Flick Drummond
Main Page: Flick Drummond (Conservative - Meon Valley)Department Debates - View all Flick Drummond's debates with the Ministry of Defence
(3 years ago)
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James Heappey
Clearly, the announcement was that there will be no military presence in Afghanistan. Air support can come from outwith Afghanistan, and I suspect that decisions on that would be based on the security situation at the time. However, I think that the priority of all in NATO is to force the pace of a political settlement, which our departure does. What we should all hope for is a successful political outcome, where the capabilities that the right hon. Gentleman draws our attention to would not be required.
Mrs Flick Drummond (Meon Valley) (Con)
Will my hon. and gallant Friend tell the House how confident the Government are that the peace negotiations will bring the right governance and security to Afghanistan by September and, in particular, that women will continue to have rights under a future regime? Only in the last few months, several women have been targeted for assassination, apparently by the Taliban. The treatment of women under the Taliban was totally unacceptable, and as the co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on women, peace and security, I do not want to see any reversal of women’s rights in Afghanistan, but I am afraid I do not share the Minister’s optimistic outlook on this issue.
James Heappey
I thank my hon. Friend for her question and for her work in chairing the APPG, to which I think my right hon. Friend the Minister for the Middle East and North Africa and I will present the annual report in the coming weeks. The work on this issue is important and characterises so much of our contribution to conflicts. My hon. Friend will be aware that 3.7 million girls are now in school—a huge step forward from zero, which was previously the case. There is an expectation in Afghan society that is far more powerful than any military stick that may be wielded, and one can only hope that that is irreversible. The genie is out of the bottle, and once women and girls have that expectation and it becomes the norm in society, it is awfully hard—even for the Taliban—to reverse it.