The comments made by Jim McMahon, the Shadow Secretary of State for Transport, on 18 August 2021.
Rail travel has long been unaffordable for many people, thanks to the Conservatives prioritising the profits of private companies over passengers. This would be yet another eye-watering hike hot on the heels of the failure of the Government’s so-called money saving flexi ticket scheme.
The statement made by Keir Starmer, the Leader of the Opposition, on 18 August 2021.
Austin served his constituency of Great Grimsby with remarkable commitment for 38 years. There are few MPs whose dedication to their constituents would translate into changing their surname to ‘Haddock’ to promote local industry.
His big sense of humour was matched by his deep Labour values. My thoughts are with his wife Linda and his children.
The comments made by John Healey, the Shadow Defence Secretary, on 21 August 2021.
Ministers were utterly unprepared for the US troop withdrawal and Taliban take-over. Labour fears we could see a tragic repeat at Kabul airport, if the US insist on a strict deadline for withdrawal without Britain’s agreement to evacuate safely all the Afghans we’ve pledged to help.
Ministers must show the strength of purpose and leadership that’s been missing in recent months. We know this is difficult and there’s no guarantee of success. Britain must pursue every option to save Afghans in danger and check Taliban actions.
The comments made by Tulip Siddiq, the Shadow Minister for Children and Early Years, on 19 August 2021.
The Conservatives are holding children back, with policies that are widening the gap in learning between three and four year olds from the richest and poorest families.
Access to early years education can determine a child’s life chances, yet the Government is locking the poorest children out of the system. Thousands of nurseries and childminders have closed under a decade of Conservative government.
Labour’s Children’s Recovery Plan would help close this gap in learning by giving every child new opportunities to learn, play and develop with extra investment in early education. It’s time the Conservatives match this ambition for every child’s future.
The comments made by David Lammy, the Shadow Justice Secretary, on 19 August 2021.
These figures once again show a government failing victims of crime.
Victims of rape, domestic abuse and serious crime are being left to wait years for justice due to a decade of court closures and an ineffective response to the pandemic.
Time and time again Labour called for the Government to implement measures which would allow our courts to continue to function. They failed to act and it’s victims who are suffering.
The speech made by Yvette Cooper, the Labour MP for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford, in the House of Commons on 18 August 2021.
We have heard many sobering words in this debate already. I pay particular tribute to the words from our colleagues who have themselves served in Afghanistan, to all their colleagues over many years and to all those in our armed forces, particularly those who have lost their lives, including two brave soldiers from Castleford, Rifleman James Backhouse and Bombardier Craig Hopson. I also pay tribute to those who have worked in our aid agencies and for partner organisations to support development and education projects and to try to rebuild a future for Afghanistan, and to all those who have rightly worked so hard and made it possible for families to live in some semblance of security and for girls—children—to be able to go to school for many years.
That is what makes it so disturbing, shameful and distressing to watch the events in Afghanistan right now: people who worked with us and helped us now hiding, their lives at risk; women and girls forced to hide in their homes simply because they are women and girls; hard-line extremists and terrorists back in charge, creating a security risk across the globe; and no evident strategy from the US, the UK and our allies, but what instead looks like just a chaotic retreat. We have a responsibility to respond, so I want to focus particularly on some of the practical things that should and can be done now to address the humanitarian crisis that we face.
First, I turn to those who have put their lives at risk by working with us. I welcome the Afghan relocation and assistance policy, but it is too narrow. It refers to directly employed staff. For the last 20 years, much of the work of the UK Government, including aid work and nation rebuilding work, has been through contracts with UK agencies and organisations. The Taliban do not recognise the complexities of a contracting-out process, so many of those lives are also at risk.
Some organisations have been in touch with their staff and former employees. One has told me that a woman who worked on the UK aid programme for three years and is now in hiding in Kabul has said this weekend:
“only 3 weeks ago one of my neighbours told me that when they come he would tell them who I am and who my family is. A couple of days ago, a strange man told me in the streets, ‘I know where you work and who you are.’
I fear seeing my kids tortured in front of my eyes or having my skin peeled off while I am alive. We remain locked inside, fearful of even looking out of the window—every time the door knocks fear goes through my whole body and I fear they are coming for me.”
