Former Afghan Special Forces: Deportation

Adam Holloway Excerpts

Monday 11th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[James Heappey]

A number of policy decisions and realities around wider immigration in this country have meant that ARAP has moved at a variable pace. Ultimately, ARAP sits under the MOD and, thus, me. ACRS sits elsewhere. Since the Pakistanis made it clear that they would start to deport those without documents, we have been able to accelerate movement both from Afghanistan to Pakistan and from Pakistan to the UK. I regret that it comes on the back of a number of months of relatively little movement, but we are now moving with an urgency that I feel much more comfortable standing in the House and talking about.

[Adam Holloway (Gravesham) (Con)]

I have just come off the phone to a friend who lived in the mountains and worked with the 333. He explained how the Foreign Office paid them through the Ministry of Interior Affairs, but he and his colleagues gave them cash to top up their payments—effectively to pay them special forces pay. He said that the MOD position is

“the most ludicrous argument I have heard in my life. If it was not so sad, it would be hilarious.”

The 444 worked with every single brigade in Helmand and was described as an indispensable part of Task Force Helmand, doing outreach and reconnaissance. Do the Government not need to take a slightly harder look at this?

Operation Telic

Adam Holloway Excerpts

Monday 20th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Adam Holloway (Gravesham) (Con)]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for allowing me to do so. It is a great pleasure to follow my thoughtful and distinguished friend’s speech—the hon. Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis) is a proper professional soldier, who does not feel the need to gob-off about his military service in this place. I also thank the Minister, who currently serves as a royal naval reservist on the active list.

I was in Iraq for both Gulf wars—in 1991 as a soldier, and 20 years ago as a correspondent. As my distinguished friend says, today we remember the 179 servicemen and women who died in Iraq, and we pay tribute to their bravery and professionalism. They have always given such service, seeking to protect our constituents, but they were committed to it and the subsequent almost two decades of war by people here and in Ministries immediately around us. I regret that, over these years, our forces have too often been let down by the decisions of those near here and in this place.

At Sandhurst, as my friends here will recall, virtually the first point we were told was that we use violence—extreme violence—only in support of a clear set of political objectives. In Iraq and Afghanistan since 9/11, those political objectives were never clear, and through our negligence and indeed ignorance we have often cast many millions of people in these places into frankly unimaginable insecurity, because we would rip down structures that pre-existed and that held these places together.

I remember very well the early morning that Mosul fell. American jets were coming down low and there were bodies in the streets—retribution was taking place. I remember a mob wheeling incubators out of the hospital, looting—just looting everywhere. It was the only place as a correspondent that I ever armed my team. It was that dangerous.

I went to the police headquarters and there were all these Saddam Hussein lookalikes. I was staggered when the Mosul police chief said to me, because he knew I was going to see the small American contingent at an airfield, “Will you please get them to come up and see me, because I want my instructions about what they want us to do?” That was astonishing, frankly. Mosul had just fallen and he was prepared to co-operate with the Americans to do the right thing.

I went to the airfield and I did my business with this American colonel. I said, “Look, the Iraqi general is very keen that you go up and see him and tell him what you want.” He said, “You can go right up there yourself and you can tell him to eff himself.” At that point I thought, “Yeah, you know, we haven’t really thought this through. Where are we going with this?”

Anyway, the rest is history in Iraq, and to a degree that tragedy plays on today. I do not have time to go through the disaster that followed in Afghanistan, where, again, our troops did magnificently but, through poor planning by us, basically, we again tore down existing structures thinking that somehow we knew better. Well, we have been here before. Back in 1851, John Kaye said of an earlier war in Afghanistan:

“A strange moral blindness clouded the vision of our statesmen: they saw only the natural, the inevitable results of their own measures, and forgot that those measures were the dragon’s teeth from which sprang up armed men.”

We pay tribute tonight to the veterans, and we remember all those who died in these wars, especially those from our own armed forces. But we should also hope that in the future people in this House and surrounding Ministries honour the risks that they take by having a proper plan for what comes next. That is the least we can promise our troops.

Oral Answers to Questions

Adam Holloway Excerpts

Monday 21st February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Leo Docherty]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. We are actively considering recruiting people with neurodiversity, because of their capacity for working in the cyber sphere. I am pleased that he has raised this issue, and I can confirm that we are actively looking at it.

[Adam Holloway (Gravesham) (Con)]

18. What steps his Department is taking to improve (a) recruitment and (b) retention in the officer corps of the Army Reserve.

[The Minister for Defence People and Veterans (Leo Docherty)]

The new Army Reserve under the future soldier programme will improve recruitment and retention across the whole reserve force. We are doing that by improving the offer and giving young officers and reserve soldiers the opportunity to train and deploy with regulars, globally and nationally.

