Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what costs have accrued to his Department for the operation of the Joint Afghanistan Casework Unit in each month of the 2022-23 financial year; how much and what proportion of those costs have been attributed to the official development assistance budget; and how many Afghan people have been resettled in the UK as a result of the work of that Unit in that time period.
The Joint Afghanistan Casework Unit (JACU) was established during Operation PITTING and has effectively co-ordinated case-working on the Afghan resettlement schemes across the Home Office, Ministry of Defence and FCDO, and helped to support eligible individuals overseas.
We do not collect comprehensive data on the profession or minority status of those relocated. Since April 2021, over 22,800 people have been brought to safety from Afghanistan, including over 1,000 people who were campaigners for women's rights, human rights defenders, Chevening scholars, journalists, judges and members of the LGBT+ community.
The FCDO has around 30 staff working on Afghan relocation and resettlement. This includes a dedicated team working on Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme (ACRS) Pathway 3 referrals. We do not hold information on staffing at the Home Office and the Ministry of Defence.
Worldwide operating costs incurred by the FCDO on Afghan relocation from 1 April to 31 October 2022 were £11,287,856. These costs were not attributed as Official Development Assistance.
Please refer to the published data on arrivals: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/afghan-resettlement-programme-operational-data/afghan-resettlement-programme-operational-data