Afghanistan (International Relations and Defence Committee Report)

Lord Boateng Excerpts

Monday 24th January 2022 Grand Committee

[Lord Boateng (Lab)]

My Lords, a debt of gratitude is owed to the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, and the whole committee for the work that has gone into this report, particularly to the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, for her persistence in seeking to get the Government to respond to it and find time for this debate. They have done so, as numerous other noble Lords have pointed out, only belatedly. A particular debt is also owed to the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, who has given a lifetime of service to this country and the diplomatic corps for his reflections on the debacle—as he described it—that Afghanistan represents.

The Minister has an undoubted commitment to human rights and to the values that we all share in our House. He is the Minister for Reassurance, when it comes to foreign and international development policy. He carries out that role with great skill and eloquence. But even he will fail to be reassuring in this instance, because there is nothing in this whole sorry saga that gives us any cause for comfort, let alone the complacency that I fear is sometimes shown in the departmental response to what has occurred in Afghanistan.

For me, the most powerful message from the committee’s report is the conclusion that

“despite the scale of the UK’s involvement”

in Afghanistan

“both military and economic, over recent years, there were few traces of a coherent overall policy approach.”

That is undoubtedly true, but it is also undoubtedly true that there has been no trace whatever of a coherent overall policy approach in relation to everything that has occurred after our withdrawal from Afghanistan.

The challenge for the Government at this time is to come up with such a coherent approach, because one is desperately needed, as the situation in Afghanistan during these winter months reveals so starkly. Millions of people face literal starvation. That is beyond a shadow of a doubt. If we claim to have their interests at heart and to be upholding the values that we hold dear, we have to have a better answer than has so far been forthcoming in relation to how we will, through our overseas development aid, meet the scale of the humanitarian crisis that Afghanistan faces.

It simply will not do to say that we have to be careful in case aid falls into the wrong hands. The reality is that aid to Afghanistan has been falling into the wrong hands for many years. The previous Government in Afghanistan were corrupt, beyond a shadow of a doubt, yet we continued to make them a major beneficiary of our development aid. What is the justification now for failing to take some risk—yes, there is a risk—to ensure that women and children, the elderly and the dispossessed have at least some hope of seeing this winter through, and that Afghanistan’s economy has some hope of beginning to recover? It is very hard to justify and explain how a nation that purports to be concerned about the role of women in the country and economy can do what we have done, in circumstances that undermine any possibility of women engaging in, for instance, the carpet trade and continuing to earn a basic living from a trade when it depends on exports, which have been made absolutely impossible by the policies adopted by ourselves and, above all, the United States of America.

If we are concerned about women being active participants in the economy, as I believe we should be, then we have to do something to create an enabling environment in which that is possible. At the moment, frankly, the stance that we are taking in relation to sanctions on Afghanistan makes that impossible. I ask the Minister to give us some indication that that policy is being re-examined.

I would also like a response from the Minister to the points made by the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Richards, in his evidence to the Foreign Affairs Select Committee in the other place. He pointed out that we have adopted a policy after our defeat—his word—in Afghanistan which makes it that much more difficult to secure that country in terms of stability and international safety in relation to a possible resurgence of terrorist activity in that area by the stance that we have taken. He said:

“My own view is that we now need to accept our defeat, which is what it is; we need to work with our eyes wide open with the Taliban—engage with them. The whole issue of recognition is, I think, a distraction at the moment. We need to engage with them, influence them through a combination of carrot and stick … and preserve life in the short term, but influence into the longer term, and try to work with those Taliban who I think we should take at face value.”


If a former Chief of Defence Staff who has himself fought in Afghanistan is able to come to that conclusion then, frankly, who are we to gainsay him? What insight and understanding do we have that are better than his? I simply do not see it.

It is likewise in relation to the former Secretary of State for International Development, Rory Stewart, who in evidence to the same committee pointed out the implications of our current policy. Again, I draw his words to the attention of noble Lords and the Minister:

“The first thing to understand is that the Afghan Government is going to be bankrupt anyway, so they will not have a lot of money to spend on weapons and stuff. Some 60% of their budget came from international donors—that is no longer going to come, whatever happens. They can barely pay to keep the electricity going, and a quarter of the hospitals and clinics have closed”.


I repeat: a quarter of the hospitals and clinics have closed. He continued:

“There is money sitting—there is nearly $9 billion currently frozen in the United States. There is a whole World Bank mechanism called the Afghan Reconstruction Trust Fund. That money can be put into UN agencies such as UNICEF and WFP, and into Save the Children”.


Well? Is it going to be put into UN agencies or into the hands of those respected NGOs?

Rory Stewart, and indeed the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Richards, recognise that there will be some dividend through the tax system for the Taliban as a result, but the resulting benefit to the hard-pressed people of Afghanistan mean that is a price worth paying. That is a view we all ought to take. I hope the Minister will come to understand that it is the view of very many of us who are concerned to see a change in the stance and policy of Her Majesty’s Government towards the peoples of Afghanistan, so that we can truly uphold the values that we have purported to be seeking to uphold in that country.

I come now to my final point. Again, it is a values-driven point. It relates not to what is happening in Afghanistan now but what is happening in our own country now. It relates to those Afghani refugees who currently find themselves between a rock and a hard place because of the lack of any coherent policy in our country and the Home Office’s failure to work effectively with the Local Government Association. This is about the failure of a resettlement policy that makes it very difficult for local councils, even when they wish to help; further, more of them wish to help than are currently able to help because of problems in relation to the funding of the resettlement programme.

What assurance can the Minister give us that there will not be a protracted stay on the part of Afghani people resettled in this country in former military accommodation? We know that such accommodation is grossly inadequate and not the sort of place where one would want to bring up children. These children, these people, are already traumatised by what they experienced in Afghanistan. I am afraid that they are being retraumatised in our country—in our own back yard. That is happening in Kent and all over the country where Afghani refugees are currently being housed. Local authorities are entitled to a better deal than the one they have had from the Home Office. I urge the Minister, who I know cares about these issues, to consult his colleagues in the Home Office and the communities department so that something can be done to support local authorities up and down the country and improve the lot of those Afghanis who have managed to get out and desperately need our help.