Afghanistan

Baroness Morrissey Excerpts

Wednesday 18th August 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Morrissey (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I declare an interest as the lead non-executive director at the FCDO. As all other speakers have done already, I despair at the horror unfolding in Afghanistan and the fear and panic we are witnessing, especially among its 19 million women and girls, but wringing our hands and beating our chests will not solve anything. We cannot stand by and watch this disaster worsen, especially since the manner of the allies’ military withdrawal precipitated it. We must investigate the intelligence failings but the urgent priority must be to right our terrible mistake.

Today’s debate will serve a really useful purpose only if it brings forward real solutions to alleviate the suffering of Afghans, prevents a resurgence of the terrorist threat to the rest of the world, and discourages other bad actors from exploiting our failure. This is a critical moment for the West. With the Biden Administration turning their back on the problem, Britain must show leadership, pressure the US and work with other NATO allies to form an effective plan. None of the alternatives are appealing. Let us not be naive and expect to influence the Taliban through diplomacy. Those who force marriage on 12 year-old girls, and think nothing of beheading or torturing those who stand up to them, obviously have fundamentally different values from ours.

Make no mistake: the Taliban saying that women’s rights will be protected as long as they follow sharia law effectively means that they have few rights, given their interpretation. The Taliban’s opposition to girls’ education is central to their religious ideology, and actions speak louder than words. The noble Baroness, Lady Royall, set out some examples, to which I would add that we have already seen pictures of women being literally whitewashed over, the reintroduction of the burka and house-to-house searches. Back in July, a House of Commons research report noted restrictions on girls’ schooling in districts already controlled by the Taliban. Sadly, the Afghan citizens’ resettlement scheme, targeted at the most vulnerable, can never be enough: 20,000 means millions more left behind.

To put right our wrongs, I am afraid we must be willing to reconsider military engagement to disrupt the inevitability of total Taliban control. I understand the great reluctance to do that, especially after all the sacrifices made by our brave military personnel, but we have no moral choice other than to sort this mess out. Renewed military intervention need not be the same type of operation as the one just concluded. It needs to show the new regime that we have not gone away and that we will protect the human rights of Afghan people as well as the broader values we stand for.

Whatever we do, it must have real teeth, otherwise any increase in humanitarian aid, and efforts to protect women’s rights and to reduce violence and corruption, will fail in the face of a regime that is totally opposed to what we believe in and wishes to spread its appalling ideology across the globe. If we do not act, the world will be a less stable, more dangerous place, far beyond Afghanistan. Britain prides itself on being a force for good in the world; now is our opportunity to show it.