That the Grand Committee takes note of the Report from the International Relations and Defence Committee The UK and Afghanistan (2nd Report, Session 2019–21, HL Paper 208).
My Lords, I am pleased to introduce our report The UK and Afghanistan. I thank the members of the International Relations and Defence Committee and our staff, including our specialist adviser Dr Weeda Meehran, for all their hard work in producing our report. It was published one year ago—when few others were either debating or writing about Afghanistan.
We noted that the UK’s prioritisation of Afghanistan had slipped over the previous decade. Yet the scale of challenges facing the country had not diminished during the period of the UK’s involvement there. Challenges to stability were—and still are—terrorism, drug production, drug trafficking and the fragile nature of the Afghan state. We noted the substantial level of aid dependency of the Afghan Government, with little prospect of developing alternative sources of revenue in the immediate future.
Against that bleak background, we praised achievements made over the previous 20 years, including progress on human rights, particularly for women and girls. However, we warned that the Taliban remained “ideologically opposed” to much of this progress and could seek to undermine it. The past few months have shown that warning to be prescient. We highlighted that the Hazara
“have a long history of suffering … persecution”
and pressed the Government to find ways to protect them and other groups from such persecution. We also warned that there was
“a real risk that the principal national security challenges still posed by Afghanistan, namely terrorism, narcotics and regional instability, could worsen, and the gains made since 2001 could be lost.”
At the time of our inquiry, peace talks had been launched between the Afghan Government and the Taliban in Doha. But we expressed our deep concern that the planned withdrawal of US and NATO troops would undermine the position of the Afghan Government in those talks and destabilise the security situation in Afghanistan. Despite our warnings, withdrawal plans were accelerated and the situation in Afghanistan rapidly deteriorated over the first half of last year. By mid-August the Afghan Government had collapsed and the Taliban took Kabul, declaring their control of the administration of the country, ruling by violence and intimidation. While events have overtaken some of the findings of our report, most of the challenges we highlighted remain and have been exacerbated by the Taliban’s actions.
In the integrated review the Government committed to
“continue to support stability in Afghanistan”.
This debate provides an opportunity to take stock of the situation now and ask the Government about their priorities and their plans to keep true to that commitment. The humanitarian situation in Afghanistan has clearly worsened considerably since August and is dire. I am grateful to the director of the UK office of the UN World Food Programme for her up-to-date assessment of the situation. The UNWFP calculates that the number of people facing acute food insecurity—another description of famine—has risen to 2.8 million, more than half the population, and 3.2 million children are expected to suffer acute malnutrition by the end of this year.
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, who is a highly respected chair of the committee. I was not a member of the committee at the time, but I suspect that if this debate had been held last summer, there would have been unqualified praise for the quality and comprehensive nature of the report’s analysis and its recognition of the challenges faced. However, the report was published over a year ago, so much of the evidence must have been gathered over the previous year, since when—to adopt and adapt a parliamentary phrase—an amendment has been moved. Of course, the amendment is the events of August 2021 and the Taliban victory.
What were we trying to achieve by our intervention in Afghanistan? The aims of the UK Government are set out in paragraph 37 of the report. They were:
“to safeguard what it describes as the UK’s legacy in Afghanistan since 2001. It wishes to strengthen the gains made in this period, and defines its legacy in terms of improvements in human rights, particularly of women and girls, and the strengthening of the Afghan state since the fall of the Taliban administration.”
It is fair to say that the committee noted in the next paragraph that
“gains made since 2001 could be lost”,
but the options it considered did not include the collapse entirely of the Afghan Government.
The committee noted the considerable expenditure by the UK taxpayer in development aid—more than £3 billion over the period—the training and equipping of the security forces, the tragic loss of 456 UK troops killed in the campaign from 2001 to 2014, and the more than 600 British military personnel with life-changing injuries. However, despite all that expenditure and loss of life, the Afghan army speedily collapsed, surrendering its weapons, and the President fled with much of the Government. Poverty and hunger among the people have increased and would surely have a larger focus in the report if the committee were to consider the humanitarian situation today, which the noble Baroness mentioned.
My Lords, as one of, I think, 12 members of today’s Committee who are former or current members of the International Relations and Defence Committee, I too commend our chair for suggesting that the committee conducted our inquiry and then for chairing it and introducing this debate so well. I do not think it is acceptable that it has been a year since we concluded a prescient report, which had constructive requests of the Government and of the whole House, and that it has taken so long for us to debate this.
As has been said, the intervening period has confirmed the benefit of such a committee report if the conclusions are not only read but acted upon, because we took a wide view. We took evidence as to the very mixed nature of human development in Afghanistan, specifically over the last decade. Certain parts of Afghanistan had seen negative human development, while there was positive human development in others, especially for women’s rights and children.
