Former Afghan Special Forces: Deportation

Stella Creasy Excerpts

Monday 11th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[James Heappey]

In the last couple of weeks, I think—off the top of my head—about seven flights, so about 1,700 people, have come to the UK. In December, we will move significantly more than in any month since August 2021, when Operation Pitting happened. Those moves are a combination of ARAP and ACRS. The reason we are able to move them at such pace is that we have mobilised quite a significant amount of the MOD training estate to act as transitional accommodation. We are trying to move people through as quickly as possible into service family accommodation which we have made available. We are hugely grateful to local authorities all over the country for how closely they are working with us to deliver that.

[Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

While no one doubts that this is a complex situation, the cases that we are bringing up reflect how it has been managed, and I think that that is what presents the challenge. I have two separate constituents who were under the direct supervision of UK forces; indeed, the UK paid for them to be trained, so there should be a record in the UK that they were working for the Afghan forces. The Minister said himself that he felt sick about people who would have worked alongside colleagues who may now be at risk of harm as a result of being deported back from Pakistan to Afghanistan. Will he meet those of us who have constituency cases that we believe should meet his threshold for an intervention so that we can establish whether anyone has been missed out, and ensure that we do not miss out people who served with our colleagues for want of a piece of paper?

[James Heappey]

Of course I would like to meet the hon. Lady to discuss those cases. Given the way she described them, my instinct suggests that these may have been people who served in units that were mentored or partnered by the UK armed forces; indeed, my own battalion, on the tour on which it went shortly after I left, did exactly that with the kandaks who were based in Helmand at the time. That does not quite constitute what ARAP was set up to do, but I would love to sit down with the hon. Lady to talk through the details of the cases. If I am right and she is wrong, I should like to explain, and if she is right and I am wrong, we will of course look at the eligibility of those people.