Afghanistan: FCDO Update

Clive Efford Excerpts

Monday 6th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Dominic Raab]

I am not going to go into too much of the operational detail, but it is fair to say that the new iteration of the Taliban are a more sophisticated operator in many ways—with regard not just to the comms that they are engaged in, but their ability to use technology. That could, at least at one level, have a positive effect, but it also creates new risks and threats, which we will monitor carefully with our allies.

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

I pay tribute to everyone who worked on the airlift from 15 August.

We had 18 months’ notice that this situation would come about, but I have to say to the Foreign Secretary that the organisation here—for us, raising cases on behalf of our constituents—was nothing short of chaotic, with different phone numbers, a lack of information and a lack of feedback. We still do not know whether anything that we wrote and passed in on behalf of our constituents had any effect whatever. The Foreign Secretary has said that the work to get people to safety started long before 15 August and that 500 UK nationals got out. That does not sound like many. What of those people we had an obligation to in Afghanistan—the Afghanistan nationals who worked with our Government? How many of them did we get out before 15 August?

[Dominic Raab]

The hon. Gentleman issues a fair challenge, but I am afraid that there is an equally fair and reasonable answer. We have standing evacuation plans in place for all high-risk embassies. As I have made clear before, although we considered all eventualities, our central assessment was that there would be a slow deterioration in security from the end of August, after NATO troops were withdrawn. From April, in the run-up to our June G7 summit, I was focused on securing the US assurances to allow us to shift our embassy from the green zone to the airport.

The hon. Gentleman asked about what we were doing in the months that preceded the evacuation. From April, we sped up the relocation of former Afghan staff under the ARAP programme. In answer to his question, in that period from April onwards we relocated nearly 2,000 people. We changed our advice in April and again later on, so from April we have been very clear in advising British nationals to consider leaving Afghanistan. Our timing, by way of international comparator, was in sync with our NATO allies. I also point out that commercial flights were running until 14 August. No one—not even the Taliban, I think—had expected them to gain ground as rapidly as they did. I think that is the view among NATO allies. It was certainly also the view of regional partners when I was in the region, in Qatar and Pakistan, last week.