Afghanistan Humanitarian Crisis: UK Response

Kim Leadbeater Excerpts

Wednesday 9th February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Vicky Ford]

As I mentioned earlier, this is an extremely serious situation. My colleague Lord Ahmad regularly meets the various aid organisations that we work with, and he has been meeting Afghan leaders, including many women Afghan leaders, to ensure that they are feeding into our projects. Just last week, he met a group of very senior Afghan women who have come to this country, including businesswomen and judges, to feed in their views and what they are hearing from the communities they have left behind, to ensure that that is helping to shape our policies.

[Kim Leadbeater (Batley and Spen) (Lab)]

As we have heard and seen in the utterly heartbreaking scenes on our TV screens every night, urgent humanitarian aid is absolutely essential, but people in Afghanistan also desperately need access to basic public services. Can the Minister set out what the Government are doing to co-ordinate a global plan to get the money needed to keep local schools, clinics and hospitals running?

[Vicky Ford]

The money that we have already announced is providing over 6 million people not only with food but with health, water, protection, shelter and so on. I agree on the importance of ensuring that children and young people, especially girls, can return to school. The Taliban have said that they can, but we want to see that delivered when schools reopen at the end of the holidays at the beginning of March. We will continue to work with other organisations, especially going into the UN pledging conference, to call people together to ensure that those donations come through.