Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme

Alison Thewliss Excerpts

Thursday 6th January 2022 Westminster Hall

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

It is good to see you in the Chair, Ms Ali. I am glad to be able to participate in the debate, and I thank the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) for securing it. I will start by reflecting on his comments about the urgency of the situation.

The Minister said in her statement earlier that people on the ground have the best understanding of the security situation in Afghanistan, and that is certainly true according to my constituents’ accounts of their families who are stuck there. There has been a lot of reference to safe and legal routes, but the reality is that the Government cannot expect people to sit tight and wait for the Taliban to chap their door. People on the ground know the Taliban and have experienced living under them, so it is no surprise to any of us that those who can run do so and keep running until they get somewhere where they feel safe. For many of those people, that is the UK, because they have family here. We have an Afghan diaspora in Glasgow—people who fled before and have come to make their home in Glasgow.

The Government should not be going about their business, as they are with the Nationality and Borders Bill, by penalising those who got out, who sought safety and who managed to leave Afghanistan. They would not have wanted to leave the country and they had seen change in recent years, but with the Taliban coming in as swiftly as they did, people had no alternative, and many of them ran. Many constituents who have been in contact with me had family there—perhaps the husband was living in my constituency and the wife and children were living in Afghanistan. This is also a symptom of the hostile environment, because those families could not afford to bring their wives and children over, as they did not meet the minimum income threshold. Those families could have been safe, had it not been for the policies that the UK has been pursuing.

One of my constituents, who was visiting his wife and five children, is very worried about getting back. He feels defeated. He emailed me just as the debate was starting, saying:

“We are still waiting and still here. Everyone knows that the British government forgot their nationals in Afghanistan. I have sent too many emails but now I stopped sending them emails, because no response and no benefits and not worth sending emails to them, nearly five months now. There’s no way going out and we are waiting for them. Me and my family are fed up staying here. Everyone is in tension, depression and bad economic and hard situations… I just answer your email because you sent me, otherwise I stopped sending emails to anyone. The big issue is my wife’s biometric card is expiring soon on this 22 February. If that expired then all of my family will be troubled going back to Glasgow because I can’t leave her alone here as well. She has been in Glasgow for almost 10 years”.

He did not want to give me any more information than that. There is a lot more that he would say if he could, but that is the kind of situation that I have been hearing about. Like many of us, I have had scores of constituents get in touch and I know of only a handful who actually made it out. Those constituents have been on the phone to me and others, crying and desperate for their families. It has been incredibly hard to listen to, and I can only imagine the pain they feel as they wait without information. I will be glad if the Minister makes some progress towards that today, but there are still a lot of unanswered questions.

As my former friend on the Treasury Committee, the hon. Member for Wycombe (Mr Baker), asked very reasonably, what happens to the people who had applications in process? That includes many of my constituents who have applications in process and now do not know what is happening. I have a constituent who is in Afghanistan with his wife. They keep getting given appointments by the UK Government for the visa centre in Islamabad, but Pakistan will not issue them an entry visa for them to attend those appointments. What conversations has the Minister had with other consulates and embassies around the world? Those people could get out if Pakistan granted them the visa that would allow them to go and collect what they are entitled to.

There has been a lot of talk about vulnerable women and girls, but boys and men are vulnerable too, which is why they are also running. They are at risk of being recruited to the Taliban; they are at risk of losing their lives due to their service. We should not forget that many people are made vulnerable by this situation, and we must recognise that vulnerability. Many people worked as suppliers to the British Army. They were not recruited or directly involved, and they were not fighting on the frontline, but in the eyes of the Taliban they are part of the problem.

Finally, I will briefly mention those who have made it here and the support being offered. I thank the Afghan diaspora in Glasgow and the Refugee Council in Scotland for their work, but those who come here need financial, legal, medical and educational support, and there is a cost involved in that. The Government must recognise that and provide local authorities with funds to ensure that people get the support they need to help them settle. It is all fine and well for the Minister to say that we want people to integrate and work and not to be dependent on the state, but they need support in the early days to get that right.

Refuweegee, a Glasgow-based organisation, has already had requests from people who have been dispersed around Scotland but not had the support that they require to settle, and it has been falling on charities to pick that up. Charities do not have the spare capacity to do that and should not really be asked to; the Government should be providing that support. I ask the Minister to answer my questions and for support for my constituents and their families who are so desperately in need.

[Rushanara Ali (in the Chair)]

Order. May I appeal to the Opposition spokesmen to shave a minute or two off their speeches so that the Minister has her full 10 minutes? I would very much appreciate it.