British Council Contractors: Afghanistan

Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts

Monday 27th June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)]

My Lords, if I understand this correctly, these people are contractors for the British Council, and employees of GardaWorld are working as security contractors for the Government and the embassy. In Scotland, they are very well known to us; we know exactly who these people are and we know a lot about them. Presumably, given what they were doing, we must be very sanguine about their attitude towards security. Why were these people excluded from the ARAP scheme in the first place? Why does the British Council now tell us that it was allowed to put only employees through the ARAP scheme and not the contractors? Why is it only now that we recognise that we should fulfil our obligation not only to them but to their families, to the extent of 1,500 people? Why do we not just include them in the ARAP scheme and give them the flexibility that everyone else has, rather than putting these people—a lot of whom, as we know, are living in daily fear of their lives—through this short window of opportunity to get registered for resettlement and, we hope, to get back to security with us?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

My Lords, first, as the noble Lord is aware, there are two different schemes: the ARAP scheme has its eligibility criteria and the ACRS—which is now open as this particular pathway—has its own criteria. I know of individual cases of people being considered for the ARAP scheme but not being accepted on to it. However, there have been opportunities, as we have seen in certain cases, allowing others then to go through the ACRS process.

On the small window of opportunity that the noble Lord asked about, there is a cap on the number we will be taking in year one which is both manageable and, I think, consistent with the announcements we have made previously. Equally, this is only year one; other pathways are also open to those seeking settlement, including Pathway 2, on which we are working very closely with the UNHCR. There are those people, including those from the cohorts we have discussed, who will be in neighbouring countries. We are working very closely with the UNHCR on that pathway as well. Therefore, ARAP, ACRS, Pathway 2 and, indeed, ACRS Pathway 3 are different routes, which enable people to go through a process which would allow for their resettlement in the United Kingdom.