Another, who provided secure accommodation for UK embassy staff and British aid workers, has said:
“Taliban fighters arrived at my father’s home this week asking for me by name. I just left my home city three days before and my father told the Taliban I had gone abroad for medical treatment. The fighters still forced their way into the house and searched every room.”
We have obligations to these people.
Emma Hardy
I am sure that my right hon. Friend, along with many other Members across the House, have been contacted by people desperately worried about loved ones in Afghanistan. One of my constituents has contacted me, saying that his pregnant wife is in Afghanistan now. The Taliban have taken out the communication signals, so he is unable to contact her. He did not put in an application for her to come to this country because of the English language requirement on the application form. Surely now is the time to relax that rule temporarily to allow these people to come to our country.
Yvette Cooper
My hon. Friend makes a powerful point. This is the kind of flexibility that the UK Government could adopt right now. We need such measures for those who have families at risk, but we also need urgently to review and broaden the scope of the relocation scheme. The Home Secretary said in interviews this morning that those who have worked for NGOs that delivered UK aid programmes would also be included. I say to the Foreign Secretary that that is not happening on the ground right now; it is not reflected in the guidance that the Government are operating at the moment or in the application process, and people are being turned down as we speak. People have been turned down this weekend, even though they are at risk and have worked on UK-funded programmes. I urge the Government urgently to look at the relocation scheme. People cannot wait for the resettlement scheme to be in place.
Let me say something about that too. I welcome the Government’s commitment to a resettlement scheme. The Prime Minister confirmed to me earlier that the pledge to help 5,000 people this year is in addition to the commitment made in 2019 to resettle 5,000 people a year from across the world, not instead of it. That existing resettlement scheme is not fully reinstated after covid and it urgently needs to be, but the fact that that infrastructure, those systems and that funding is in place should make it possible for us very urgently to put in place an Afghan relocation scheme, and to accelerate and be more ambitious than the announcement that the Home Secretary made this morning. Again, I urge the Government to work urgently with the agencies on the ground, which can identify straightaway the people who are at most at risk, and to recognise the position of those who are currently here, whose applications for asylum may have been turned down before circumstances escalated. Please can those cases be urgently reviewed rather than refused on out-of-date grounds? Finally, I urge the Government to do more to support refugees in the region, because we know more people will flee.
We have a responsibility not to turn our backs. The situation may be bleak and the circumstances difficult, but we have a duty not to disengage.
The speech made by Dan Jarvis, the Labour MP for Barnsley Central, in the House of Commons on 18 August 2021.
It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Johnny Mercer), as it is the right hon. Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood) and the hon. Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Tom Tugendhat). They all spoke with great eloquence.
Like many hon. Members, I am wracked with a profound sadness at the catastrophe that has unfolded in Afghanistan. Above all, it is an unspeakable tragedy for the people of that country, who, after generations of conflict, now live under a terrible cloud of fear and repression. Who could fail to be moved by the agonising scenes from Kabul airport just this week? How desperate must someone have to be to want to cling on to the side of a moving aircraft? These past 20 years have been a struggle for peace. We tried to break the cycle of war, and to give hope to women and girls. We tried to give the Afghans a different life—one of hope and opportunity—but the catastrophic failure of international political leadership and the brutality of the Taliban have snatched all of that away from them. The new Administration in Kabul should know that they will be judged not by their words, but by their actions. The world is watching.
I want to reflect on the service and sacrifice of our brave servicemen and women, who have showed outstanding professionalism and courage throughout. As the hon. Member for Plymouth, Moor View said just a moment ago, recent developments have hit them hard, and they are grappling with the question of whether all the effort and sacrifice was really worth it. They are again grieving for fallen comrades who did not come home. Whatever the outcome in Afghanistan, those men and women, and their families, should be proud of their service, and we must be proud of them.
Many of us who served in Afghanistan have a deep bond of affection for the Afghan people, and I had the honour of serving alongside them in Helmand. We trained together, fought together and, in some cases, died together. They were our brothers in arms. I shudder to think where those men are now. Many will be dead, and I know others now consider themselves to be dead men walking. Where were we in their hour of need? We were nowhere. That is shameful, and it will have a very long-lasting impact on Britain’s reputation right around the world.
Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)
The hon. Gentleman—a fellow litigant—is absolutely right in his description of the Afghan armed forces. Will he add that many of them are more heroic and better soldiers than they are given credit for around the world?
Dan Jarvis
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman, as always, and I completely agree with the point he made. It was particularly distasteful and dishonouring of President Biden to make reference to the lack of courage and commitment from those Afghan soldiers, who have served with such bravery and distinction.
We have to be pragmatic, and at this difficult point we must think about what our next move will be. We should understand that the character of our country is defined, for better or for worse, by moments such as this. We should also understand that we face a moral and humanitarian crisis of enormous proportions, and the response from the international community and the British Government needs to meet the magnitude of the moment. We must step up the statecraft and engage with international allies and alliances, and with regional partners. Although it is a particularly bitter pill to have to swallow, we must engage diplomatically with the new regime in Kabul. It is in our cold-headed national interest to do so, because right now our armed forces are deployed on an operation to recover UK nationals and other entitled personnel. It is in their interests that we engage to try to ensure the safe passage of those who want to leave.
We also know that many, many more will want to get out, and with our allies we need to work to establish safe routes to get them to safety. We must show compassion and genuine generosity to refugees, while accelerating and expanding the ARAP scheme to support those who supported us.
We also need to defend the hard-won progress of the past 20 years or so—girls in school and women in Parliament and the judiciary. We must ensure that Afghanistan does not slide back to where it was pre-9/11. Then, when the dust settles, we need to look at what went wrong and learn the lessons of this failure: why, despite all the effort, could we not build an Afghan state free of corruption, with the legitimacy and competence to balance the competing forces in that country, and what does that now mean for our foreign and defence policy in this country?
Regardless of all that, we must remain engaged; we must show leadership; we must use whatever influence we have to try to make things better. That is in our own national interest, it is in line with our values, and it is the right thing to do. We owe it to the people of Afghanistan and we owe it to ourselves.
The speech made by Johnny Mercer, the Conservative MP for Plymouth Moor View, in the House of Commons on 18 August 2021.
I want to make three broad points about what has gone on over the past week. I want to talk about this place’s responsibility towards those who serve, and our Afghan friends and partners. I also want to speak, if I can, for veterans of the conflict to whom I have spoken over the past week.
When it comes to responsibility, I urge Ministers to be very careful about talking exclusively about the Americans. We are very clear, and it is well understood, that the US is, or was, the framework nation in Afghanistan, but people who join the military from council estates in Plymouth, Newcastle, Stoke or Birmingham do not serve the American flag; they serve the British flag. They are proud to do so, and they do it at the behest of Ministers in this place. It dishonours their service simply to say, “The Americans have left—we are leaving.” We do not spend £40 billion a year on a tier 1 military for it to be unable to go out the door without the Americans, and the taxpayer does not expect that. I urge Ministers to take responsibility for the decisions that they make, particularly when talking with the families.
I wish to talk about our Afghan friends and partners. I am pleased with the announcement today on refugees; it is a good start. People can talk numbers; they can say that they want more or that they want fewer, but the reality is—this is basic maths—that we will not get out of Afghanistan all those whom we promised to get out. We can say that we want more, or that we want fewer, but that is the reality. The truth is as well that we have to be honest in this place. For many, many years, people have campaigned against this relocation scheme and the previous intimidation scheme and said that it was not good enough. Decisions made by Ministers in this House have made this situation harder, so, although I welcome this change today and our onward progression, let us not kid ourselves about what has happened in the past and let us treat with a little more respect those who, with no self-interest, campaign for these people.
