Afghanistan

Lord Jay of Ewelme Excerpts

Wednesday 18th August 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Jay of Ewelme (CB)]

My Lords, all of us involved over the last 30 years in one way or another in policy towards Afghanistan will feel pretty gutted at the events of the last few days. Many of us have seen at first hand the courage and commitment of our soldiers, diplomats, aid workers and others and, of course, of the Afghan men and women with whom we worked. There will, of course, come a time to look at how we got to where we are now—and, indeed, the circumstances in which military intervention may be justified. In my view, today is not the day to do that. But I do hope that out of all this will come a foreign policy based more on cold realism and less on rhetoric.

I will make three points. First, we must, if at all possible, maintain an embassy in Kabul, provided, of course, that our people are safe. Without it, we lose influence and understanding—and neither of those can we afford. I hope that Laurie Bristow, for whom I have the highest admiration, can stay. Can the Minister give us any assurance on this, at least of the Government’s intention?

Secondly, we must offer and seek to deliver—not easy, I know—humanitarian aid. Thirdly, we must work with others—the EU, the US, China, Russia, Afghanistan and Afghanistan’s neighbours to try to ensure a stable Afghanistan that is not a breeding ground for terrorists. There is surely a common interest here and the UN will have a key role to play, as the noble Baroness mentioned in her opening speech.

No one knows what sort of Taliban regime will emerge from the present crisis, nor how coherent it will be. With others, we may be able to affect things; on our own we will not. It will be a hard slog and it will be unglamorous, but it may just make a difference, and we owe it to those who have given so much.