UK Support for Aid Workers and the Afghan People

James Sunderland Excerpts

Thursday 10th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)]

The Select Committee on International Development published its report, “Afghanistan: UK support for aid workers and the Afghan people” last Friday, one week after Russia invaded Ukraine. I thank all the witnesses we had; I thank the members of the Committee; and I thank our excellent Committee team for all their work, both on the inquiry and on putting the report together. Our focus was on the impact of the Afghanistan withdrawal on the humanitarian situation in that country, its impact on the operation of aid organisations and the people working for them, and how to help prevent similar impacts from playing out in the UK’s response to other humanitarian crises in future. We brought forward publication of our report by a week, as we noted with grave concern parallels emerging in the UK’s response to the rapidly deteriorating situation in Ukraine.

UK and allied forces left Afghanistan in August 2021. The Taliban takeover was rapid. The humanitarian jeopardy is extreme, and the scale of the humanitarian response required is unprecedented. At the same time, the safety of aid workers has been compromised. Any contingency plans that the Government had for evacuating aid workers were neither apparent to the sector nor scaled adequately. Some Afghans who worked on projects funded by the UK Government are now reporting that their lives are at risk of reprisals from the Taliban authorities. Aid workers are at the forefront of responding to people in humanitarian jeopardy. Our report concludes that the Government have a moral duty towards those workers who have helped deliver UK aid projects in Afghanistan and, by extension, aid workers helping to deliver UK aid elsewhere.

The Government’s immigration schemes do not adequately support aid workers seeking safe passage to the UK. Many Afghan aid workers feel abandoned by our Government. The Committee’s concern about immigration routes was narrow: the Government’s treatment of Afghan aid workers seeking safe passage to the UK. In our December oral evidence session, witnesses told us that the Government’s contingency plans for the evacuation of aid workers were neither apparent to the sector nor scaled adequately. Our report calls on the Government to accelerate without further delay all pathways of the Afghan citizens resettlement scheme, and ensure that aid sector staff are explicitly recognised and prioritised for protection under that scheme.

We fear that the same approach to people fleeing a humanitarian crisis is being adopted by the UK Government in their response to Ukraine. Yesterday, we heard worrying reports that Ukrainian staff in the British embassy in Kyiv are being denied entry to the UK. Some British staff have described what is happening as “Afghanistan part 2”. Once again, we see the Government showing the same inflexibilities by only making limited, begrudging concessions to pre-existing UK immigration routes; failing to provide sufficient clarity on what routes are available; and dragging their feet in setting up new routes, or variations to existing ones. That response must change.

Following 40 years of war, the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan is devastating and worsening. The withdrawal of UK and allied forces precipitated the rapid collapse of the previous Afghan Government and takeover by Taliban militants. Since then, the number of people needing humanitarian assistance has grown to 24.4 million, more than half the population. Some 23 million people are facing acute hunger. It has been a harsh winter, following hard on the heels of Afghanistan’s worst drought in 27 years, and its people continue to suffer as the country emerges into spring. We are deeply grateful to aid workers, be they British, Afghan or any other nationality, for all they have done and continue to do for the people of Afghanistan. The work they do is phenomenal, but my Committee is ashamed that our Government have not given them the support and clarity they need. In our report, we urge the Government to take a broader, more holistic view of their duty of care towards people working in the aid sector. They simply do not accord those people the respect and support they deserve.

In terms of humanitarian need, witnesses told us how overlapping factors are affecting the situation in Afghanistan and the disbursal of aid to the Afghan people. There has been a complex interplay between the banking liquidity crisis and the deepening humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan. Women, children and minority groups are suffering disproportionately. Our Committee heard how international sanctions designed to punish the Taliban were instead cruelly punishing the people of Afghanistan. We heard how the UK Government have been too slow to act on mitigating the impact of those sanctions. In our report, we conclude that the Government should have liaised more effectively and swiftly with the aid sector, international allies and financial institutions to help to resolve the challenges that sanctions pose to the aid sector, address the collapse of the banking system in Afghanistan and free up the nominated funds frozen by the World Bank.

We welcome the UN Security Council’s December 2021 adoption of a resolution to provide exemptions from sanctions for humanitarian assistance. It also provides exemptions for other activities designed to support basic needs, such as the provision of shelter, food and water, education, health, nutrition and hygiene. We also welcome the UK Government’s adoption of that resolution into UK law at the end of January this year. We urge our Government to further step up their efforts to work with the UN and aid organisations to ensure they can effectively operate under those exemptions. Furthermore, we call on the UK Government to press for the UN Security Council to extend that resolution or bring forward further resolutions to provide additional exemptions for development assistance, closely linked to the performance of the Taliban on upholding human rights and international law.

The World Bank released a statement on 1 March, after the Committee’s report had gone to print, noting further progress on agreeing a plan for the release of further funds from the Afghanistan reconstruction trust fund. We urge the Government to do more to encourage the World Bank to swiftly release the remaining funds, so that aid organisations can use that money to provide humanitarian assistance to the people of Afghanistan. The Government have pledged significant sums of aid since their withdrawal from Afghanistan, but the release of that aid to people who so desperately need it has been excruciatingly slow. The Committee’s report concludes that the Government should have worked faster to disburse the aid they pledged to Afghanistan in 2021.

We urge the Government to continue to support the Afghan people, to whom they have a moral responsibility given the decades of UK military and political interventions there. At the same time, we fear that the narrative of the UK not acting swiftly enough to disburse pledged UK aid will play out in their response to Ukraine. Again the Government have pledged significant sums of aid, but how quick will they be to disburse that aid to the Ukrainian people? Speed is of the absolute essence when people’s very lives hang in the balance. I commend the report, and this statement, to the House.

[James Sunderland (Bracknell) (Con)]

I thank the hon. Member for her excellent statement. I do not want to put her on the spot, but can I ask her what duty of care she thinks the Government have towards aid workers?

[Sarah Champion]

The Government’s contracts with non-governmental organisations are very clear that they do not have a direct duty of care. However, my Committee felt that they do have a moral duty of care, because in the country in which they operate, they are operating as the face of the UK Government—they are going to stations with the UK flag on them, with “UK Aid” written on them, particularly when they are working directly with the UK embassy. We felt that the Government very much have a moral duty towards aid workers, even if there is not a personnel-type duty towards them.