Finally, I want to speak to veterans and for veterans. Over the past few days, it has become clear to me that we are dealing with new feelings—Help for Heroes put out something on this yesterday. We are not trained to lose and we are not trained to deal with the way that Ministers are choosing to be defeated by the Taliban. Was it all for nothing? Of course, it was not for nothing, and we must get away from that narrative. Whether we like this or not it is a fact that, for a period of time, Afghans—the average age in Afghanistan is 18 years old—will have experienced the freedom and privileges that we enjoy here, and no one will ever take that away from them, which is incredibly important. What are we here to do if it is not to be good, honourable people, to fight for the oppressed, to keep our families safe and to live to a higher calling? Our veterans did this over many years in some of the hardest conditions and against as dark an enemy as this nation has ever faced. We often look to our forefathers for inspiration. They emulated them. They did them proud, not in scale but in the same amphitheatre, They can be forever proud of what they did when the nation called. I say to them, “You played your role, but you cannot control what is happening now—remember that. What folk like me saw you do—the courage, the sacrifice and the humanity—will never die and it has defined us as human beings. You did that and nobody will ever take that away. I will never forget you. Every day the sun comes up, I will make sure that this place and this country do not forget you and your sacrifice on the altar of this nation’s continuing freedom.”
The Government must now step up and support this group of bereaved families and veterans. We will see a bow wave of mental health challenges. We are not trained to cope with the feelings that we have now. I have done everything that I possibly could to support all the brilliant staff at the Ministry of Defence, the Office for Veterans’ Affairs, and the NHS, which works tirelessly supporting veterans up and down this country, but I must say to the House with a heavy heart that the Prime Minister has consistently failed to honour what he said that he would do when he was trying to become Prime Minister. He must not wriggle out of his commitments on this issue. He knows that the Office for Veterans’ Affairs is nothing like it was designed to be: the paltry £5 million funding was slashed after less than a year, there was a lack of staff, and there was not even an office from which to work. Even today, the brilliant staff at the Office for Veterans’ Affairs simply cannot cope with the scale of the demand. While his predecessors may get away with a certain degree of ignorance in this space, I am afraid that the Prime Minister has no excuse on this issue; it is a political choice. The ambivalence needs to end, and he needs to step up and listen to the charities and to the veterans, not to those whom he chooses to employ around him who do not believe veterans’ issues are worth the political capital required. The nation cares, and we will make this Government care. The scale of the challenge of dealing with this Afghan generation is only just beginning. I pay tribute to everybody who has spoken up in this debate, but particularly to those who do not have a vested interest in Afghanistan and can see the inherent injustice of what is happening now. Thank you, Mr Speaker, for recalling the House today.
The comments made by Tobias Ellwood, the Conservative MP for Bournemouth East, in the House of Commons on 18 August 2021.
I do not often mention my brother Jonathan, who was killed by an al-Qaeda affiliate in Bali in 2002. That prompted my personal interest in Afghanistan, a distant country that I visited a dozen times over the past two decades to better understand what we were doing to help to rebuild that troubled country. I pay tribute to our armed forces for what they did, and to what the Secretary of State for Defence and the armed forces are doing today in the evacuation.
It is with utter disbelief that I see us make such an operational and strategic blunder by retreating at this time. The decision is already triggering a humanitarian disaster, a migrant crisis not seen since the second world war and a cultural change in the rights of women, and it is once again turning Afghanistan into a breeding ground for terrorism. I am sorry that there will be no vote today because I believe the Government would not have the support of the House.
The Prime Minister is not in the Chamber, but he says that the future of Afghanistan is not written. Well, its future is very much more unpredictable because of our actions. I do not believe for a second that there will be a peaceful transition to the Taliban. They are not universally liked in the country. The Uzbek and Tajik warlords are regrouping as we speak. The Northern Alliance will reform once again and a bloody, terrible civil war will unfold.
John Redwood
Does my right hon. Friend have any advice for the Government on how they could take action to try to prevent the recurrence of a terrorist threat under Taliban control?
Mr Ellwood
My fear is that there will be an attack on the lines of 9/11 to bookend what happened 20 years ago, to show the futility of 20 years. We should never have left—I will come to that in a second—because after 20 years of effort, this is a humiliating strategic defeat for the west. The Taliban control more territory today than they did before 9/11.
I was born in the United States; I am a proud dual national and passionate about the transatlantic security alliance. Prior to him declaring his candidacy, I worked directly with President Biden on veterans’ mental health issues. He was the keynote speaker at a veterans reception here in the House of Commons, as my guest, so it gives me no joy to criticise the President and say that the decision to withdraw, which he inherited, but then chose to endorse, was absolutely the wrong call. Yes, two decades is a long time. It has been a testing chapter for Afghanistan, so the US election promise to return troops was obviously a popular one, but it was a false narrative.
