Over the past month, as more than 3.5 million innocent Ukrainians have been forced to flee their country to escape Putin’s war, people across the UK have responded with enormous compassion and generosity.

More than 150,000 have offered to open their homes to Ukrainian refugees.

The Anti-Refugee Bill is an awful piece of legislation that flies in the face of the incredible spirit of the British people.

Yet the response from Conservative Ministers has been slow, bureaucratic and inadequate, granting just 15,800 visas after weeks of war.

And at the same time, Priti Patel is still pushing her Anti-Refugee Bill through Parliament. An awful piece of legislation that flies in the face of the incredible spirit of the British people.

Among other things, this Bill would:

• Criminalise refugees simply for coming to the UK to seek asylum.

• “Offshore” asylum seekers by sending them to another country while their claims are processed.

• Create a second class of refugees with fewer rights and only temporary protection.

So under these new laws, a refugee from Ukraine – or anywhere else – who comes to the UK to seek asylum would face up to four years in prison, be sent abroad for processing, and then – if their claim is approved – be relegated to second-class refugee status.

Thanks to the heroic efforts of Brian Paddick and other Liberal Democrat peers, the House of Lords passed amendments to remove those laws from the Bill. They also added new clauses to require the Government to resettle at least 10,000 refugees a year, and to give asylum seekers the right to work if they have to wait more than six months for their claims to be decided.

At a time when protecting refugees has never been so important, Conservative MPs have voted for more tragic deaths in the Channel.

Yesterday, Conservative MPs voted to overturn all of those amendments. We voted to keep them. Now the Bill will return to the House of Lords next week, where we will continue to oppose it.

By voting to stop refugees from taking safe and legal routes to the UK, and forcing them to take dangerous ones instead, Conservative MPs have voted for more tragic deaths in the Channel.

Priti Patel’s Anti-Refugee Bill is a traffickers’ charter. It beggars belief that she is still trying to push it through at a time when protecting refugees has never been so important. She should listen to the British people and ditch it now.

On Wednesday, I returned from the Ukraine-Poland border. When I was there, I met refugees who have been forced to flee Putin’s assault on their homes, including people who are desperate to come to the UK – often to join family members. I was proud to see many British aid workers and volunteers providing support and the generosity of the British public who are offering their homes.

The Conservatives’ heartlessly inadequate response to countless Ukrainian women and children fleeing Putin’s bombs is shameful.

However, I was appalled by the lack of any organised UK Government-sponsored or supported welcome and the absence of UK Government personnel on the ground at the border. This stood in stark contrast to 19 other nations who where present on the ground.

It is very frustrating that, despite the many recent U-turns on visas, the Government still refuses to act on resettlement and to facilitate safe and quick passage to the UK. The Conservatives’ heartlessly inadequate response to countless Ukrainian women and children fleeing Putin’s bombs is shameful.

Since the very start of this war, the Liberal Democrats have been calling for a resettlement programme, working with the UNHCR and other refugee agencies to bring Ukrainian refugees to the UK, as we did for those fleeing Assad’s war in Syria.

I have written to Liz Truss, the Foreign Secretary and Priti Patel, the Home Secretary, urging the Government to launch an immediate emergency airlift operation to resettle Ukrainian refugees currently arriving in Poland who want to come to the UK. Given the scale of the Ukrainian refugee crisis, it is only right that our country plays its part. You can read my letter below.

Britain has a long and proud tradition of giving sanctuary to those fleeing violence and persecution. It is clear that the British people are prepared to honour that tradition and welcome Ukrainian refugees with open arms. The Conservative Government’s actions have let down the British people.

Without some sort of resettlement scheme, ideally far more open and flexible than past schemes, many refugees will never be able to get to the UK to take up the incredible offers of help from people in our country. There is also a very real danger that some refugees will fall into the hands of human traffickers and people smugglers.

Surely these families have been through enough? It’s urgent that people are now transported to safety and help so they can start rebuilding their lives.

We must prevent that, by providing safe and fast transportation for Ukrainian refugees seeking to come to the UK. The Government should send personnel to the Ukrainian border now, ideally working with the UK’s own specialist refugee and aid charities, to form new welcome groups with the charities already on the ground.

We must also provide free flights to the UK, with coaches to the nearest Polish airports from key border crossing points and establish welcoming reception centres for the refugees here on arrival at the UK.

The queues of refugees are exhausted and traumatised. Surely these families have been through enough? It’s urgent that people are now transported to safety and help so they can start rebuilding their lives.

Emergency airlifts are now the best guarantee for these refugees to get to the UK safely and swiftly, to the kindness and compassion of the British public waiting for them.

Over the weekend, we unveiled a new Liberal Democrat Website.

It’s the Technology Blog, which you can see here: https://tech.libdems.org.uk

This blog is hugely exciting – because it’s been built on our brand new website platform, Fleet.

Fleet is intended to replace both Nationbuilder and Prater Raines FOCI for the party. 

We’re building Fleet in collaboration with the team at Prater Raines and it’s based on the open source Typo3 framework – which is widely used by organisations with a federated structure (like us!). 

We’re building Fleet in collaboration with the team at Prater Raines

Stopping criminals from reoffending is crucial for cutting crime and making our communities safer. The Conservative Government is failing badly on that score: rehabilitation is poor and reoffending rates are far too high.

We know that stable employment is a key factor that reduces the risk of reoffending, helping people to build lives free from crime. But the current rules around criminal records can negatively affect people’s job prospects, as well as their ability to travel, adopt, access domestic violence shelters, and many other parts of civil life.

There are over 11 million people residing in the United Kingdom who have a criminal record. Currently, no criminal record information is deleted, including crimes committed by those under 18. Criminal record information remains on both the Disclosure and Barring Service system and the Police National Database.

A significant number of high-profile companies offer employment to large numbers of prisoners, with very successful results. However, many employers are reluctant to hire ex-offenders. Some fear that doing so would damage the image of their business.

The Lammy Review in 2017 concluded “the records disclosure regime hampers people with convictions from starting lives” and recommended “a system which involves looking favourably on those who committed crimes as children or young adults, and can demonstrate that they have changed since their conviction”. 

The rules around criminal records need to be reformed, so that people do not need to declare old or minor convictions.

In new policy passed by members today, Liberal Democrats are calling for:

• an end to the blanket policy of retention of all criminal records.
• police not to retain any personal information or criminal record if the offender is given an absolute discharge by the court – meaning that no further action is taken, because either the offence was very minor, or the court considers that the experience has been enough of a deterrent.
• police to delete all criminal cautions, conditional discharges, and associated personal information after 6 years if the person does not reoffend in that time.
• the government to develop guidance on how long criminal records should be retained for sentenced crimes and cases where the person reoffends.
• criminal records to only be permanent in cases of serious crimes and matters of national security.
• judges to set how long a crime should stay on the offender’s record at the point of sentencing.
• police to only hold records for any other dealings with the police if the police determine it is in the public interest.

Read the full motion

A more flexible system will lead to more effective policing, by focusing on those who commit serious crimes and pose the greatest risk.

The police would still retain records of serious criminals and anyone who is identified as a threat to national security. They would also be able to keep the records of suspects where it is in the public interest. 

Liberal Democrats understand that the key to building communities that are free from crime is to make sure that ex-offenders go on to lead lives free from crime. That means putting rehabilitation at the heart of our criminal justice system. This motion builds on our existing policies to do just that.