Pakistan: Evacuation of Afghans

Alison Thewliss Excerpts

Wednesday 8th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Home Secretary if she will make a statement on the evacuation of Afghans from Pakistan.

[The Minister for Veterans’ Affairs (Johnny Mercer)]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question.

The Government have reacted decisively and swiftly to relocate people to safety in the United Kingdom following the collapse of Afghanistan the year before last. The UK Government remain committed to relocating eligible Afghans and their families under the Afghan relocations and assistance policy and the Afghan citizens resettlement scheme, and we will continue to honour that promise. The Government’s policy, rightly, was to ensure that eligible Afghan families had secured accommodation in the UK before travel was facilitated for their relocation. We wanted to give them the best possible start to their new lives, to provide the best value for money for the taxpayer, and to ensure Afghans were integrated into UK society in the best manner available.

However, developments in the region have impacted our security assessments and previous assumptions. That has led to the Government’s removing the need for settled accommodation for individuals eligible under ARAP prior to relocation to the United Kingdom. The safety and security of ARAP-eligible Afghans has always been of paramount importance and we make no apology at all for changing the policy to react to the changing context.

The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and the Ministry of Defence continue to work to ensure that eligible individuals under the ARAP and the ACR scheme are supported in Pakistan. The safety and security of ARAP and ACRS-eligible Afghans is paramount in our minds. The MOD continues to monitor the security assessments in that country, but following this cross-Government decision the Prime Minister has asked me to co-ordinate across Government to support the MOD in developing a new relocations plan for ARAP-eligible persons. As Members know, previously the policy was that only those who had secured accommodation in the United Kingdom would travel to the United Kingdom. We are changing that policy as a result of changing conditions on the ground.

The MOD has worked hard to stand up a total of more than 700 service family accommodations for mixed purposes, or transitory and settled accommodation. I pay tribute to the Minister for Armed Forces, my right hon. Friend the Member for Wells (James Heappey), for his work on that. Our new plans will see approximately 2,800 ARAP-entitled personnel moved from Pakistan to the United Kingdom by the end of December 2023. Entitled personnel may move straight into settled accommodation on the MOD. Where service family accommodation is unavailable, families will move into transitional accommodation as a first step. Where SFA is not suited to the needs of ARAP-entitled personnel, alternative accommodation will be procured.

This Prime Minister and this Government are determined to see through our commitments to those who served with the UK forces in Afghanistan. I commend this statement to the House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alison Thewliss]

Thank you for granting this urgent question, Mr Speaker.

I am afraid that the Minister’s answer gives no reassurance whatsoever to constituents who have contacted me in a state of extreme panic over the last few weeks. Members have had no information on what is currently happening. It has been clear for some time that Pakistan aims to expel Afghans, who went there for safety, back to Afghanistan. I have been trying to get clarity on how many people there are in Pakistan to whom we have a duty and an obligation, and who are waiting for the UK Government simply to process their paperwork so that they can leave and come to their families here in the UK. I have not had those answers from the Minister.

One constituent contacted me whose sister and her five children have been threatened with imprisonment in Pakistan if they do not leave. Her other family members—her parents, her brother and her cousin—have been returned to Afghanistan, and she cannot contact them. She does not know where they are or what has happened to them. Given that they fled from the Taliban in the first place, she is terrified for them. She has been given very unclear advice by UK officials in Pakistan on what exactly they are entitled to and whether they will be able to get on a flight at all.

Another constituent, a gentleman, contacted me on 25 October after seeing the news that there will be charter flights from Pakistan carrying Afghans who have been processed. He has been trying to get answers on the status of his family, including whether they have a valid application, whether they can get on a plane and whether they can come to safety with him. He was stuck there with his family at the fall of Afghanistan, and he is extremely distressed about the situation. Again, I have been asking questions of various Departments and have had no answers whatsoever. What advice should I give to my constituent?

There have been no updates to MPs, despite there being reports in the news of charter flights and of people coming. We have also heard on the news that people in Islamabad—people who are entitled—have been warned by the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office to hide indoors. The British high commission has apparently warned people in hotels in Islamabad not to go outside due to the risk of arrest and deportation, so who is eligible for these charter flight? Is it people on the ARAP and ACRS schemes, people with valid family reunion paperwork or people who are still waiting for their paperwork to be done? We do not know, and I have families in my constituency with four of five members who have been processed and one who has been left behind. Can the Minister tell us exactly how many people in Pakistan are waiting for the UK Government to process their paperwork so that they can finally come to safety? We have a duty to these Afghans, and we are failing them yet again.

[Johnny Mercer]

I must be completely clear to the House that this is not an issue of delayed paperwork. Afghanistan collapsed, and the UK conducted Operation Pitting to retrieve Afghans from Kabul and bring them to the UK. They went into hotel accommodation because we did not have enough housing. That was the right thing to do at the time.

Since then, it has become clear that it is entirely unsuitable for these families to be in hotel accommodation for long periods of time. They were therefore held in Pakistan, and rightly so. The situation in Pakistan has now changed, and we will now accelerate the process and get them into SFA accommodation in the UK so that we meet our duties.

I do not want to see anybody detained or deported from Pakistan if they are entitled to be in the United Kingdom, and I will work to achieve that outcome. I caution against spreading rumours of things that I am not seeing on the ground. It is an extremely challenging environment but, ultimately, we have a commitment to these people and I am determined to see it through.

On the Afghan population in hotels, I have heard the same questions, demands and allegations that we would not be successful before, but we were. I hear the hon. Lady’s questions, but the situation has changed. We have now changed our response, and we will relocate these people back to the United Kingdom.