Resettlement of Afghans

Debate between Caroline Lucas and Johnny Mercer

Tuesday 19th September 2023 Commons Chamber

[Johnny Mercer]

I am always looking at what more we can do in this space. It is easy to forget the depth of the carnage in Afghanistan. We had someone in the scheme who was forced to sell one of his children. He emailed us and said, “I am going to have to sell my child tomorrow,” and he did. It is horrific. That is why we all need to lean in and work as hard as we can. What has happened there is extraordinary. We will continue to lean into that and do what we can in these horrific situations.

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

The Minister said that he looks forward to welcoming more of those who stood up for British values at great personal risk, so I want to draw his attention to precisely one of those. My constituent is a former Chevening scholar who has been in fear of his life since 2021. He has, at last, been provisionally accepted on ACRS pathway 3. On UK Government advice, he travelled to Pakistan with his wife and young family for final checking, but they have been left there since May. Their passports are due to run out in a matter of weeks, and they are petrified that they will be sent back to Afghanistan once they become undocumented. It is simply not right that they have been left there. I have not been successful in raising this issue by email and letter, so will the Minister meet me to try to resolve this urgent case?

[Johnny Mercer]

I ask the hon. Lady to send me the details of the case directly. As far as I am aware, we have responded to all individual cases. I am well aware of the strategic situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The Prime Minister asked me to do a specific job on hotels, which we had to do before we could even think about bringing people over from Afghanistan. We have now done that. The Government recognise their commitments, and we will have more to say on that in due course.