Afghanistan

Tobias Ellwood Excerpts

Monday 6th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The right hon. and learned Gentleman did not put many questions to me. He made the general assertion that the Government had not been focusing on Afghanistan but, as far as I can remember, he did not even bother to turn up to the first of my three statements on Afghanistan in the House this year—I do not know where he was—such was his instinct and such was his understanding of the importance of the issue.

Actually, the right hon. and learned Gentleman’s figures are quite wrong. Before April we helped 1,400 people to safety from Afghanistan and, under the ARAP scheme, between then and 14 August we helped a further 2,000. As he knows very well, between 14 and 28 August this country performed an absolutely astonishing feat, and of course we will do everything we can to help those who wish to have safe passage out of Afghanistan. That is why we will continue, with our international friends and partners, to apply whatever pressure we can on the Taliban, economic and diplomatic, to ensure they comply, as they have said they will.

The right hon. and learned Gentleman should, in all candour, acknowledge the immensity of the achievement of this country’s armed forces in, for months, planning and preparing for Operation Pitting and then, contrary to what he just said, extracting almost double the number they originally prepared to extract. It was a quite astonishing military and logistical feat.

One thing I welcome is the right hon. and learned Gentleman’s congratulations to the armed forces for what they did.

[Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con)]

Veterans and families, and indeed the wider public, are asking what it was all for. Afghanistan is back in the hands of a dictatorship, terrorism is once again allowed to thrive, the people of Afghanistan now face humanitarian disaster and, more worryingly, the limits of UK and western influence have been exposed. With America now adopting a more isolationist foreign policy, we have passed the high water mark of western liberalism that began after the second world war. This is a dangerous geopolitical turning point.

Does the Prime Minister agree there is now a void of leadership in the west and NATO? If Britain wants to fill that void, as we should, it will require a complete overhaul of Whitehall to upgrade our strategic thinking, our foreign policy output and our ability to lead.

[The Prime Minister]

My right hon. Friend deserves to be listened to with great respect on Afghanistan. From his service, he understands these issues deeply, but I must tell him that people listening to this debate across the country could be forgiven for not recognising that this country ceased military operations in Afghanistan in 2014. What we are doing now is making sure that we work with our friends and partners around the world to prevent Afghanistan from relapsing into a breeding ground for terror, to make sure that we use all the levers that we can to ensure that the rights of women and girls are respected, and to make sure that everybody who wants safe passage out of Afghanistan is allowed it. That is what we are going to do, and we will continue to show leadership in the G7, the P5, NATO and all the other forums in which this country leads the west.