Afghanistan

Wendy Chamberlain Excerpts

Tuesday 15th July 2025 Commons Chamber

[John Healey]

I agree 100%, Mr Speaker. My hon. Friend speaks so plainly, so forcefully and so passionately. When we first debated the obligation to put in place the ARAP scheme four or five years ago, when I was shadow Secretary of State for Defence, one of the things that struck me most was that those who felt fiercest were, understandably, those who had served—those in this House who had been part of the 140,000 British men and women who had served in Afghanistan over 20 years—because they recognised just what a debt this country and they owe to people like those whom my hon. Friend’s husband speaks about.

[Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)]

I welcome the Secretary of State’s pledge to restore full accountability to the Government’s relocation schemes, but I am saddened that this is the first opportunity that we have had to talk about the closure of ACRS and ARAP on the Floor of the House, given that they were announced by written statement at very short notice only two weeks ago. May I ask a couple of specific questions? On the ARR, which we have only found out about today, the Secretary of State mentioned 600 invitations that will be honoured. For those who were not accepted and are part of the breach, are they aware of that? ARAP has been closed to new applications, but, again—I have asked the Minister of State for the Armed Forces about this before—what is the communication strategy for updating them? The ACRS was never open to vulnerable women and the civil rights defenders it aimed to protect. Again, what communication will the Government have with those individuals who are in hiding either in Afghanistan or in third countries?

[John Healey]

We made a statement about the closure of the Home Office-run ARAP and ACRS on 1 July, and the hon. Lady will have had opportunities since then to raise those matters in the House. On the information to those who may be affected, we will honour the invitations that have been issued to 600 ARR individuals. To everyone else in the dataset, we have communicated the latest position this morning. We are offering access to further advice through the designated area of the gov.uk website, and that includes steps that individuals can take, if they wish, to get in touch with our information services centre, which has been set up by the MOD to deal with questions and concerns that people may have.