Afghanistan

Alan Brown Excerpts

Wednesday 18th August 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I want to make some progress.

I can tell the House that we have so far secured the safe return of 306 UK nationals and 2,052 Afghan nationals as part of our resettlement programme, with a further 2,000 Afghan applications completed and many more being processed. UK officials are working round the clock to keep the exit door open in the most difficult circumstances and are actively seeking those who we believe are eligible but as yet unregistered.

[Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)]

Can the Prime Minister explain, then, how many people he thinks are eligible for relocation and are still to sign up? He says that the Government are doing “everything we can” to get these people out, so what does “everything we can” mean? How are they identifying these people and where they are, especially if they are already in hiding in fear of their lives?

[The Prime Minister]

That is why it is so important that we maintain a presence at Kabul airport and that is why we have been getting the message out that we want people to come through. As I said earlier, it is important for everybody to understand that in the days that we have ahead of us, which may be short, at the moment this is an environment in which the Taliban are permitting this evacuation to take place. These are interpreters, they are locally engaged staff and others who have risked their lives supporting our military efforts and seeking to secure new freedoms for their country. We are proud to bring these brave Afghans to our shores and we continue to appeal for more to come forward.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ian Blackford]

My goodness, my goodness, my goodness. I do not think the hon. Gentleman has been listening to anything we have been saying over the past few days. I will talk about this in more detail, because I have been asking for the resettlement scheme to work on the basis of the Syrian scheme that we had in the last decade. I tell the House that the Scottish Government stand ready to work with the UK Government—[Interruption.] We are talking about people who are facing extreme risk, and that is what we get from the Government Benches. They should be careful, because people in the United Kingdom, and perhaps people in Afghanistan, are listening. Perhaps a bit of dignity from the Government Benches would not go amiss.

I want to make sure that every local authority in Scotland has the opportunity to take refugees from Afghanistan, and that is precisely the position of the Government in Scotland, but is has to come with the Government in London and the devolved Administrations working together. There has to be a summit of the four nations to discuss exactly how this will work.

[Alan Brown]

Just to correct the record, my local authority, East Ayrshire Council, has resettled Syrian refugees.

[Brendan O’Hara]

As has mine.

[Alan Brown]

The hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent South (Jack Brereton) should correct the record.

[Ian Blackford]

My hon. Friend is correct, and my area of the highlands has refugees from Syria, too, and they were made most welcome by the community. In view of the hostile environment that we are seeing once again from the Conservative party, let us reflect on the fact that these are people who came here to receive sanctuary and who have gone on to make a contribution to our life. They were welcome, refugees are welcome and Afghans are certainly welcome in every part of Scotland.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)]

We speak about our surprise at the collapse of the Afghan Government and the takeover by the Taliban, but the reality is that the 2020 Doha agreement and the withdrawal of troops gave the Taliban a timeframe to plan around. It also saw 500 Taliban prisoners released to help in the coup, and now the Taliban have taken over, we have seen terrorists let out of jail to wreak havoc.

This year alone, the increased violence and fighting displaced 550,000 people and caused the UK Government to expedite the interpreter relocation scheme, and by July the Taliban had recaptured a quarter of districts from the Afghan Government. That means that there were serious intelligence failures or huge political misjudgments in joining the dots, as there was no contingency exit planning. Was any intelligence picked up about the Taliban working with local officials and security forces to persuade them to swap sides?

We have seen the US spend a staggering $1 trillion over 20 years to achieve the collapse of the regime rather than the reconstruction of Afghanistan. It seems that that money sustained corruption, rather than tackled it. The reality is that it is 20 years of foreign policy failure, with 457 British soldiers killed and a quarter of a million deaths overall, including more than 70,000 civilians. Then we have the wounded, the impoverished and the millions of refugees. It is truly tragic.

There was hope with the return of women’s rights, women working, women politicians and more children at school, but what does the future hold for them? We have heard that, in relative terms, the Taliban are saying the right things about not being as strict as before, but they still want sharia law, and many of the old faces feature in the new regime. When the Taliban reclaim provincial districts, reports suggest that, as well as violence, women are already being made to wear the hijab and are required to have a male companion to go out in public.

While a Taliban spokesperson yesterday was doing a charm offensive to CNN, a reporter was told to stand aside, as a woman, and was told that compulsory burqa wearing will return. Those are clear warning signs for the future, including the reprisal killings that have already happened and the veiled threats that people will only be safe if they show remorse.

A previous study found that 65% of children had encountered displacement or acts of violence, or had witnessed beatings, deaths or the mutilation of bodies. That in itself might explain the fragility of the security forces. It certainly explains the widespread fear of the many civilians trying to flee Kabul.

After the final collapse, while we are pulling out, the Foreign Secretary tells us that the UK will hold the Taliban to account. Are we really to believe that? They have been planning for years while we have ignored our so-called allies aiding and abetting—historically, it was Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, and now the United Arab Emirates is reportedly turning a blind eye to Taliban drug money being laundered in Dubai. With so many political failures in the past 20 years, we need a judge-led inquiry to get to the bottom of this and learn lessons for the future.