Foreign Affairs

Lord Boateng Excerpts

Tuesday 5th March 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Boateng (Lab)]

My Lords, the Minister, in his characteristically powerful speech, reminded us of the importance of the UK championing the flourishing of democracy. The noble Lord, Lord Howell, reminded us of the need for us to wake up. We certainly do need to wake up to what is happening to democracy in the Sahel and throughout Africa, and to the danger of democracy and democrats finding themselves on the back foot.

I grew up in the Commonwealth. I grew up in Ghana, in west Africa, in the 1960s. Many of us in here are children of the 1960s, and we know that the 1960s were characterised by global competition between West and East. No continent suffered more from that competition than the African continent. There is a proverb in Africa: when the great elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers. That is certainly what occurred in Africa. During that period between 1960 and 2000, coups in Africa averaged four per year. There have been an estimated 200 successful or attempted coups in Africa since the 1950s.

Until relatively recently, democracy seemed to be flourishing in Africa, and there were more people who were able to cast their vote at the ballot box, and cast it safely, than since the early days of independence. Sadly, that is now in decline. In Mali, there have been two coups, in 2020 and 2021. There have been coups in Guinea, Sudan, Burkina Faso—twice in 2022—Niger in 2023 and Gabon in 2023. The Sahel is threatened with a contagion of coups and Islamist insurgency on a par with nothing we have seen before.

Added to that is the growing destabilising factor of the intervention of Russia in the continent through the Wagner Group, which has reinvented itself in ways that mean, I am afraid, that it is directly linking its commercial interests in mineral extraction with military intervention in order to create the context in which that extraction, to the benefit of Russia, can take place. At the same time, it is selling arms: it is the single biggest supplier of arms in the Sahel as we speak. We have to have a response to that.

For democracy to flourish, there is a need for jobs, an end to instability and an end to hunger. The reality for Africa and Africans is far from that. There is a growing humanitarian crisis. Armed conflicts have worsened human suffering and forced millions to flee: roughly 2.7 million people have been displaced by coups and armed insurgency in the Sahel. I know what it is to be a displaced person; I am for ever grateful to the people and community of Hemel Hempstead who welcomed me, my mother and my sister when we fled the coup in Ghana in 1966. It is no easy thing. Linked to the 2.7 million displaced people are 1.6 million children who are malnourished. Those are last year’s figures, and the most recent indications suggest that over 2 million children are undernourished this year.

We need to have a response to that and it needs, surely, to be one that links support for democracy and civil society, through giving institutions such as the Westminster Foundation for Democracy the capacity to operate on the ground. It means creating jobs through support for the Africa free trade area and expanding in answer to the desire of China and Russia to create more military and naval bases. China now has naval bases in west Africa, as well as east Africa, and Russia is seeking a base in Sudan. We have to have a response to that which is led by military diplomacy, so there has to be an investment in military diplomacy on a scale that we have not seen for very many years.

We have an opportunity, with the reputation that the people of this country have in Africa, to make a difference so that democracy flourishes—because it is seen to provide jobs and security, as well as decent health and well-being for all the citizens in democratic countries.

UN Sustainable Development Goals

Lord Boateng Excerpts

Tuesday 16th January 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton (Con)]

That is not exactly what I said. I am very proud that we reached 0.7%. I had some disagreements with this Government before I joined but politics is a team enterprise; when you decide to join a Government, you accept Cabinet collective responsibility and you accept you are going to work with that team and the policies they have. I am proud that, with 0.5% and a growing economy, we are seeing more money going to overseas development. Now that the refugee crisis is abating—I mentioned Africa—we will see, in our budgets, an increase from £600 million to over £1.2 billion, and we are committed, when the fiscal rules allow, to get back to the 0.7% that we historically achieved.

[Lord Boateng (Lab)]

My Lords, the biggest threat to the SDGs in Africa is conflict and internal instability. In the Sahel, this has increased ever since the disastrous Libyan incursion that the Foreign Secretary will remember very well. What steps does he personally intend to take to enhance security and democracy in sub-Saharan Africa, and will that include aid to civil society organisations?

[Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton (Con)]

The noble Lord is quite right that if you look at the SDGs and poverty more generally, half of the poorest people in the world are now in fragile states. If we cannot help to fix fragile and conflict-affected states, we will not meet the SDGs. If you look across the Sahel, there have been a number of coups and wars and a lot of instability, so I do not think there is a single answer to this, but one of the issues, when we look at aid and development and how we help these countries, is how making sure that they have adequate security is essential. Often in this House, or in the other place, we say that defence is the first duty of a Government, but when it comes to aid, we set up a whole series of different things that we think countries ought to achieve. We must help them with their fundamental and basic security, and that is something we are committed to doing.

Sudan and South Sudan

Lord Boateng Excerpts

Monday 27th November 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord for his involvement in this process. On 12 July, the Minster for Africa and Development announced a package of six UK sanctions, putting in place an asset freeze on the three commercial entities linked to each party involved in the conflict—the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces. We do not speculate on future sanctions, but we will certainly look at anything that would limit the illegal activities that bring arms and cause this massive problem to continue, and we will certainly work with the noble Lord and others to ensure we are achieving that.

[Lord Boateng (Lab)]

My Lords, peacebuilding requires specific, focused actions on the ground. There are few organisations on the ground in Sudan that have any credibility. Faith-based organisations, however, both Christian and Islamic, do. What specific steps have His Majesty’s Government taken to support faith-based organisations in their work in that country?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

Next door, in South Sudan, there was an extremely important visit by the Holy Father, the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Moderator of the Church of Scotland. That certainly coalesced faith-based organisations in that area. However, in Sudan it is, if anything, more difficult because of this raging civil war. The noble Lord is right that civil society and faith-based organisations are very often the best people at delivering aid and support and trying to get humanitarian aid to those areas as quickly as possible.

International Development White Paper

Lord Boateng Excerpts

Thursday 23rd November 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

First, as my right honourable friend said in the other place about the spend in support of those who are seeking security in the UK, I repeat that we will work—and have done so—within the rules, but I recognise that the rules are quite specific on how that spend should operate domestically. The robustness of our approach is perhaps underlined by my right honourable friend himself, with one of the leading Treasury Ministers, overseeing the Star Chamber, as it has been termed, on issues of development.

I agree with the noble Lord’s second point, about remittances. I very much agree with the outcomes of that report on Western Sahara. It is an appalling state of affairs, where remittances provide important lifelines for many communities in different parts of the world, particularly vulnerable communities. The fact that over one-third is taken by operatives needs to be looked at. Yes, there are generalities in the White Paper and the specifics need to be looked at. I will take on board the noble Lord’s suggestion and perhaps talk to my Treasury colleagues to see what measures can be taken, because ultimately one would love for 100% to go back—I fear that commissions will not allow for that—but 35%, well over one-third, is frankly not acceptable.

[Lord Boateng (Lab)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as chairman of Water & Sanitation for the Urban Poor, a not-for-profit public/private partnership for that area of development. No one doubts that the Minister’s heart is in this document, or that Andrew Mitchell’s heart is in it too. What is clearly lacking is the specifics, the resources and a recognition that if we are to put girls’ education at the heart of international development, girls need safe toilets in schools. If they are to attend school, girls require to know that, when they are having their periods, there is somewhere where they can go and get the benefits of decent and safe sanitation. The only reference I can find to sanitation in this document relates to avoiding public spending on sanitation. There is no way that the private sector will be able to deliver safe toilets to girls in schools. Will the Minister at least commit to meeting with WSUP and other organisations in the sector to see how we can have some practical policies again to create safe, decent toilets for girls in schools?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

The short answer to the noble Lord is yes, of course. Part of the intention of the White Paper is to lay out the thinking—the heart, as he alluded to. With the heart, however, comes both the soul and the mind. We want to be focused. The reality of the financing, according to our estimates, is something in the region of $98 billion—the stock of private institutional capital, which could also be leveraged in this respect. This is not about leaving the private sector to deliver; it is about government frameworks leveraging the financing that we have through ODA and working with the private sector to deliver the priorities not only in the White Paper but in our international development strategy, which is very much focused on girls and the issue of safe spaces for them. Frankly, speaking as a father of a daughter, you know what? I get it.

