British Council Contractors: Afghanistan

John Baron Excerpts

Thursday 23rd June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr John Baron (Basildon and Billericay) (Con) (Urgent Question)]

To ask the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs to make a statement on British Council contractors in Afghanistan.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs (Vicky Ford)]

Last August, when the situation in Afghanistan was deteriorating so rapidly, the UK Government worked at great speed to evacuate more than 15,000 people from the country within a fortnight. This was the biggest mission of its kind in generations, and the second largest evacuation carried out by any country. We are right to be proud of what our British forces and others achieved at that time. Those evacuated included British nationals and their families and about 500 particularly vulnerable Afghans, including some British Council contractors, journalists, human rights defenders, campaigners for women’s rights, judges, and many others. All former British Council employees who wished to resettle have arrived in the UK, with their family members.

The British Council played an important role in Afghanistan in working to support the UK mission there and to promote our values. It is right that the Government do the right thing for British Council employees and contractors, and that includes resettling eligible contractors if they are at risk. Therefore, in January this year the then Minister for Afghan Resettlement, my hon. Friend the Member for Louth and Horncastle (Victoria Atkins), announced the launch of a new Afghan citizens resettlement scheme, which will resettle up to 20,000 eligible people over the coming years. There is no application process for the scheme, but people can express an interest in resettlement.

Eligible individuals will be referred for resettlement via three referral “pathways”. Under pathway 3, we are committed to considering eligible at-risk British Council and GardaWorld contractors as well as Chevening alumni. The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office will refer up to 1,500 people from Afghanistan and the region to the Home Office for resettlement, including eligible family members. On 20 June the FCDO opened an online system, whereby eligible individuals can express their interest in resettlement.

[Mr Baron]

Thank you for granting the urgent question, Mr Speaker, and I thank the Minister for her response.

Members on both sides of the House have expressed our pride in and gratitude for Operation Pitting. However, I must say to the Minister that about 180 British Council contractors remain in Afghanistan, 85 of whom have been classified by us as being at “very high risk”, while a further 90 or so are deemed to be at “high risk”. They live in constant fear for their lives, moving from safe house to safe house as they are hunted by the Taliban. After questions in the House and a positive meeting with Lord Harrington, we finally secured a written ministerial statement last week announcing the opening of the ACRS on Monday, and that was welcome.

As the Minister mentioned, there is now a window for British Council contractors, GardaWorld employees and Chevening scholars to submit expressions of interest in coming to the UK, but this application window is open for two months, which may mean that submissions will not be processed by the Government, or decisions confirmed on individual submissions, until the middle of August. That would further delay the contractors’ journey to safety. However, responses to my written parliamentary questions earlier this week suggest that there might be some flexibility to allow applications to be processed before the window closes.

I suggest to the Minister that there is too much ambiguity, given the urgency of the case. It is clearly unacceptable that, 10 months after the fall of Kabul, we remain in this situation in which contractors—not just British Council contractors, but personnel who have promoted British interests, values and culture in Afghanistan—are still trying to sort out an application process that has taken too long as a result of bureaucracy. I therefore seek clarification on two important issues, and I would appreciate that clarification, because I do not want to keep coming back to the Chamber to pressurise the Government. I want answers, to help these people.

First, will submissions from those who are deemed to be at “very high risk” and “high risk” be processed before the closing of the application window in two months’ time—and here we are talking about the third week in August? Secondly, will their relocation to the UK or, in the interim, a third country, also be expedited so that they are able to leave Afghanistan as soon as they have been approved under the ACRS?

[Vicky Ford]

My hon. Friend has played an important role in championing the British Council, which does amazing work across the world—I have seen a lot of that work at first hand. It is absolutely right that we try to support the contractors, which is why we have made this online scheme available. We need to give people reasonable time to submit their expression of interest. I will look at the issue of very high-risk individuals, but we have not stopped taking people from Afghanistan since the end of Operation Pitting last August. In fact, another 4,600 people have since come to the UK, many through the Afghan relocations and assistance policy, including Ministry of Defence contractors and a wide range of other people such as members of the LGBT community, journalists, prosecutors, women’s rights activists and some country-based staff. Those 4,600 people have come here, and others have been referred through the UN pathways.