Oral Answers to Questions Debate

Full Debate: Read Full Debate
Department: Ministry of Defence

Oral Answers to Questions

James Gray Excerpts
Monday 20th September 2021

(2 years, 6 months ago)

Commons Chamber
Read Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Leo Docherty Portrait Leo Docherty
- Parliament Live - Hansard - - - Excerpts

We are extending that warm hand of welcome. Of course, there is the requirement for some people to be in quarantine, but I can assure the hon. Member that a very thorough effort is being put in place to ensure that that hand of friendship is extended to all who have arrived.

James Gray Portrait James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)
- Hansard - -

Mr Speaker, thanks to your very kind invitation, 120 members of the armed forces who served will be welcomed to Parliament on 20 October, immediately after Prime Minister’s Question Time. I hope all Members of the House will be there to give them a very warm welcome. I very much hope we are giving just as warm a welcome to all the refugees coming back from Afghanistan. There are 100 in my constituency. How can we find a way to give them a warmer welcome? Could local communities, for example, find ways of welcoming them to barbeques or other ways to make them feel at home?

Leo Docherty Portrait Leo Docherty
- Parliament Live - Hansard - - - Excerpts

I am grateful for that question. I would like to put on record my thanks to my hon. Friend’s good offices for making that happen. Of course, there will be a very significant role for the wider community and the third sector to play in welcoming our Afghan friends. I recently visited an Afghan cricket team that had been put together by a local pastor. The whole community is quite demonstrably coming together.