Overseas Territories: Illegal Immigration

Lord Boateng Excerpts

Thursday 27th April 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

There are actually quite a few arrangements of the sort that the noble Lord describes—on education, policing and a wide range of issues. There are too many for me to regale now in the short time that we have, but I am happy to write to him and detail some of the most effective arrangements in place. I would emphasise the point made in the original Question. Different government departments need to recognise that we have a constitutional responsibility to the overseas territories. While the FCDO is a key central organisation in ensuring that that delivery happens, different government departments need to recognise that the inhabitants of the overseas territories are no less His Majesty’s subjects than we are in this place.

[Lord Boateng (Lab)]

My Lords, HMS “Medway” was deployed to very considerable and very good effect in the Caribbean in 2022. Why cannot it or a vehicle of a similar class be deployed in the Caribbean in support of the overseas dependencies in 2023? If it cannot, is that not a good argument for having a permanent naval presence in the Caribbean?

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

The noble Lord makes a good point and I agree with him that HMS “Medway” and the auxiliary ship RFA “Tideforce” were of huge assistance in the Turks and Caicos Islands in the wake of Hurricane Fiona. “Medway” then supported the Cayman Islands in response to Hurricane Ian. HMS “Dauntless” will be in the region from 1 June this year to provide a consistent maritime presence in the Caribbean, including humanitarian assistance and disaster response support. It is our intention and duty to ensure we have that presence when needed, particularly during the hurricane season.

Nigeria

Lord Boateng Excerpts

Wednesday 7th December 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

The FCDO base in Nigeria works frequently through religious organisations there, but also through civil society, on a wide range of issues, such as countering violence against women and girls, promoting media freedom and doing what we can to undermine the organisations behind some of the atrocities we have been talking about today. This is very much a focus of our work.

[Lord Boateng (Lab)]

My Lords, how are we measuring the impact of this £425 million spent on humanitarian assistance alone? Listening to noble Lords on all sides of the House this afternoon, and drawing on one’s own experience, it seems that very little benefit is accruing to the people of Nigeria.

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

There is no doubt that Nigeria is a deeply troubled country, for all the reasons we have talked about today. It has also been a big recipient of ODA. However, it is possible to measure the impact of the investments we have made. Our assessment, which has already been cited, is that we have provided £140 million in bilateral ODA to Nigeria since 2021, and since 2015 we have supported more than 2 million Nigerians to improve their incomes and jobs sustainably. Since 2009, education has been reaching more than 8 million children in 11 states, and since 2012 more than 1.5 million additional girls have been accessing schooling in six states as a result of our funding. In fact, there are many other areas in which we have measurable success as a consequence of our support.

Ethiopia: Peace Process

Lord Boateng Excerpts

Monday 5th December 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

My Lords, of course I can assure the noble Baroness that we are working with key agencies, including the UN. This was a specific area that I also discussed with SRSG Patten, who heads the UN team. We have previously dispatched experts to collect evidence. On specific actions, part of the conference was about ensuring that we collate and sustain evidence so that we can successfully prosecute as and when those opportunities arise.

[Lord Boateng (Lab)]

My Lords, the Minister knows the region well, as I know that his right honourable friend the Minister for Overseas Development does, and he will therefore appreciate that wishing, wanting and asking for peace in that region is simply not going to be enough. As he has recognised and referred to, an African Union committee is charged with monitoring the process. The African Union is notoriously underresourced; its partner is the Intergovernmental Authority on Development. Will the Minister undertake to refer to that body and ask what practical assistance, by way of material resources, it needs to undertake its very difficult task?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

My Lords, equally, I know that the noble Lord has detailed insight of this area and particularly this conflict. As he and I discussed only a couple of weeks ago in a very—as ever—informed debate in your Lordships’ House, there is great hope for Ethiopia. Of course, however, I take on board his practical suggestion and I assure him that, at the highest level, we will look to engage. It is not just about Eritrean forces withdrawing; they need to withdraw now.

Tigray Province: Ceasefire Agreement

Lord Boateng Excerpts

Tuesday 15th November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Boateng (Lab)]

My Lords, the whole House owes the noble Lord, Lord Browne of Ladyton, a debt of gratitude for bringing this matter to our attention. All speakers in today’s debate bring a commitment to human rights and to Africa, for which we owe them too a debt of gratitude.

