Withdrawal from Afghanistan: Joint Committee

Jamie Stone Excerpts

Wednesday 15th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)]

Sometimes one name, one person can focus the mind tremendously. Linda Norgrove was born in Altnaharra in Sutherland, and she was an aid worker in Afghanistan, helping women and young girls. In 2010, she was kidnapped by the Taliban and killed. Her parents, John and Lorna Norgrove, very bravely set up an aid charity in Linda’s name. The Linda Norgrove Foundation was set up to fund education, health and childcare for women and children affected by the war in Afghanistan. It was desperate to get these people out of Afghanistan and that is why I became personally involved, but I am sad to say, like so many others, that the Government failed to facilitate these people being brought out. They are females and they are Hazara. Working for a foreign NGO, they are at a risk that is almost unbelievably high. I made a number of representations, but they did not come to fruition. So I think about the foundation in Linda Norgrove’s name and find that the fact that the Home Office does not seem to be able to help points to some kind of malaise. I am not one, as I think Members know in this place, to go about blithely and glibly calling for Ministers to be fired or to resign, but—and he has gone now—for the Foreign Secretary to continue in office was utterly unacceptable to me. So there has to be a lesson learned here. I hope it will be and I like to believe in the best of things.

I am going to keep my contribution short, but I will just return to Linda Norgrove. None of us can bring her back, but in a personal way and as a tribute to the braveness of her parents, she is now on the record, she is going to have her name in Hansard and it will be there for a very long time. But she is only one person; there are so many other people. That really is why, because I know the family, I have no hesitation whatsoever in supporting the motion. I do not glibly call for inquiries either—I think you know me well enough, Mr Deputy Speaker—but that is why I support the Labour motion today.