Withdrawal from Afghanistan: Joint Committee

Debate between Alan Brown and Lisa Nandy

Wednesday 15th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Lisa Nandy (Wigan) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

(1) That it is expedient:

(a) that a Joint Committee of Lords and Commons be appointed for the remainder of the current session to consider:

(i) Government policy on Afghanistan from the Doha Agreement in February 2020 to the conclusion of Operation Pitting on 27 August 2021;

(ii) The intelligence assessments made of the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan during this period, the extent to which those assessments were accurate, and the decisions taken by Ministers in response to that intelligence;

(iii) The ARAP scheme, including eligibility for the scheme, and policy towards civilian resettlement;

(iv) The planning of the Government, including any contingency planning, the crisis management process of the Government, and planning for the availability of Ministers if the situation deteriorated;

(b) that the Chair of the Committee shall be a backbench Member of a party represented in Her Majesty’s Government and shall be elected by the House of Commons under arrangements approved by Mr Speaker.

(2) That a Select Committee of eight Members be appointed to join with any committee to be appointed by the Lords for this purpose.

(3) That the Committee should publish its first report no later than 31 March 2022.

(4) That the Committee shall have power:

(a) to send for persons, papers and records;

(b) to sit notwithstanding any adjournment of the House;

(c) to report from time to time;

(d) to appoint specialist advisers; and

(e) to adjourn from place to place within the United Kingdom.

(5) That the quorum of the Committee shall be three.

(6) That, in addition to the Chair elected under paragraph (1)(b) above, the Chair of the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament, the Chair of the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy and the Chairs of the Defence Committee, the Foreign Affairs Committee, the Home Affairs Committee, the International Development Committee and the International Trade Committee shall be members of the Committee.

This has been a painful few weeks. The chaotic end to 20 years in Afghanistan left hundreds of British citizens and thousands of Afghans behind. Two decades of work, the transformation of the economy through landmine clearance, the improvements to healthcare, media freedom and the education of millions of girls are now at risk as the Taliban regime returns. A generation of young Afghans are watching the future they were promised disappear before their eyes. We owe it to them, to the 150,000 brave military personnel, to the families of 457 British soldiers who never made it home and to our diplomats and aid workers who fought for a better future, to tell the truth about what went wrong over the past 18 months and what is still going wrong at the heart of Government, and to do everything in our power to support the people of Afghanistan and secure the safety of British people.

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

I fully agree with the hon. Member that we need to get to the bottom of what has happened in the past 18 months, and I agree with the motion. Does she also agree that we need to look at the past 20 years and how we even got to where we were 18 months ago? That means looking at why we went in, how the objectives changed over the years, who supported the Taliban and who kept them strong in Afghanistan and enabled their resurgence. Does she agree we need a full public inquiry to get to the bottom of that?

[Lisa Nandy]

I thank the hon. Member for his intervention and say to him that I absolutely accept that lessons have to be learned from the experience in Afghanistan over the past 20 years. There are a range of views in this House about the decisions taken over two decades by successive Governments on different sides of the Atlantic. All of us in this House should approach that inquiry with a level of humility and introspection. That does not mean we cannot learn the lessons right now from what has happened over the past 18 months, and learn them quickly.

In 20 years, not a single attack has been launched against us from Afghanistan. Those gains must be protected. We need to learn lessons and chart a course for the future. We deserve to know why for years successive Conservative Governments have dragged their heels over the resettlement of Afghan interpreters. One of my hon. Friends still has an interpreter who is in hiding and is being hunted door-to-door by the Taliban. We deserve to know why, when the Government had 18 months to plan, they were so completely unprepared that troops had to be sent into danger to pull people through crowds and on to planes.