Afghanistan

Huw Irranca-Davies Excerpts

Tuesday 9th September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

The state of play when I was last in the Ministry of Defence, which was eight weeks ago, was that Camp Bastion will be transferred to the Afghans. That has been agreed in principle: the Afghans want to take control of it. At that stage, there was an issue about how the perimeter would be secured without stretching the forces of 215 Brigade, which is responsible for that area of Afghanistan. In principle, however, a reduced perimeter Bastion will pass into the control of the Afghan national security forces on 31 December.

[Huw Irranca-Davies (Ogmore) (Lab)]

The Foreign Secretary has rightly drawn attention to the very difficult and hard-won progress on equal rights and human rights, not least with regard to the 6.7 million people—3 million of whom are girls and young women—who are now in school. Based on his analysis of the fragility of that progress and the fragile economy and politics of Afghanistan, how confident is the Foreign Secretary that it can be protected?

[Mr Hammond]

The Afghan constitution guarantees the rights of all Afghan citizens and we have to press the future Government of Afghanistan to ensure that the constitutional rights of all citizens are met. We also, of course, have a crucial lever in the Tokyo agreement, which provides that the substantial international aid support to Afghanistan over the years to come is specifically predicated on Afghan delivery on human rights, women’s rights and anti-corruption. By the way, this is not an agenda that we have to force on senior Afghans—all senior Afghan political players embrace it—but it is a deeply conservative country and they have to push this message down the line and make it work in practice across the provinces, towns and cities of Afghanistan. The conference in November will have a significant focus on how we ensure that the Tokyo commitments are delivered and that we work together with the Afghan Government to make that happen.