[Adam Holloway]

Does my hon. Friend accept that reserve officers join in order to have opportunities to deploy and train, commanding in formed units? Why does the future soldier narrative prioritise individual augmentation over deploying formed bodies for overseas roles short of all-out war?

Afghanistan

Adam Holloway Excerpts

Tuesday 20th April 2021 Commons Chamber

[James Heappey]

First, I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his reflections on the service and sacrifice of the UK armed forces. I am not sure that I accept his characterisation of the situation as defeat. Many members of the armed forces will reflect, as I do, on their tactical and operational successes in their individual tours and in the districts for which they were responsible. If they arrive in a district and the school is shut, but when they leave, it is open; or if they arrive in a district and the market has six stalls, but when they leave, it has 20—those are the sorts of successes that show them with their own eyes that their service has been worth it and they have done good.

The shadow Secretary of State picks up on what the Chief of the Defence Staff said in his interview on the “Today” programme last week, and I do not think that anybody in the UK Government would shy away from his very honest assessment of what happened. I think we should be clear that the disagreement, to the extent that there was one, was over a matter of months, rather than over staying there for four years more.

As I said, there is a logic to this, because we were at a decision point no matter what. On 1 May, the accommodation would run out and we would be preparing for a fighting season; or we would need a new political accommodation with the Taliban, and that would remove the political imperative altogether; or we would take the decision, as the President did, and with which NATO subsequently agreed unanimously, to leave and, in doing so, to force the pace of the political process. I think that is the right thing. The opportunity to prosecute counter-terrorism missions from the wider region into Afghanistan is something that we are working up with our NATO allies and the Americans at the moment. I am sure that the UK will have a role in that.

The exact withdrawal timeline is not one that I intend to share publicly—I am sure the right hon. Gentleman will understand the operational security reasons why that is the case—but a withdrawal from Afghanistan this year is not unexpected. It was completely within our planning last year and over the winter. We can achieve the timeline that is required without any cost to our other planned military activities this summer. I can reassure him that my right hon. Friends the Defence Secretary and the Home Secretary are working with all appropriate haste to make sure that those who have served alongside us in Afghanistan are looked after in the future.

[Adam Holloway (Gravesham) (Con)]

I was in Afghanistan with the Afghan resistance, and I know that when the foreigners leave, the theological justification for jihad finishes. The problem we have is that Afghanistan still faces attack from the Taliban, fully supported by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence, with the simple aim of conquering the country. Given the success since 2015 when the coalition moved into an advisory CT mode, what is the coalition’s plan now to prevent even larger swathes of the country from falling to the Taliban—indeed, to prevent Kabul itself from falling? If it does, I would call that strategic failure.

[James Heappey]

I share my hon. Friend’s assessment of the requirement for regional partners not only to step up and take a stake in Afghanistan’s peace, but to behave responsibly in the way they go about their diplomatic affairs in the region. His characterisation of what remains of the coalition is, if he does not mind my saying so, somewhat out of date. We have been down to a residual counter-terrorism mission for some time. For five years or more, the coalition has not extended its writ across the whole country. Actually, the Afghan national security forces have done a good job of maintaining security within the borders of Afghanistan since the NATO mission stepped back towards the current CT mission. I am full of optimism for what the Afghan national security forces could achieve. It depends, of course, on their being empowered to do so by a future Government in Kabul.

Integrated Review: Defence Command Paper

Adam Holloway Excerpts

Monday 22nd March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

Disarmament is achieved when both sides are credible in what they offer up. To offer up something that is not credible would see us get taken to the cleaners, and the other people would just carry on, especially with the completely unbalanced numbers of warheads around the world.

[Adam Holloway (Gravesham) (Con) [V]]

I congratulate the Secretary of State and his team on these forward-thinking and rather smart proposals. Does he agree that the opposition parties need to understand the reality of modern warfare, which is a shift towards the grey zone and high tech? We could have thousands of tanks, but they would be of no use to us. The moment that we deploy on the battlefield, our enemy would destroy them. Perhaps the Secretary of State can arrange a briefing for the opposition parties on what happened to all those tanks in Syria, or what all those Armenian conscripts suffered from a modernised Azeri military, because they do not seem to understand.

[Mr Wallace]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. I made available to Members of the House a briefing by the Chief of Defence Intelligence last week where he set out the range of emerging threats, all the way from Russian ballistic missile defence to the proliferation of technology into the hands of, often, non-state militias. That is one of the big challenges of today that our conventional forces need to grapple with. It is no longer tank on tank necessarily; it could be Syrian fighters using pick-ups but firing top- generation anti-tank missiles. That is the game changer. We must be able to deal with it. If we do deploy armour, we must be able to better protect it, or we must find other ways of dealing with it. It has been blatantly clear over the past 12 months—in Libya, in Syria, and in the Caucasus—that we are incredibly exposed on the battlefield if we can be found even by some of the most low-tech weapons systems.

