Afghanistan

James Sunderland Excerpts

Monday 6th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I am very grateful to the hon. Lady. I am very sorry to hear what happened at Hamid Karzai International airport. I hope they will be successful under the resettlement scheme. If she would be kind enough to send details through to the Home Secretary, I would be very grateful.

[James Sunderland (Bracknell) (Con)]

It is very easy to apportion blame with the benefit of hindsight, but this is a really complex environment and the current situation is as much a failure of leadership in Afghanistan as anything else. While we may not want to engage with the Taliban, does the Prime Minister agree that we have no choice but to do so, perhaps with a forward presence in Kabul in the same way as our Chinese and Russian adversaries?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is very wise in what he says. I believe that it is inevitable for us to engage with the Taliban. Indeed, we have been: at the airport, British troops were working directly with their Taliban counterparts to ensure that the operation went through. That was an inevitability. We will of course look at further co-operation, but as I said to the House, we will judge the new regime in Kabul not by what they say, but by what they do.