Afghanistan

Lord Jones of Cheltenham Excerpts

Wednesday 18th August 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Jones of Cheltenham (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I know a bit about panic. I saw it when I was in Hong Kong after the Chinese fired on protesters in Tiananmen Square. I saw it when I was an election observer in the Gambia, when the police opened fire on opposition supporters, and I experienced panic of my own when a man with a sword attacked me in my constituency office and killed my assistant. The scenes in Afghanistan in recent days reminded me of those events.

There are almost 40 million people in Afghanistan. Those aged over 20 know what it was like living under the Taliban. Now they face it all over again after they had thought that we, their friends, and the Americans and others would stop the barbarism ever happening again.

I have met people from Afghanistan. I went to a village cricket match not so long ago where the local team played against a team of Afghan refugees—yes, Afghanistan is a nation of cricketers, just like us and their neighbours in Pakistan. One young man told me that he liked it in our village because the countryside and the hills reminded him of home. Afghans are just like us: they are people with hopes and aspirations. Now many of them are full of fear for the future of their families, their country and themselves.

We have a moral responsibility to accept as many refugees as possible—not just 20,000 over the long term, as the Lord Privy Seal said at the start of this debate. Some may apply to stay permanently. They will make a great contribution to our country. I hope we will be generous to them. Let us base our actions on the example we set with the Vietnamese boat people who fled from the Viet Cong. We settled whole families, first at Sopley in Hampshire, and then let them choose where they would like to live. Some came to Cheltenham and set up successful businesses—I know some of them and count them as personal friends.

Today, Afghanistan faces the triple threat of the pandemic, a climate change-induced drought and the Taliban takeover. It is our duty to do whatever we can to help those affected. When they arrive, we want no more “hostile environment” tactics from this Government. For starters, they can scrap plans in the Nationality and Borders Bill to criminalise and punish refugees. And, for another suggestion, why do not Mr Johnson, Mr Raab and Ms Patel go to see for themselves what is going on in Afghanistan?

Afghans are wonderful human beings. Many have had bad experiences and fear more of the same; we should welcome them and help them feel at home.