First, the notion that we gave the Afghans every opportunity over 20 years to progress, and that the country cannot be helped forever so it is time to come home, glosses over the hurdles—the own goals—that we created after the invasion. We denied the Taliban a seat at the table back in 2001. They asked to attend the Bonn talks but Donald Rumsfeld said no, so they crossed the Pakistan border to rearm, regroup and retrain. How different the last few decades would have been had they been included. Secondly, we did not start training the Afghan forces until 2005, by which time the Taliban were already on the advance. Finally, we imposed a western model of governance, which was completely inappropriate for Afghanistan, with all the power in Kabul. That was completely wrong for a country where loyalty is on a tribal and local level. That is not to dismiss the mass corruption, cronyism and elitism that is rife across Afghanistan, but those schoolboy errors in stabilisation hampered progress and made our mission harder.
There is also the notion that we cannot fight a war forever. We have not been fighting for the last three years. The US and the UK have not lost a single soldier, but we had a minimalist force there—enough assistance to give the Afghan forces the ability to contain the Taliban and, by extension, give legitimacy to the Afghan Government. The US has more personnel based in its embassy here than it had troops in Afghanistan before retreating. Both the US and the UK have long-term commitments across the world, which we forget about. Japan, Germany and Korea have been mentioned. There is Djibouti, Niger, Jordan and Iraq, and ourselves in Cyprus and Kenya, for example, and the Falklands, too. It is the endurance that counts. Success is not rated on when we return troops home. Such presence offers assurance, represents commitment, bolsters regional stability, and assists with building and strengthening the armed forces. That is exactly what we were doing in Afghanistan.
Last year, the Taliban were finally at the negotiation table in Doha, but in a rush to get a result, Trump struck a deal with the Taliban—by the way, without the inclusion of the Afghan Government—and committed to a timetable for drawdown. All the Taliban had to do was wait. The final question is about whether the UK can lead or participate in a coalition without the US. Where is our foreign policy determined—here or in Washington? Our Government should have more confidence in themselves.
Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)
The right hon. Gentleman makes perfectly reasonable and justified criticisms of the way the American Government came to a decision to leave in such haste, but like a number of other right hon. and hon. Members, the implication of his speech is that we somehow could have had an independent Afghan policy without the Americans. Can he explain how?
Mr Ellwood
First, the Americans are not leaving Afghanistan. This is a complete myth. The CIA will remain there, as will special forces and the drone oversight. Why? Because they will be haunted by another terrorist attack. It is the political inclination and the leadership that is disappearing—because of an American president, or two American presidents—and we could have stepped forward and filled the vacuum, but we did not. We need to have more confidence as a Government in ourselves, as we did in the last century. I thought that this was in our DNA. We have the means, the hard power and the connections to lead. What we require is the backbone, the courage and the leadership to step forward, yet when our moment comes, such as now, we are found wanting. There are serious questions to ask about our place in the world, what global Britain really means and what our foreign policy is all about.
We must raise our game. Why? Step back. We seem to be in denial about where the world is going. As I have said in the House many times, threats are increasing. Democracy across the globe is under threat and authoritarianism is on the rise, yet here we are, complicit in allowing another dictatorship to form as we become more isolationist. What was the G7 summit all about? The western reset to tackle growing instability, not least given China, Russia and Iran. Take a look at a map. Where does Afghanistan sit? Right between all three. Strategically, it is a useful country to stay close to, but now we have abandoned it and the Afghan people as well. Shame on us.
I hope that the Government think long and hard about our place in a fast-changing world. Bigger challenges and threats loom over the horizon. We are woefully unprepared and uncommitted. We—the UK and the west—have so many lessons to learn. I repeat my call for an independent inquiry. We must learn these lessons quickly. The west is today a little weaker in a world that is a little more dangerous because we gave up on Afghanistan.
The speech made by Ed Davey, the Leader of the Liberal Democrats, in the House of Commons on 18 August 2021.
