Tom Tugendhat
Main Page: Tom Tugendhat (Conservative - Tonbridge)(2 years, 6 months ago)
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Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge and Malling) (Con)
I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron) for securing this urgent question. The points he makes about the British Council are absolutely valid, and the Minister, whose integrity is beyond question, has made the defence that his Department would expect of him. May I, however, raise just a few points?
First, the reason we reserved the hotel and others did not was that the French and Germans had pulled their people out months earlier, and they had done so because the Americans had signalled the withdrawal 18 months earlier—or, if you thought that Vice-President Biden would become President Biden, 14 years earlier. This was not a surprise. The lack of a plan was a surprise. The failure to be present was a surprise.
The failure of integrity when discussing matters with the Select Committee was a huge surprise. For us, as representatives of the British people, the real surprise—the real tragedy—is not just the hundreds of lives left behind in Afghanistan and the people abandoned in neighbouring countries but the undermining of the security of this country and the defence of our people, which has come about through an erosion of trust. Our enemies do not fear us and allies do not trust us. That has been tested in Ukraine, and we are all paying for it in every gas bill and every food shop. That is the price of the erosion of trust, and that is why we need a fundamental rethink not just of our foreign policy but of how our country engages with the world. Those who, like our most senior diplomat, are the voice of our country in the world, need to be voices that we can trust, but I am afraid that the Committee that I am privileged to chair does not.
James Cleverly
My hon. Friend knows that when he speaks, he speaks with great authority and we listen carefully to what he says. If there are times when we disagree with him, we do so with genuine respect for his experience and knowledge. The report that his Committee has produced is important and will be considered fully and properly and responded to. He has my absolute guarantee on that, and he knows that that view is shared across the Department. Specifically with regard to the permanent under-secretary, the ministerial team has complete confidence in him. The lessons that we all need to learn will be learned. I give him that assurance from the Front Bench.