My own experience of Ethiopia has been as a boy growing up in Africa at a time when Ethiopia was very much at the heart of the development of the Organisation of African Unity, which became the African Union; then, as a man, it has been as a Minister and a diplomat working in Ethiopia and, more recently, as vice-president of the Bible Society, which has worked extensively with Ethiopians in their country.

Ethiopia is a great nation. It deserves to be treated with respect and Tigray is an integral part of it. The international community needs to approach Ethiopia and Tigray with a degree of humility because, frankly, like Britain it has a mixed record in that region. Ethiopia has experienced Britain as an aggressor in the 19th century, and the fruits of that aggression are still to be found in the British Museum in the form of the Ethiopian tabots—sacred Christian relics which were looted from that country and have yet to be returned.

In the 20th century, Ethiopia was a valued ally against Mussolini and European fascism. In the late 20th century and this 21st century, Ethiopia has been a development partner and played a hugely important role under Prime Minister Meles in our country’s initiative in relation to Africa and its development, which was launched in Gleneagles. The international community again did not cover itself with glory during the Cold War, I am afraid, when it set Ethiopia and Eritrea against each other. They were surrogates in the battle between West and East. The peoples of Ethiopia and Eritrea suffered as a result of that, so we need to come to this issue with a degree of humility.

Having said that, as noble Lords have indicated, there have been the most appalling human rights abuses in that country in recent years. There have been human rights abuses on both sides of the war that saw, on 2 November, at least the hope of a transitional peace agreement that would bring some cessation to hostilities. That is what we now need to get behind, not just with fine words but with resources.

We will want to hear from the Minister, who brings a wealth of experience to these issues, a very firm commitment that His Majesty’s Government will ensure, despite the real pressures that we know exist on the budget of his department, that they bring to bear the necessary resources in support of this peace initiative—particularly but not just in support of the humanitarian relief that is needed, because there are some 5.2 million Tigrayans in desperate need of that relief. We need to be supporting the World Food Programme and others in making sure that they get it, but the Government should also provide resources for the necessary effort on behalf of the African Union to monitor the peace agreement; for support for civil society to rebuild the region; and, importantly, for resource to ensure that we move to a situation in which peace is upheld by justice.

There cannot be peace without justice, or without a process that recognises the enormous harm that has been done in the region. That hope for peace and justice has to be striven for with the full and active engagement of the African Union because, frankly, it is the African Union that has the best hope of bringing about a settlement in that country. One needs to praise the efforts of the former President of Kenya, President Kenyatta, and his work on bringing the various sides together. However, he and the African Union will need support and resources.

There is one particular initiative that I want to draw the attention of the House to, because it offers hope of peace and justice. It is the commitment of all the parties to the agreement described as the comprehensive transitional justice policy under the African Union framework. It will be the first time that that policy will have been implemented. The head of the Kale Heywet Church, one of Ethiopia’s largest evangelical denominations which will be well known to the noble Lord, Lord Alton, said about that policy:

“The possibility for reconciliation is there … But some claims for justice will have to be given up for peace, painful as it might be”.


That framework is being tried for the first time in Ethiopia and it will not succeed without resources or international backing. It was described by the chairperson of the AU as

“a Transitional Justice Toolkit … that is home-grown ... rich in its progressive methodologies and approaches and rooted in African shared values”.

It is not simply about criminal accountability—impartial investigation of that is absolutely vital—but about setting up measurable standards for reconciliation, reparation and memorialisation of the conflict. All of those things require resource and focus.

My question of His Majesty’s Government is: will they undertake to get behind that process and use all the energy and resource at our disposal to make sure that it is a success? If it is successful in Ethiopia, it can be applied elsewhere in Africa where there is conflict and where it is desperately needed. Respect for Ethiopia and respect for Tigray have to be at the heart of our approach to this peace settlement.

We should not forget that the gospel was preached in Ethiopia before it was preached in Britain. The peoples of Tigray spoke and speak a language that was known to our Lord when the peoples of these islands were covering themselves in blue paint and furs. We need to have a sense of perspective, but also—I want to end on this—we need to remember the messages that are coming out of Ethiopia now.

