Afghanistan

Debate between Alicia Kearns and Lisa Nandy

Wednesday 18th August 2021 Commons Chamber

[Lisa Nandy (Wigan) (Lab)]

Some moments in this debate were among the most harrowing I can remember in 11 years in Parliament. I pay tribute to the hon. Members for Isle of Wight (Bob Seely) and for Plymouth, Moor View (Johnny Mercer), and in particular to the hon. Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Tom Tugendhat) and my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis). They make me proud to be a Member of this House. No matter how painful and difficult it has been for them to speak up over recent weeks, they have done it. They have done the veterans of Afghanistan proud and they have shown themselves to be true friends to the Afghan people. They have refused to despair, even at the darkest moments, because they know better than most of us that despair is a luxury that Afghans, and the world, simply cannot afford.

Those hon. Members have given voice to something that tens of thousands of families in Britain are feeling—our friends, neighbours and constituents who served, lost loved ones or suffered life-changing injuries, and are wondering now what it was all for. They should not accept that this is the end of two decades of sacrifice, or that the degradation of terrorists, the hard-won progress for women and girls, the landmine clearance programme, the access to healthcare, the clean water and the emergence of fragile democracy can be allowed to unravel in just a few days while the world looks away. Like so many of us who have spoken in this debate, they find it impossible to reconcile where we are now, and how it could possibly have come to this.

We recognise that the decision by the United States to withdraw its military presence created an impossible situation for the United Kingdom. As the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) said, NATO’s intention was always to withdraw, but it was to withdraw in a planned and orderly way, linked to conditions. This has failed all those tests. Some 18 months after the decision was made to withdraw at Doha and four months after the timetable was established, the airport is overwhelmed, paperwork cannot be processed, and Ministers openly admit that people will be left behind and that some of them will die.

This is an unparalleled moment of shame for this Government. Security at the airport is now in the gift of the Taliban, and it appears that the Government have no agreement beyond 31 August, in just 12 days’ time. Is it correct that we are wholly reliant on a fragile agreement between the United States and the Taliban, a deal that offers no guarantees that UK evacuations can continue if the US withdrawal is completed before that date and ours is not? Is it correct that no conversations have taken place between the UK and Taliban leaders about that access? Does the Foreign Secretary realise that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) said, his own Department is still advising British nationals remaining in Afghanistan to shelter in place unless further flight options become available, and to keep an eye on Twitter for updates?

The tragedy of all this is that even those people the Government recognise, such as the Chevening scholars who the Prime Minister made a personal promise to this week and this morning, have told us they cannot get through the Taliban roadblocks to the airport and they will be abandoned. This has so much significance for those young Afghans. They represent a generation of promising leaders who are watching the future that they worked and hoped for unravel in front of their eyes.

People—especially women—have burned documents that link them to the UK for their own safety, and so are being turned away at airport perimeters. A British national has been sheltering in a park in Kabul with her young children in recent days because her house was burned down and local people are too scared to offer them shelter. Their MP was promised a phone call from the Foreign Secretary’s private office two days ago. It has not come. What use are promises that are never kept?

The Prime Minister made promises this morning that practically, at this time, he knows the Government cannot fulfil. The Foreign Secretary must address that today. As many hon. Members have said, one of the consequences of the chaos that Ministers have allowed to engulf us is that people will not trust us again. What can he tell them today that will start to put that right?

He will have heard my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) talk about the number of people who helped us but who the Government still refuse to recognise. How have we become this country that drags its feet on saving the lives of those who supported us and stands by while the refugee crisis unfolds? The Prime Minister said last night that we would take 20,000 refugees, but how can anyone believe him? He has made promises before. He promised he would protect the Alf Dubs scheme and give sanctuary to child refugees, and then he closed it. We are better than this.

The Government have given us a press release when what we need is a plan. What is the scale of the refugee crisis that the Government anticipate? What efforts have they made through the United Nations to co-ordinate a global response that is based on a clear assessment of the needs of Afghans, not on numbers plucked out of thin air with no plan for implementation? If I were in the Prime Minister’s shoes, I would be moving heaven and earth to ensure that we live up to our obligations and show the world that we can be relied on—not least by the women and girls who we encouraged and supported to take on positions of authority but who now find themselves the targets of Taliban brutality. Where is the message from the United Kingdom that they are not alone?

When the Prime Minister took office two years ago, we led the world in development assistance, but even now, after the Taliban have taken control, there is no urgency or seriousness about addressing the humanitarian crisis that confronts us. Can we be honest? It is not honest to claim to be doubling aid to Afghanistan when just a few months ago it was cut by half. The Prime Minister should remember that, given that the only statement he made to the House on Afghanistan was when he came to tell us he was cutting the aid budget. I wonder if, after this debate is over, he will reveal that the refugee programme the Government unveiled this morning will be paid for by raiding the aid budget.

[Alicia Kearns]

You raise how many times the Prime Minister has spoken on Afghanistan in the Chamber—[Hon. Members: “You!”] Sorry: the shadow Foreign Secretary mentions the number of times the Prime Minister has spoken about Afghanistan in this House. Will she remind us how many times she has mentioned Afghanistan in this place since coming to the Front Bench?