Afghanistan

Lord King of Bridgwater Excerpts

Wednesday 18th August 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord King of Bridgwater (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I am very pleased to follow the most reverend Primate and strongly agree with his remarks.

I start by paying a warm tribute, as have others, to the tremendous number of our forces, including colleagues in both Houses of Parliament, who have served during this long period, which has brought so many benefits to the people of Afghanistan, and our great sadness that that some were not able to return. These recent events reminded me of my maiden speech nearly 20 years ago in your Lordships’ House, when we had just gone into Afghanistan. I had in my pocket the cap badge of my old regiment, which was the Somerset Light Infantry, and on its top is inscribed its battle honour, Jalalabad. Some may remember that there was a successful defence of Jalalabad, which had the duty of welcoming back the returning army from Kabul: 5,000 troops and 10,000 dependants. Your Lordships will remember that only one person arrived. Part of what contributed to that disaster was that six Afghan army regiments deserted during that tragic retreat. I said at the time that it was easy to get into Afghanistan, but often very difficult to get out. Obviously, I very much share that feeling now.

Having said that, the challenge is: what do we do? At the moment, it is difficult to know quite what the Taliban position is. It is all over the place, obviously itself extremely surprised at the speed with which this has happened. It has a PR spokesman offering rather more encouraging pictures, but it is still governed by a 20 year-old manifesto. The question now is what attitude it is going to take.

It is against that background that I particularly welcome the Statement by the Prime Minister today, with his determination to get the maximum international co-operation to make absolutely clear that the Afghan Government, the Taliban Government, now have to bring themselves up to date from their 20 year-old dreams and decide that, if they want to have any sort of relations with other countries in the world, they must start to bring themselves in line with what are the true interests of the people now in Afghanistan, which is very different from what it might have been 20 years ago. We must protect the changes that have happened, particularly for women and children.

There is so much to say in this situation but, to add another thing, while I welcome the announcement about giving more accommodation to desperate people seeking to escape from Afghanistan, we have to realise that the problem of mass migration of refugees has been yet further hijacked and increased by this terrific event that has happened. That will be a continuing challenge for us in the weeks, months and years ahead.