Afghan Resettlement Update

Holly Mumby-Croft Excerpts

Tuesday 28th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Johnny Mercer]

Nobody who is in Afghanistan who is accepted by, or is eligible for, ARAP or ACRS will be disadvantaged as a result of what we are doing today. The situation in Pakistan, where we have over 1,000 people in hotels waiting to get to the UK, is clearly and demonstrably unacceptable. The challenge is that we cannot do anything about that if we have people in hotels in this country who have been offered accommodation and should have taken that accommodation, but are still residing in hotels, not allowing us to unblock that pipeline.

The hon. Gentleman knows my commitment on this issue, and I want to work with everybody on all sides of the House. I know that this Government have made commitments on this issue, but it is not an inter-party political issue: it is the nation’s duty to this cohort of Afghans who kept a lot of our constituents alive during the fight in Afghanistan. I urge all colleagues to work together to make sure that we can build that pipeline and honour our commitments to the people of that country.

[Holly Mumby-Croft (Scunthorpe) (Con)]

We certainly do owe a huge debt of gratitude to those brave Afghans who helped our armed forces and stood up for the values that we believe in, and I will not be alone in the House in remembering cases of individuals and families my office helped. My right hon. Friend is passionate about this, and he is an expert; frankly, his word is good enough for me on this. Is he absolutely reassured that this is the right thing to do?

[Johnny Mercer]

I have no doubts that it is the right thing to do, otherwise I would not be stood here today. It is an incredibly difficult policy area, so nothing is black and white: there is no zero-sum calculation here where everything we do is going to sort this out, and there is no zero-risk option here. However, that is not a good enough reason to not try to see through our commitments to a very difficult population. I keep hearing “18 months” thrown at me from the other side of the Chamber, but this has been an unprecedented situation. Nobody wanted these people to stay in hotels for over a year. We have clearly opened up these pathways; we want to make sure that these people integrate into UK society properly, and I am absolutely convinced that this is the right thing to do.