I will give noble Lords just one example. On Saturday I received this message from a Tigrayan who is living and has family in Adwa. “The Fano”—the Amhara region militia that has been continuing with the ethnic cleansing of Tigrayans in west Tigray—

“as of today control Adwa town. They arrived on 10 buses.”

They are notoriously brutal. Wherever there are Fano militia and Eritrean troops you can be sure there will be atrocities. This is the extent of the horror being visited upon the people of that region now. Their only hope is in this peace accord. It needs our resource; it needs our backing.

Bilateral Relations with Caribbean Countries

Lord Boateng Excerpts

Thursday 28th April 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

Obviously, the UK has a particularly strong and valued relationship with those English-speaking countries with which we share a very close history, but our involvement and interest in the region goes beyond them. For example, the Prime Minister had meetings yesterday with a number of leaders of Caribbean countries, not all of them English-speaking. We have many issues in common, not least the question of China but also climate change, which is regarded by most Caribbean countries as literally existential.

[Lord Boateng (Lab)]

My Lords, small island states of the Caribbean do not qualify for ODA, yet they have real needs. Might not the Government’s policy carry more conviction if it addressed more realistically the understandable demands of the Caribbean for reparations for slavery?

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

The noble Lord makes an important point about ODA. In the current system, the unique vulnerability of small island developing states to issues such as climate change and shocks such as Covid is not recognised. It was made very clear over the last couple of years that they are uniquely vulnerable, and consequently their economic ranking can change very quickly. That is not reflected in the system of recognition, which means that you have countries which, for all intents and purposes, should be ODA-eligible but are not according to the current rules. This is an issue which we are raising robustly in the OECD. I hope that we can see some changes there. Additionally, the UK is working with Fiji and other countries on a global taskforce on access to finance. One of the problems is that it is incredibly complicated accessing finance from the multilateral institutions. They are bureaucratic, time-consuming and so on. We are working very hard on that too, and that is recognised by the small island developing states in question.

Afghanistan (International Relations and Defence Committee Report)

Lord Boateng Excerpts

Monday 24th January 2022 Grand Committee

[Lord Boateng (Lab)]

My Lords, a debt of gratitude is owed to the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, and the whole committee for the work that has gone into this report, particularly to the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, for her persistence in seeking to get the Government to respond to it and find time for this debate. They have done so, as numerous other noble Lords have pointed out, only belatedly. A particular debt is also owed to the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, who has given a lifetime of service to this country and the diplomatic corps for his reflections on the debacle—as he described it—that Afghanistan represents.

The Minister has an undoubted commitment to human rights and to the values that we all share in our House. He is the Minister for Reassurance, when it comes to foreign and international development policy. He carries out that role with great skill and eloquence. But even he will fail to be reassuring in this instance, because there is nothing in this whole sorry saga that gives us any cause for comfort, let alone the complacency that I fear is sometimes shown in the departmental response to what has occurred in Afghanistan.

For me, the most powerful message from the committee’s report is the conclusion that

“despite the scale of the UK’s involvement”

in Afghanistan

“both military and economic, over recent years, there were few traces of a coherent overall policy approach.”

That is undoubtedly true, but it is also undoubtedly true that there has been no trace whatever of a coherent overall policy approach in relation to everything that has occurred after our withdrawal from Afghanistan.

The challenge for the Government at this time is to come up with such a coherent approach, because one is desperately needed, as the situation in Afghanistan during these winter months reveals so starkly. Millions of people face literal starvation. That is beyond a shadow of a doubt. If we claim to have their interests at heart and to be upholding the values that we hold dear, we have to have a better answer than has so far been forthcoming in relation to how we will, through our overseas development aid, meet the scale of the humanitarian crisis that Afghanistan faces.

