Closure of the Ukraine Family Scheme

The government has today announced the immediate closure of the Ukraine Family Scheme (UFS) with no prior warning and used a little used parliamentary procedure to do so.

The reasoning behind the closure is that it has been over two years since the Russian invasion of Ukraine and therefore, the situation has changed and secondly, to encourage further use of the Ukraine Sponsorship Scheme (USS) as individuals can potentially be sponsored through the USS as they may now have an eligible family sponsor. 

The government has also cited the fact that the USS has better safeguarding checks.