Mr Gove repeatedly banged on the despatch box as he told MPs: “I have had it up to here with people trying to suggest this country is not generous.”

But Lisa Nandy, the shadow communities secretary, told him: “He can’t seriously be asking Ukrainian families who are fleeing Vladimir Putin, who have left their homes with nothing, to get on to Instagram and advertise themselves in the hope a British family might notice them.

“Is this genuinely the extent of this scheme? Surely there is a role for the secretary of state in matching Ukrainian families to their sponsors, not just a DIY asylum scheme where all he does is take the credit.”

Sir Roger Gale, the Tory MP for North Thanet in Kent, said he feared “chaos” unless the Government intervened to help facilitate the pairing and “meeting and greeting” of refugees.

Sir Roger is due to meet Lord Harrington, the new refugees minister, to set out his proposals on Tuesday. He suggested one option could be to bring refugees by coach to a Home Office immigration facility at Manston, a former RAF base in Kent, which had the capacity to process 1,000 people a day.

“You could set up a meet and greet centre there, marry up British families with Ukrainian families and, if they come with nothing, provide them with clothes, toys, whatever they need,” he said.

“If you don’t do something like that, if you don’t set up reception centres near Heathrow, Stansted and Luton, then I think we are in for chaos.”