Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many flights his Department (a) has chartered and (b) plans to charter to transport Afghan refugees from Pakistan since October for (i) each month in 2023 and (ii) the first three months of 2024; what estimate he has made of the total number of flights that will be chartered in total; and whether the total number of flights will be calculated on the number of Afghan refugees currently receiving UK Government support in Pakistan.

Resettlement of eligible Afghans remains a top priority for this Government.

The latest published Immigration system statistics - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) show that at the end of September 2023, around 24,600 vulnerable people affected by the events in Afghanistan have been brought to safety so far.

The UK Government and our partners will arrange and fund travel for those accepted under our Afghan schemes as part of the resettlement and relocation process. Depending on the individual circumstances, this may be via charter or commercial flights.

Flights for those being resettled under the Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme (ACRS) are organised by the International Organisation for Migration, in line with requests from the Home Office. As flights are operational you will appreciate that we cannot go into more detail about them.

We will continue to honour our commitment to bring eligible Afghans to the UK, with new arrivals going directly into settled accommodation where possible.