Withdrawal from Afghanistan: Joint Committee

Carol Monaghan Excerpts

Wednesday 15th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Alyn Smith]

My hon. Friend has made a very sensible point. I would add gently to the Government that perhaps there would not be a call for a specific inquiry if we felt that the inquiries had been dealt with properly thus far.

What we need to do, as a priority—all of us—while learning lessons is get people out and make people safe. I pay tribute to the work that has been done on that, but we need more. The House needs to scrutinise the ARAP scheme itself, but we also urgently need the details of the new scheme so that our constituents can be informed. We in the SNP already think that it needs to be expanded. We do not think that 20,000 is remotely sufficient for the scale of the trouble ahead.

We would also like clarity on the actual timescale. If, as we have heard, “in the coming years” means more people coming in, does that mean that, if 20,000 people apply in the first few months of next year, the scheme will close—in which case it is wholly insufficient—or does it mean that there is a quota for how many people can actually get in? These are basic questions that are as yet unanswered, so we need more details urgently.

[Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)]

We have another issue, and that is family reunion. The family reunion visa will not be suitable for the situation that we face. There is currently a 12-year-old girl in my constituency who was separated from her parents in the chaos at Kabul airport, and we cannot get the parents out. Surely we need to look very carefully at how we are going to operate family reunion in cases such as that.

[Alyn Smith]

I strongly agree; in fact, that was going to be the next line of my remarks. Indeed, a number of Members across the House have been pressing for details on family reunion. There is also the question of funding for local authorities to keep people safe. I have met three families from Afghanistan who have already been settled in Stirling in the last couple of weeks, and they were particularly concerned about friends and family who were still in the country and still very much in harm’s way. I pay tribute to Stirling Council and to Forth Valley Welcome, who have done so much to make these refugees feel safe and secure in the Forth Valley. I say, in a genuine and constructive offer to the Government, that we can do more: the Forth Valley can do more and Scotland can do more. We need the details of the scheme and particularly of the funding, because we are not going to make promises that we cannot keep, but we are willing to play our part constructively.

There are wider and longer-term implications to the Afghanistan situation. It is not just about Afghanistan. Where is your global Britain now? After Afghanistan, it is clear that the UK cannot operate significant independent engagement and that it has precious little influence on US engagement. This was a collective failure of the US, the UK and others; many countries have failed in this. The world is less secure than it was, and the bad guys are now feeling more confident than they should be. That is something we should all be deeply concerned about.

Domestically, the integrated review is out of date within six months of its publication. We also see that the UK’s Indo-Pacific tilt looks even less credible than it did—and frankly that was not much, from our perspective. Global Britain is not the SNP’s project. That stands to reason, as we have a different world view. We believe that Scotland’s best future is as an independent state within the European Union, but we do not wish global Britain harm. The UK is always going to be our closest neighbour and our closest friend. The SNP submitted constructive suggestions to the integrated defence and foreign affairs review, and they are even more relevant now than they were. We will continue to work constructively, from our perspective, to help our nearest friend and neighbour to learn the lessons of the last few months, but that needs to be done on the basis of humility and reality. Learning lessons would go a long way to support the motion put forward by Labour today, which we are very pleased to support.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge and Malling) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to follow several hon. and right hon. Friends. I find myself in the unusual position of disagreeing with the Opposition and agreeing with those on the Government Benches, which, as many Members will know, has a touch of novelty for me. I think I have been doing my best to hold this Government to account on matters of foreign affairs, but Members might feel that I have not been quite as rigorous on this matter as I should have been today. Could I ask you, Mr Deputy Speaker, to check whether the phone signal is working properly in the Chamber? My phone seems remarkably unable to ring.

[Carol Monaghan]

I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman would share his contact list with me, because he seems to be able to contact the Home Secretary directly while many of us cannot. We have similar cases to his, and I congratulate him on having success with his case, but it might be helpful if he could do that.

[Tom Tugendhat]

I would be absolutely delighted to. As many Members of the House will know, I share any Member’s phone number with other Members once I have got their permission to do so, and if the hon. Lady would like to ask me, I would be very happy to do exactly that.

I share much of the criticism that I have heard from various Members about how the relief and evacuation operations have been handled. I have been pretty critical of the ways in which questions have been answered and co-ordination has been conducted. I think I have also been pretty robust in expressing how that should be improved.