Afghanistan (International Relations and Defence Committee Report)

Lord Kerr of Kinlochard Excerpts

Monday 24th January 2022 Grand Committee

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)]

It is never a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Boateng, because he shoots one’s foxes with such style. He has just shot four of my foxes so please see what I say as a series of footnotes to his very good speech.

I join the Committee’s unanimity in finding the delay in handling this excellent report absurd. However, the timing is fortuitously convenient because it enables us to ask the Minister to tell us about the weekend meetings in Norway, the Government’s response to Gordon Brown’s weekend appeal and the Government’s answer to what is clearly the number one priority issue: how to stop millions of people starving in Afghanistan this winter.

The report points out:

“Afghanistan is the most aid-dependent country in the world”—


it is talking about the 2020 numbers—with 60% of its budget funded from outside by the international community. Then,

“‘10.9 million people faced “crisis” … levels of hunger’”;

I quote the remarkable report of the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay. The world pledged $3.3 billion of aid for 2021; not all of it got through because of what happened in the summer of 2021. However, the need is much greater now. By December 2021, the UN was estimating that 23 million refugees—more than 50% of the population—faced acute malnutrition. We cannot let this happen. The West won the war, but we must not let our defeat trigger an Afghan apocalypse.

That means recognising reality. It means putting our pride in our pocket and working with the Taliban Government. But without outside budgetary support, they could not, as the report says, maintain basic state services. Yet, as I understand it, all our humanitarian aid now is going via UN agencies and NGOs, and none of it is going to or through the Government in Kabul. What does that mean for public health, education, power supply, transport and the distribution of the desperately needed food? When states fail, it is the poor who suffer. We must not fail the Afghans a second time. The Government in Kabul must be allowed access to the Afghan Government funds held abroad. I am afraid that we really must not let our well-founded concerns about the Taliban’s human rights performance mean that we end up denying the Afghans the most basic of human rights: the right to stay alive, the right to have something to eat.

I never understood why Foreign Secretary Hague derecognised the Assad Government in Syria 10 years ago. Recognition does not imply approval. Recognition provides a basis for doing business. Recognition makes it easier—much easier—and more efficient to do what we need to do now in Afghanistan. We were the first of the great powers to recognise the Bolshevik Government in Petrograd 98 years ago. We have an embassy in Pyongyang; I know, I opened it. We have to face facts, however unpalatable: the Taliban are in charge and we have to do business with them. If we are going to help Afghans, we have to recognise the authority of the Taliban Government now in Kabul.

I would like to make two more points. Unfortunately, they were both made much better than I am able to by the noble Lord, Lord Boateng, but I trade on the Committee’s patience. To ensure that our defeat does not also carry dishonour, we have to deliver on the promises we made to the Afghans—the ones who came here and those we said could come here. In August, as Kabul fell, the Prime Minister said:

“In addition to those Afghans with whom we have worked directly … we are committing to relocating another 5,000 Afghans this year”.—[Official Report, Commons, 18/8/21; col. 1260.]


We also then said, separately, that we would take another 20,000 in “the coming years”—variously four or five years; it was not clear at the time.

But this month the Government have announced that the first tranche of the 20,000 are in fact those brought out in August. In December they revealed that the Prime Minister’s additional 5,000 similarly have been subsumed into the 20,000. In short, it rather looks as though we are now interpreting our commitment—the Prime Minister’s word—as restrictively as possible. It seems that few, if any, new refugees will be let in during this calendar year. I find that rather disappointing and I hope the Minister will comment on it.

In the first place, 20,000 over four or five years is not particularly generous. Canada is taking 35,000 this calendar year and, since 20 August, some 300,000 Afghans have crossed the mountains from Afghanistan into Pakistan to join the 3 million already shivering in the camps round Peshawar. Are we sure that our response to this massive tragedy matches its scale? I am not.

Nor, despite all the fine talk of Operation Warm Welcome, are we treating those who got here in August with conspicuous generosity; again, my fox here was shot by the noble Lord, Lord Boateng. These people are plainly refugees in any reasonable understanding of the word, but they are not being treated as such. They have not been allowed refugee status. Instead, they have been given leave to remain for six months and, five months on, many still have heard no more. Those whose position has been regularised have been given indefinite leave to remain. That does not carry the rights that come with refugee status, such as the right to family reunion. The majority, of course, are still living in temporary accommodation in hotels; as of today, the number is 84. They are unable to work. Their children are not in school. They are still in the dark about where in the United Kingdom they will eventually be settled. That does not come across as a particularly warm welcome. We could, and should, have done better; indeed, we still must. I hope that the Minister will be able to say something about that too.

However, the number one priority must be to make sure that as many of those left behind in Afghanistan as possible survive the Afghan winter. That means accelerated and enhanced international action urgently, as Gordon Brown said this weekend. It also means recognising reality and recognising the Taliban. The crisis unfolding right now is partly of our making because it springs from our policy failures and defeat. We must not just shrug our shoulders and walk away.