Afghanistan: Humanitarian Crisis Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office
Chris Bryant
Main Page: Chris Bryant (Labour - Rhondda and Ogmore)Department Debates - View all Chris Bryant's debates with the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office
(2 years, 7 months ago)
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Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
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Vicky Ford
The Afghan citizens resettlement scheme was announced by the Minister responsible, my hon. Friend the Member for Louth and Horncastle (Victoria Atkins), just last week. She pointed out that it is coming into place this year. We have announced an aim to settle 5,000 people in the first year of the ACRS. She also announced that, in the light of the emerging situation and the success of evacuation efforts, we will exceed that aim. The first to be resettled included women’s rights activists, journalists and prosecutors, as well as Afghan families of British nationals.
I would encourage my hon. Friend to work with the Minister for Afghan Resettlement on any individual cases that he has, but I would also say, as this question points out, that we need to support those in the country; it is not going to be possible to resettle every single case.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
I am sorry—this is terrible. Every single element of this was not only predictable but predicted repeatedly for 18 months and longer. Operation Pitting was a disaster. We did not actually prioritise the right people, or we have no confidence that we prioritised the right people. We have abandoned lots of people, as the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) said. All of us have constituency connections with people who are stuck in Afghanistan, and the Minister has no means of enabling them to get to safety. We have abandoned them to a future where there is not enough food, there is not enough money to pay the bills, there is no electricity and most of the hospitals are not working properly. We have a complete disaster, and part of the blame for that lies at the Government’s door.
Vicky Ford
During Operation Pitting, we worked at great speed. Our armed forces on the ground worked at great speed and in great danger to evacuate around 15,000 people to the UK. That was the second largest number evacuated by any country, behind only the United States. We are supporting people in Afghanistan.