Questions raised over where to house Ukrainian refugees

Britain will welcome as many as 200,000 Ukrainian refugees after the government doubled the number of visas on offer. It said it was stopping short of mass resettlement, “because it would give Putin a propaganda tool”. The prime minister added that he thought only a fraction of those who qualified under the concessions would actually come to the UK. There is still the question of where they will be housed. About 12,000 Afghans are still living in hotels more than six months after fleeing the Taliban. A minister said: “We can’t have a repeat of the Afghan situation, where thousands are still in hotels.” Meetings have been scheduled with the Scottish government, which has expressed willingness to offer homes, Whitehall sources said. “Ideally we want any new refugees to move directly into homes because we have struggled persuading some Afghans to move out of hotels into more remote parts of Scotland, for example, because they are holding out hope for a more convenient location.” The Times (£) The Guardian