Afghanistan

Ian Blackford Excerpts

Monday 6th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My right hon. Friend deserves to be listened to with great respect on Afghanistan. From his service, he understands these issues deeply, but I must tell him that people listening to this debate across the country could be forgiven for not recognising that this country ceased military operations in Afghanistan in 2014. What we are doing now is making sure that we work with our friends and partners around the world to prevent Afghanistan from relapsing into a breeding ground for terror, to make sure that we use all the levers that we can to ensure that the rights of women and girls are respected, and to make sure that everybody who wants safe passage out of Afghanistan is allowed it. That is what we are going to do, and we will continue to show leadership in the G7, the P5, NATO and all the other forums in which this country leads the west.

[Ian Blackford (Ross, Skye and Lochaber) (SNP)]

May I thank all those who assisted in the evacuation from Afghanistan over the past few weeks? May I also thank the Prime Minister for the advance copy of his statement? Normally we have a Cabinet Minister sent to the House to cover for the Prime Minister, but today we have before us the Prime Minister desperately trying to cover for a Foreign Secretary who should have been sacked weeks ago. In Committee last week, the Foreign Secretary failed to answer even basic questions from my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South (Stewart Malcolm McDonald). I genuinely hope that the Prime Minister is better prepared today.

There is barely an MP in this House who has not submitted urgent and sensitive information to the Foreign Office on UK and Afghan nationals desperate to find safe passage away from the Taliban. It is a disgrace that most of these urgent queries have been left unresolved and unanswered. It is a disgrace not for us, but for all those who have been left behind—UK and Afghan nationals who are now fearful and, in many cases, in hiding. Thousands of desperate people—people we have a debt of responsibility to—have been left with no clarity, no answers and no help. So let me ask the Prime Minister: what assessment has been made of the number of UK nationals left in Afghanistan, and what plans are there to assist them? How many Afghans who qualify under the ARAP scheme as interpreters or in other groups have been left behind? Will the Prime Minister apologise to those who have been left behind, left high and dry—those the UK has a responsibility to?

Last night, in correspondence from Lord Ahmad, the Government gave the excuse that delays in evacuating all those with rights were because the Foreign Office had received more correspondence than during covid. But there is a fundamental difference: no one knew that covid was coming. The Government had 18 months to prepare an exit strategy in Afghanistan. So can the Prime Minister give a firm deadline for when the massive backlog of applications will be processed and provide a new target date for when safe passage will be offered to those UK and Afghan citizens?

When Parliament was recalled, the Prime Minister publicly agreed to hold a four-nations summit on the UK’s responsibility to welcome refugees here. May I ask him to give us the date when that summit will take place? Finally, with all the talk of a Cabinet reshuffle, can the Prime Minister guarantee that the Foreign Secretary will finally be sacked in any reshuffle—or does he intend to reward incompetence?

[The Prime Minister]

I am always happy to meet representatives of the Scottish Government and other devolved Administrations, of course.

The right hon. Gentleman asked some specific questions about the handling of requests from those still in Afghanistan and those who have been interceding on their behalf. I can tell him that by close of play today every single one of the emails from colleagues around this House will be answered—thousands and thousands have already been done. As for the question of how many ARAP candidates are remaining, I can tell him that the total number is 311, of whom 192 responded to the calls that were put out. I repeat that we will do absolutely everything we can to ensure that those people get the safe passage that they deserve, using the levers that I have described. But the contrast should be readily apparent to everybody in this country with the huge number—15,000 people—we were able to help just in the course of those few days in August. I think people will understand that it was a very considerable effort by our armed forces.