Afghanistan

Baroness Hooper Excerpts

Wednesday 18th August 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hooper (Con)]

My Lords, amidst the tragedy and grief, and sheer fear and panic, that we have seen unfolding in Afghanistan over the last week, let us not forget that there are nevertheless other parts of the world where human tragedy and urgent needs prevail. I speak of Haiti as one such example.

It was my intention in speaking today to focus on the plight of students—young people at the start of their lives, many of them women, and all of whom have been through a rigorous selection procedure to get into universities and colleges in this country. For them to be told that their visas and other documentation had not been completed, so that they could not leave earlier than planned, must have been a shock. I was therefore relieved to hear from my noble friend the Leader that efforts are being made to complete the task, especially for Chevening scholars. The noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, also emphasised this issue. It cannot be beyond the wit of man to speed up the visa process in such an emergency. The future of Afghanistan, especially if things do not go quite as badly as we anticipate, will require well trained and educated people who have been exposed to international thinking and freedoms to be future leaders. Chevening scholars have certainly proved themselves capable of that in the past.

I will touch on two other special cases. We can only begin to imagine the plight of the BBC staff, for example, who have been providing a vital source of trusted news for the last 20 years, working in three languages. They should certainly be given priority if they find themselves in danger and need to get out quickly. Finally, another small but important UK-inspired organisation under threat is Nowzad, an animal charity that has worked over the years to rescue dogs and cats. It has now 74 members of staff, including Afghan women, some of whom have retrained to become vets. It has started up Operation Ark in an effort to save the staff, plus 140 dogs and 40 cats. I hope that someone will take pity on them.

I have never visited Afghanistan personally, but so many speaking in this debate have considerable expertise and knowledge, so I believe it has been very valuable. I hope and trust that the Government will listen.