Afghanistan

Debate between Andrew Mitchell and James Heappey

Tuesday 20th April 2021 Commons Chamber

[James Heappey]

The hon. Gentleman picks up on one of the great successes of the intervention in Afghanistan: for 20 years schools have been open to girls, and the education of girls remains one of the Government’s key foreign policy aims. Around the world seldom are those aims underpinned by military effort, however, and there are two things from which we should take heart. First, there are now so many women, relatively speaking, within the Afghan institutions—its Parliament, academia and media—that there is an expectation within Afghan civil society that women and girls will have more rights than what they had to endure under the previous Taliban Government. Secondly, the Taliban want legitimacy within the international community if or when they become a part of a future Afghanistan Government. Therefore it is reasonable to expect that they will not want to be the international pariah that they were, so they will be responsive to the diplomatic efforts to promote opportunities for women and girls that we are pursuing bilaterally and through the United Nations and our alliances. I wholly expect that future Afghan Governments would not want to reverse all the great progress that has been made in this important area over the past 20 years.

[Mr Andrew Mitchell (Sutton Coldfield) (Con)]

My hon. Friend speaks with great experience and knows of what he talks, but I am still struggling to understand precisely what the NATO strategy or plan is here. In addition to the great bravery and sacrifices of our own military, some very brave Afghan leaders, including women, believed that NATO would stay the course and will now feel very let down while the Taliban have little need to negotiate but increasingly will be in a very strong position. Does this not underline the very real limits of hard power and the importance of using soft power judiciously?

[James Heappey]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his question. He is of course correct that the military could underpin an accommodation of sorts almost indefinitely, but that is not an enduring solution for any country. The decision NATO took last week recognises that we are at a moment of decision. The accommodation with the Taliban is coming to an end, so the decision is to extend the deal, which removes the political imperative, to fight this summer, and who knows where that would have gone—and from a position of having far fewer troops in Afghanistan than has been the case since five years ago—or to force the pace of the political settlement. All those options are imperfect, but what matters now, exactly as my right hon. Friend says, is that the Governments who have formed the alliance now use their soft power to ensure that the parties come round the table and an enduring peace is found.