It is a genuine honour to follow the hon. Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Tom Tugendhat). I thank him, on behalf of the whole House and the whole country, not just for his powerful speech today but for his service and the service of men and women in our armed forces who showed his courage in Afghanistan. I agree with him wholeheartedly that if we are going to look forward, we need to work with our international partners in Europe and across the world. We need to forge new relationships and not be over-dependent on one ally, however important and powerful that ally is. The failure to do that—indeed, the backward steps that this Government have taken in that regard in recent years—is one of the reasons our nation is weaker today, and it has been for far too long.
We are deeply proud of our armed forces, our diplomats and our aid workers who have done so much in Afghanistan, so it has been heartbreaking in the last few days to listen to the families, particularly of the 457 British soldiers who made the ultimate sacrifice, asking the question “What was it all for?” and to listen to veterans remembering their comrades. Captain James Kayll, who made two tours of duty in Afghanistan, said on Sunday:
“After years and years of incredibly hard work from remarkable armed services in the country, I don’t know how I could ever, ever look the parents of fallen soldiers in the eye and say that what they did was worth it.”
Will the Prime Minister look our injured veterans and the families of the fallen in the eye and tell them it was worth it, after his foreign policy catastrophe?
The American decision to withdraw was not just a mistake; it was an avoidable mistake, from President Trump’s flawed deal with the Taliban to President Biden’s decision to proceed—and to proceed in such a disastrous way. The human impact on the lives of millions of Afghans, especially women and refugees, is the most obvious and alarming consequence, but the impact on global politics and on Britain’s national security will be so negative that I fear this mistake will affect the lives of millions around the world for years to come.
Coalition forces were in Afghanistan for the protection and security of American and British people just as much as for Afghans. For well over seven years, coalition forces have not been doing the vast bulk of the fighting; the Afghan army has. Like others, when I heard President Biden blame Afghans for not fighting for their country, I could not believe it. He showed no awareness that more than 69,000 members of the Afghan forces have been killed.
I cannot hold President Biden to account in this House, but I can hold our own Government to account. Our Prime Minister and his Cabinet cannot escape their culpability for this disaster—for both the mistaken decision to withdraw, and how the withdrawal has turned into such a catastrophe. From the Prime Minister’s self-evident lack of influence and clout in Washington, to his negligent inability, yet again, to master his brief and plan properly for the withdrawal, today’s occupant of No. 10 has become a national liability.
If the Prime Minister wants to dispel that growing view of him, let him answer the following questions. What role did the British Government play in the negotiations with the Taliban that led to President Trump’s flawed deal with them? Did the Prime Minister raise any concerns with President Biden about the wisdom of withdrawal from Afghanistan? If he did, what impact did he have in changing anything about President Biden’s policy? Either the Prime Minister has a close relationship with the US but failed to exploit it, or he has no close relationship and nothing to put in its place. Frankly, his foreign policy is a total disaster.
On Britain’s withdrawal planning, will the Prime Minister explain why he so misjudged the situation in Afghanistan that he told the House back on 8 July:
“I do not think that the Taliban are capable of victory by military means”?—[Official Report, 8 July 2021; Vol. 698, c. 1112.]
The Prime Minister appears to have had no understanding of the security and defence situation in Afghanistan as recently as last month. Despite being warned in this House and elsewhere that the Taliban would move rapidly on Kabul, his failures, along with President Biden’s, have led directly to the crisis that is unfolding before our eyes.
Afghans who have risked everything to help our soldiers and aid workers are now desperate for our help to escape. Refugees are fleeing in fear of their lives. Women and girls are seeing their futures stolen. Last night’s announcement that the Government are willing to take only 5,000 refugees in the next year utterly fails to respond to this crisis or to meet our obligations to so many Afghans.
Finally, there is the frightening failure to achieve the aim of the whole mission: to keep British people safe from international terrorists trained in Taliban Afghanistan. Where is the worked-through strategy, internationally agreed, to prevent Afghanistan from returning to the vector of terrorism that it once was? There isn’t one. Despite the Government’s having 18 months to prepare, they have not prepared a counter-terrorism strategy with our allies. I guess that that is why this Prime Minister will not ever be able to look the families of the fallen in the eye.