Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Monday 25th October 2021 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Home Secretary to make a statement on the Afghan citizens resettlement scheme.

[The Minister for Afghan Resettlement (Victoria Atkins)]

I promised in my statement to the House on 13 September that I would update the House regularly on Operation Warm Welcome. I am in the process of drafting a “Dear colleague” letter, which will be sent to colleagues later this week, but the hon. Lady has beaten me to it. I am, of course, pleased to appear before the House today in the meantime.

The Government worked at pace to facilitate the largest and most complex evacuation in living memory, assisting the Ministry of Defence and the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office to help more than 15,000 people from Afghanistan to safety in the United Kingdom. A huge programme of work is now under way across Government to ensure Afghans brought to the United Kingdom receive a warm welcome and the vital support they need to build bright futures in our country. That work spans across Government, charities, other organisations, local authorities and communities. The aim is to give Afghans arriving here the best possible start to life in the United Kingdom, while also making sure that local services can work effectively to support people.

On 13 September, I made a statement, and the Home Office published a comprehensive policy statement, confirming that the Government have committed to take around 5,000 people in the first year and a total of up to 20,000 people over the coming years under the Afghan citizens resettlement scheme. The statement also set out who would be eligible and who would be prioritised, and how we will work with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and other organisations to ensure the ACRS provides a safe route for vulnerable people at risk. While we appreciate the need to act quickly, it is also important that we do this properly and ensure that any scheme meets the needs of those it is being set up to support.

Our work to support Afghan citizens has not paused while the resettlement scheme is being developed. The Home Office is continuing to work with partners across Government, including in the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, given that many of those requiring support are in fact British nationals, to provide permanent housing for the thousands already relocated here. Some of the people evacuated will form the first part of the 5,000 people being resettled.

I am pleased to tell the House that over 200 councils have agreed to house those who have been evacuated. I am extremely grateful for that and, as always, I continue to encourage councils that have not felt able to make offers or those that can perhaps offer more places of housing to do so. This is a national effort. We are all determined to give Afghan people a warm welcome in this country, and I look forward to working with colleagues across the House to achieve this.

[Caroline Lucas]

I am grateful to the Minister for her response. She says the Government are working “at pace”, but I can promise her it does not feel like that for the Afghans still stuck in Afghanistan with no idea if and how they will be able to get to safety or if and how the Government will deliver on their promises. It certainly does not feel like that to hon. Members who have been writing emails and making phone calls, desperate to get some kind of response from the Home Office and the Foreign Office, and who again and again, frankly, have just been fobbed off with standard, formulaic emails that do not address the problems we are raising with them on a daily basis.

The Afghan citizens resettlement scheme was announced on 18 August, and on 6 September the Prime Minister told the House that the scheme was

“upholding Britain’s finest tradition of welcoming those in need.”—[Official Report, 6 September 2021; Vol. 700, c. 21.]

Yet two months on and counting, we have still heard nothing. That is utterly shameful: lives depend on that scheme—not just those who are at risk from the Taliban, but she will know of the deep and growing humanitarian crisis gripping Afghanistan, with about half the population starving.

Can the Minister tell us how much longer do we have to wait until the resettlement scheme opens? If the scheme is going to be by referral, when will those at risk get information about how their cases can be referred and assessed? Has the Government’s derisory 5,000-person cap on how many Afghan nationals will be helped in the first year already been reached or exceeded before the scheme is even open? Will the Minister tell us, on behalf of all those desperate for safety, including former BBC staff and freelance journalists, how many places have already been allocated and how many are left?

Ministerial promises need to be kept, especially to Chevening families and alumni, so when will the scholars at Sussex University and others elsewhere be told if they are to be included in the ACRS? Will former Chevening scholars and their families get the help they are owed? Those who have been very high profile in their support of Government programmes, especially the president and vice-president of the Chevening alumni, live in daily fear. Why have they not been prioritised, and why have some current scholars been allowed to bring their wider families to the UK, and others not?

Local authorities such as Brighton and Hove, a city of sanctuary, want to know: when will they get firm written assurances that they will receive the promised package of financial support?

Lastly, will the Minister stop sending Afghan family members of British citizens still in Afghanistan into Kafkaesque nightmare situations with referrals to a visa process that the Home Office itself admits is not currently possible from within Afghanistan? Will it instead issue the visa waivers and the emergency travel documents that will help people get the safety they so desperately need?

[Victoria Atkins]

In answer to the hon. Lady’s many questions, she may recall that, in the course of the oral statement on 13 September and indeed in the “Dear colleague” letter that accompanied it, I had to be frank with the House in relation to the emails Members of Parliament had been sending—about people in Afghanistan who are not constituents, but whose safety they understandably want to ensure if they have emailed been and contacted by them—that due to the new situation as it then was in Afghanistan, we would not be able to work those cases as we would expect to in other casework scenarios.

Regrettably, the situation in Afghanistan has not changed since I last addressed the House. We do not have a British Army presence in Afghanistan and we do not have a British consular presence. There are, of course, many members of staff in countries around Afghanistan who are doing their absolute best to work with those who have made the journey into surrounding countries, but we must be realistic about the situation in country. We are working with international partners to find ways and routes out of Afghanistan, but we must do so with the international community.

The hon. Lady mentions the ambitious target of 5,000 that the Prime Minister set for the first year of the Afghan citizens resettlement scheme, and that is in addition to the Afghan relocations and assistance policy, under which many thousands of people were evacuated both before and during Operation Pitting. The majority of Chevening scholars were evacuated, and we are working with international partners to try to find ways for those who remain. The foundation on which the Government are working is to try to do things in what are difficult and fast-evolving circumstances, and to do what is right for people who have already been evacuated here, and those we wish to evacuate in future. I am afraid these things take time, but I hope I have the support of the House in creating the scheme in a way that best serves the interests of Afghans. I understand why the hon. Lady secured this urgent question, but I suggest we will achieve this through day-to-day work and by working together to ensure that the scheme addresses the concerns she raised.