Evacuations from Afghanistan

Debate between Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon and Lord Stoneham of Droxford

Thursday 26th May 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

My Lords, I first acknowledge all the work that the noble Baroness engaged in both during the crisis and subsequently. She and I have worked on the important issue of vulnerable communities in Afghanistan, particularly the cohort of judges that she refers to. On the specifics of the number of vulnerable identified women, I can certainly write to her after consulting my colleagues at the Home Office. I have quoted an overall figure of 4,600 who have settled here in the UK since the evacuation, but I will write to her on the specific break- down after I have got the detail from the Home Office.

[Lord Stoneham of Droxford (LD)]

I pay tribute to the Minister’s role in this incident last year, but the report is pretty scathing about the Government’s mismanagement. It says that there were no necessary preparations for the withdrawal and no proper plan. There was mismanagement—indeed there seems to be a cycle of mismanagement in the Government—and I want to know precisely how the Foreign Office and the Government plan to stop this sort of action happening again.

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

My Lords, as I have always acknowledged, there are always improvements that can be made—the same is true in the current crisis in Ukraine. You cannot say that any Government have a perfect response in every crisis; you do not know, because every crisis is different. We had made plans. I remember myself, after heavy diplomatic engagement with near-neighbours, that I returned via Dubai deliberately on the day that we handed the keys back to the Emiratis. There was no panic in Dubai; there was a massive operation there and we are grateful to the Emirati authorities for the strong co-operation that we saw then. That would not have happened if it had not been planned.

On the issue of lessons learned, I lived through the Covid crisis when we were repatriating, and one challenge that we faced then was chartering flights. In Afghanistan, not only did we have chartered flights ready but we had a reserve option, and indeed a second reserve option with other large carriers. Previous crises fed into the planning. Of course there are improvements to be made, and they are being implemented. We have seen that in the strong cross-government co-operation in the response to Ukraine and in the leadership that we have been able to show within the international community on the Ukraine crisis and more.