Oral Answers to Questions

Adam Holloway Excerpts

Monday 22nd October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Williamson]

The national shipbuilding strategy highlighted the fact that the definition was to apply to aircraft carriers, frigates and destroyers, and the strategy was welcomed on both sides of the House.

[Adam Holloway (Gravesham) (Con)]

9. What contribution UK forces are making to counter-Daesh operations in Syria and Iraq.

[The Secretary of State for Defence (Gavin Williamson)]

RAF strikes in Iraq and Syria will continue until Daesh has been defeated in both Iraq and Syria. In Iraq we have about 500 personnel participating in the coalition’s programme of training.

[Adam Holloway]

Can the Secretary of State give some indication of what we are doing to maintain the momentum against a fractured Daesh?

[Gavin Williamson]

It is important to remember that although Daesh has been considerably weakened and the amount of territory under its control has been massively reduced, it remains a great threat. In the last month alone the RAF has made 27 strikes against it, which goes to show that the tempo of operations is not actually slowing down. We cannot take it for granted that Daesh has been defeated, and we must continue to put pressure on it.

Sgt Alexander Blackman (Marine A)

Adam Holloway Excerpts

Wednesday 16th September 2015 Westminster Hall

[Richard Drax]

I thank my gallant and distinguished colleague. Given all his experience, there is, dare I say it, no one better on our side of the House to speak in such a way.

[Mr Adam Holloway (Gravesham) (Con)]

Aside from the points about this case, do hon. and gallant Members agree that it remains extremely important that our soldiers behave with the highest possible standards, and that we do not abuse or execute prisoners of war?

Oral Answers to Questions

Adam Holloway Excerpts

Monday 12th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Michael Fallon]

I am sorry that my hon. Friend, who has some experience of these matters, does not attach the importance to continuing the deterrent that we do. Of course, the costs of the deterrent are spread over a number of years. As I have said, successive Governments in office have, every time they have re-examined the need for the deterrent, committed to continuing it.

[Mr Adam Holloway (Gravesham) (Con)]

6. What progress his Department has made on delivering the defence equipment plan.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Mr Philip Dunne)]

Under this Government, the Ministry of Defence was one of the first Departments to publish a long-term plan: our 10-year equipment plan. The third annual iteration of the equipment plan will be published shortly. I expect it to show that, in the vital area of defence equipment, we have a plan and that we are delivering against it in each domain. New investment committed last year includes: three offshore patrol vessels, four new F-35s, and 589 new Scout armoured vehicles under the largest land equipment contract the British Army has seen for 30 years.

[Mr Holloway]

What changes have been made to the way the plan is being delivered?

[Mr Dunne]

As my hon. Friend will recall, the previous Labour Administration had no plan and compounded one procurement incompetence with another. Consequently, the wrong equipment was often delivered, years late and billions over budget. By contrast, since balancing the defence budget and establishing an equipment plan, where there was chaos now there is competence; where there were cost overruns now there are cost savings; and where equipment deliveries were years late now they are on time, or, in far fewer cases, a few months behind.

Afghanistan

Adam Holloway Excerpts

Monday 14th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Dr Fox]

Strategic air cover for Afghanistan is some way down the line, but it will be required when there is a stable state able to maintain its own security. That, of course, is some way in the future, but given that Afghanistan’s capacity will be small, as the hon. Lady said—at the moment it is well behind where it needs to be—how arrangements for that process are put in place will be a matter for the whole of the international community, not just the United Kingdom.

[Mr Adam Holloway (Gravesham) (Con)]

There are many Afghans outside the ruling clique who believe not only that the exit strategy will not work in the long term, but that it is fatally flawed and in fact cannot work. General Petraeus’s strategy has been described as “Fight, then talk”. Does the Secretary of State think that we ought to be fighting and talking, and that this should include talking to all modes of the insurgency?

[Dr Fox]

History teaches us that in any insurgency or conflict, we inevitably move from a military phase, taking on the violence of insurgency, into a phase where there is both military contact and diplomatic activity, and hopefully from there into a phase of diplomatic resolution on the political stage. I think that we are at a point where, as I said earlier, we will increasingly be looking not simply at the military position or the security situation on the ground, but at the political level. What has come across in the House this afternoon appears to be an increasing view on both sides that the political arena will be increasingly important. That is in no way to diminish the importance of the security environment within which those political talks will take place, but without the success of the political element the security gains will not provide a stable and secure Afghanistan.