It simply will not do to say that we have to be careful in case aid falls into the wrong hands. The reality is that aid to Afghanistan has been falling into the wrong hands for many years. The previous Government in Afghanistan were corrupt, beyond a shadow of a doubt, yet we continued to make them a major beneficiary of our development aid. What is the justification now for failing to take some risk—yes, there is a risk—to ensure that women and children, the elderly and the dispossessed have at least some hope of seeing this winter through, and that Afghanistan’s economy has some hope of beginning to recover? It is very hard to justify and explain how a nation that purports to be concerned about the role of women in the country and economy can do what we have done, in circumstances that undermine any possibility of women engaging in, for instance, the carpet trade and continuing to earn a basic living from a trade when it depends on exports, which have been made absolutely impossible by the policies adopted by ourselves and, above all, the United States of America.

If we are concerned about women being active participants in the economy, as I believe we should be, then we have to do something to create an enabling environment in which that is possible. At the moment, frankly, the stance that we are taking in relation to sanctions on Afghanistan makes that impossible. I ask the Minister to give us some indication that that policy is being re-examined.

I would also like a response from the Minister to the points made by the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Richards, in his evidence to the Foreign Affairs Select Committee in the other place. He pointed out that we have adopted a policy after our defeat—his word—in Afghanistan which makes it that much more difficult to secure that country in terms of stability and international safety in relation to a possible resurgence of terrorist activity in that area by the stance that we have taken. He said:

“My own view is that we now need to accept our defeat, which is what it is; we need to work with our eyes wide open with the Taliban—engage with them. The whole issue of recognition is, I think, a distraction at the moment. We need to engage with them, influence them through a combination of carrot and stick … and preserve life in the short term, but influence into the longer term, and try to work with those Taliban who I think we should take at face value.”


If a former Chief of Defence Staff who has himself fought in Afghanistan is able to come to that conclusion then, frankly, who are we to gainsay him? What insight and understanding do we have that are better than his? I simply do not see it.

It is likewise in relation to the former Secretary of State for International Development, Rory Stewart, who in evidence to the same committee pointed out the implications of our current policy. Again, I draw his words to the attention of noble Lords and the Minister:

“The first thing to understand is that the Afghan Government is going to be bankrupt anyway, so they will not have a lot of money to spend on weapons and stuff. Some 60% of their budget came from international donors—that is no longer going to come, whatever happens. They can barely pay to keep the electricity going, and a quarter of the hospitals and clinics have closed”.


I repeat: a quarter of the hospitals and clinics have closed. He continued:

“There is money sitting—there is nearly $9 billion currently frozen in the United States. There is a whole World Bank mechanism called the Afghan Reconstruction Trust Fund. That money can be put into UN agencies such as UNICEF and WFP, and into Save the Children”.


Well? Is it going to be put into UN agencies or into the hands of those respected NGOs?

Rory Stewart, and indeed the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Richards, recognise that there will be some dividend through the tax system for the Taliban as a result, but the resulting benefit to the hard-pressed people of Afghanistan mean that is a price worth paying. That is a view we all ought to take. I hope the Minister will come to understand that it is the view of very many of us who are concerned to see a change in the stance and policy of Her Majesty’s Government towards the peoples of Afghanistan, so that we can truly uphold the values that we have purported to be seeking to uphold in that country.

I come now to my final point. Again, it is a values-driven point. It relates not to what is happening in Afghanistan now but what is happening in our own country now. It relates to those Afghani refugees who currently find themselves between a rock and a hard place because of the lack of any coherent policy in our country and the Home Office’s failure to work effectively with the Local Government Association. This is about the failure of a resettlement policy that makes it very difficult for local councils, even when they wish to help; further, more of them wish to help than are currently able to help because of problems in relation to the funding of the resettlement programme.

What assurance can the Minister give us that there will not be a protracted stay on the part of Afghani people resettled in this country in former military accommodation? We know that such accommodation is grossly inadequate and not the sort of place where one would want to bring up children. These children, these people, are already traumatised by what they experienced in Afghanistan. I am afraid that they are being retraumatised in our country—in our own back yard. That is happening in Kent and all over the country where Afghani refugees are currently being housed. Local authorities are entitled to a better deal than the one they have had from the Home Office. I urge the Minister, who I know cares about these issues, to consult his colleagues in the Home Office and the communities department so that something can be done to support local authorities up and down the country and improve the lot of those Afghanis who have managed to get out and desperately need our help.