Afghanistan Humanitarian Crisis: UK Response

Bob Blackman Excerpts

Wednesday 9th February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Vicky Ford]

I completely agree that it is important to keep money flowing through the Afghan economy and, as I said, we are working with the World Bank on that. On 25 January—a couple of weeks ago—the UK also supported the Asian Development Bank with a £405 million support package for the Afghan people, funded from the Asian Development Fund.

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)]

Obviously, when the evacuation took place, and immediately afterwards, Afghanistan was the centre of attention. Naturally, people have forgotten about it, and I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) on bringing it to the attention of the House once again. At the start of the evacuation, 656 families in my constituency had relatives in Afghanistan who were trying to get out. This weekend, I discovered some more, most of whom are still trapped there and are UK citizens. May I suggest to the Minister that we should have a facility, via the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, whereby MPs can confidentially feed in details about the people who are still trapped there, so that assistance can be provided? Clearly they are under threat from the Taliban and in peril. We need to retain confidentiality but assist them to leave if that is what they want to do.

[Vicky Ford]

As I said, this is a hugely concerning situation. On helping people to leave the country, the UK has been working to allow Afghan nationals to cross borders into neighbouring countries such as Pakistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. We have supported more than 3,400 people to leave Afghanistan since the end of Operation Pitting. The Afghan citizens resettlement scheme is managed by the Home Office, so my hon. Friend should raise that issue with the Home Office. On the Afghan relocations and assistance policy scheme, which is for people who helped the Government, people can still apply to that. I understand that the Minister for the Armed Forces is due to be holding a resettlement surgery shortly, so perhaps my hon. Friend could raise those issues with him directly. If not, he should certainly write to me and I will pass the details on.