Afghanistan

Imran Hussain Excerpts

Monday 6th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

We helped 36 countries to repatriate their nationals or those they had helped, but we could not have done it had it not been for the bravery of the US military and the commitment of the US military, and I passionately agree with what my right hon. Friend has just said about the fundamental importance of our alliance with the United States of America.

[Imran Hussain (Bradford East) (Lab)]

The Government leaving vulnerable Afghans and British nationals behind is unforgivable, but what is completely and utterly reprehensible is that the families of two of my constituents, including a seven-month-old child, were forcibly removed from flights and thrown out of Kabul airport on to the streets, the scene of the horrific suicide bombing hours before. I am absolutely furious, and I want to ask the Prime Minister how on earth this potentially fatal decision was allowed to happen, even after I had raised these matters with the Ministers sitting to his left and his right. How many others were ejected from the airport into harm’s way, and just what does he have to say to the families that the Government have now put in grave danger?

[The Prime Minister]

I thank the hon. Member very much for raising the case. I have to tell him that I am told we have no evidence of anybody being pulled off flights, but obviously I would ask him to raise the particular cases directly with my right hon. Friends beside me. But I can tell him that I think, when he looks at the overall record of the UK moving people out of Kabul and across the whole of Afghanistan, it was an astonishing feat.