Afghan Resettlement Update

Crispin Blunt Excerpts

Tuesday 28th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Johnny Mercer]

My presence here today indicates that we have clearly not given up on these people. It is incredibly difficult to get people out of Afghanistan: nobody is happy with what has happened in that country. We have opened up ACRS and ARAP applications to third countries, and I encourage people to apply to that and to get themselves on the scheme. We will do everything we can to see through our duty to them.

[Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)]

Mr Deputy Speaker, given your recommendation for short questions, I have a number of questions that I will table as written parliamentary questions. Can I just say how much I welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement, and the candour with which he has approached it and with which he is answering the questions?

I want to ask about one element. I have been involved in supporting someone who trained with me at Sandhurst a very long time ago, and in assisting that family. No doubt, there will be endless examples of others who are in the same position. I was slightly concerned about a scheme I offered to the Defence Minister, my right hon. Friend’s successor as Veterans Minister, to mobilise wider support for this particular community, not least engagement in creating the social housing referred to by the Opposition spokesman, the right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey). I wonder why it was that people who could support that scheme were told that they could not do so in Army time.

[Johnny Mercer]

If my hon. Friend wants to write to me, I am more than happy to address what has happened there, but I have to be honest with him: I am not overly interested in how we got to where we are. There are a number of reasons—it has been an incredibly difficult situation. The collapse of Afghanistan has been unprecedented in our generation, and seeing through our duties to these people has been incredibly difficult. I am not going to consistently go over and reheat that argument. Now, we have a clear set of commitments: we have a significant financial commitment to these people, and a duty to get them out of hotels and open up that pipeline, allowing people to come into this country. That is what we are going to do.