danger of suffering from combat fatigue. We see that no more clearly than in the United States House of Representatives debates on the cessation of funding.

Almost exactly one year ago today, I was visited by a combat veteran of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. He gave me one of the best Christmas presents that I have ever had, which was a set of combat insignia patches from his regiment. He did so because my constituency staff and I had helped him and his disabled wife get council accommodation in the city. For several months, he had been living in the DoubleTree by Hilton hotel at the airport. He had an acquired brain injury, having been blown off a tank in the early days of the war.

The veteran’s story was really important to my team as regards the swiftness with which we were able to help him and local services wrapped around him. He followed the journey that many refugees make, right into the heart of my constituency. West Edinburgh was the principal point of ingress for our Ukrainian guests, with many of them having arrived at Edinburgh airport. There they were met by volunteers at the Ukrainian welcome desk. Not many of the volunteers spoke Ukrainian, but they soon learned enough to make people immediately feel welcome. Refugees embarked onwards to the Ukrainian welcome hub at Gogarburn house, which I know that a number of my Edinburgh colleagues have visited. People like Alistair and Gavin would welcome them there—so much so that a baby who was born in that house was actually named Alistair, after one of the City of Edinburgh Council workers who had made his parents feel so welcome.

I know that my experience of being a host has been life enriching in ways that I could not have imagined. I know that several other members, some of whom are sitting in the chamber, who have themselves been hosts, will attest to that. The process has brought cultures together and made people lifelong friends. I look forward to welcoming Olena, who has been our guest for nine months, back to our table on Christmas day.

Across Scotland, thousands of people have opened their homes to refugees in that way. I was full of admiration for the ambition of the Scottish Government’s supersponsorship scheme and the warmth of the hospitality that so many Scots have shown Ukrainians in the face of that terrible, oppressive invasion.

I wish we could offer room for more, but we know that capacity has been at full stretch—evidenced, as Miles Briggs rightly said, by the need to deploy the cruise ship in the port of Leith for the best part of a year. In July this year, we knew that one in 10 Ukrainians were still stuck in temporary accommodation, and that is not the new life in Scotland that they would have hoped for as they were travelling across Europe with a visa and a dream of home.

I wish to attend specifically to the subject of transport, which has been problematic in the context of finding homes for our Ukrainian guests. I have long called for the free bus travel scheme to be extended to anyone who is here on a refugee scheme, particularly given the needs of our Ukrainian guests. In the programme for government last year, the First Minister promised to work with third sector partners and local authorities to consider how best to provide free bus travel to asylum seekers and refugees, including displaced people from Ukraine. In October this year, Patrick Harvie said that he would seek to make free bus travel available to people seeking asylum in Scotland. There is still nothing concrete in place, however. Today’s budget had room for just one mention about the scheme, but nothing black and white. I hope that, in her closing remarks, the minister might make reference to where the Government is on the scheme, which I think is really important for the settlement of those people.

I will finish where I started, on the east bank of the Dnipro. All of us who enjoy the comfort and freedom that democracy brings owe those fighting men and women a debt that we will never be able to repay.

Slava Ukraini!