In some measures, we looked at the regional impact, which has become so obviously important, whether for Qatar and the UAE, from differing perspectives, or for Pakistan and the other neighbouring countries. We looked at how relevant they have become and took that into consideration. We also looked at the likely impact of the aid and development cuts. The noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, was absolutely right when she indicated that, from 2019 to 2020, UK funding was £240 million but, in 2021, went down to £168 million. Therefore, in many respects, what is being committed over a three-year period will only regain territory lost. That cannot be right, given the scale of the humanitarian crisis that Afghanistan is suffering from.
As the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, indicated, the committee wished to be fair to the Government in agreeing with what they considered to be their own legacies as far as Afghanistan is concerned. The report states that the Government
My Lords, the Minister will perhaps not be surprised that I want to raise a number of issues concerning the Afghan civilian interpreters who worked with the British military. I should declare an interest as a member of the former MoD assurance committee on locally employed civilians, which monitored the application of the intimidation policy for interpreters and others.
I was pleased to see the recommendation at paragraph 49 of the report:
“The UK Government should ensure that all Afghan interpreters who worked for the UK military, including those now resident in third countries, are aware of, and able to access the provisions of, the ex-gratia scheme.”
This was a positive and welcome response from the committee to written evidence submitted by my noble and gallant friend Lord Stirrup and me. We made a number of points, and I am grateful to the committee for taking the point about third-country residents.
Of course, as with other aspects of the report, events have overtaken the situation facing the interpreters and the remedies available to them. I have a series of questions for the Minister about the Government’s response to the committee’s recommendation, as well as on the evolving circumstances facing interpreters, and some other points that my noble and gallant friend Lord Stirrup and I made in our submission but which were not reflected in the report.
I understand that the Minister may well not have with him today all the data that I am about to ask him for, as some of it will no doubt rest with the MoD or the Home Office. If this is the case, I should be grateful if he would undertake to write to me afterwards and to place a copy in the Library.
At the time of the committee’s report, the schemes on offer for the interpreters were the ex gratia redundancy scheme for those who qualified and the intimidation policy. In April 2021, the latter was replaced by the broader scheme, ARAP, and, shortly after, following the Taliban takeover, the ACRS was also introduced.
My Lords, I join everyone in welcoming the report and thanking our chairman for producing it. I also echo the problem that we have with it being more than a year old. This is not a government problem. This is a problem because the House of Lords cannot manage to organise its business. We really need to send a message to the leadership of this self-governing House, as we are called, that when effort is put in to producing reports of the stature, elegance and erudition of this one, we expect the House authorities to table a debate in reasonably short time, certainly not after a year, and a year in which there have been momentous developments. I hope that message will be carried to the leadership of this House.
We have to look at the lessons for the future and the lack of strategy. The most relevant matter is in one of the briefings I received that quotes Professor Michael Clarke, former director-general of RUSI, who identified
“only one overall strategic driver, dated 2001: to support the US, regardless of whether its strategy was sound or not.”
I cannot disagree with that. A barrister called Frank Ledwidge was also quoted as saying:
“I have asked eight Defence Secretaries what our strategy was … I have not been able to identify a national strategy.”
I am afraid that equates with my own view of where we have gone wrong. Part of our problem, which was classically demonstrated in Afghanistan, is that we are bit players, not major players. The moment the Americans decided to leave, Joe Biden put down the phone, put a tea cosy over it, did not call anyone and said, “We’re off”. At that point, all the rest of the NATO group had to leave. There was no way in which we as NATO without the United States could mount any mission whatever. We were out behind it. I think we did a reasonable job in getting out our supporters and the people who had assisted us, but let there be no doubt that out was the only destination we had, because one of the biggest lessons we have to learn is that we have repeated the same mistake in Afghanistan for 150 years. We never learn, and it is about time that we did.
My Lords, there are few countries with a more tragic recent history than Afghanistan. It has endured long periods of war and internal conflict; its Governments have been weak and mired in corruption; a high proportion of its population has lived in extreme poverty. The long-term weakness of its economy has led to heavy dependence on international aid. For many years, the main cash crop has been opium-producing poppies, associated with criminal gangs exporting opiates.
The earlier takeover of the country by the Taliban led to a grotesque retreat into extremist values, viciously repressing women, the denial of basic rights of free speech and free assembly, and the torture and killing of those who challenged the human rights abuses which had become commonplace. All this led to large numbers of Afghans leaving the country as refugees.
At the turn of this century, Afghanistan was perceived to be a serious threat as a breeding ground for terrorism and a source of regional instability. Following the collapse of the Taliban after the invasion by the West and the restoration of an elected Government, progress was made in human rights and the provision of public services, supported by NGOs. There were improvements, especially in Kabul, in basic rights for women to an education and employment in government and the professions. The continuing presence of small numbers of NATO forces, primarily but not exclusively involved in supporting and training the Afghan military, reinforced the Government, although they remained weak, and further helped protect basic human rights, although abuses remained.
The decision by the Trump Administration to withdraw from Afghanistan, leading to negotiations between the USA and Taliban representatives in Doha, has implications for the UK and our policies towards Afghanistan. In these circumstances and against the background of a terrible recent history, it seemed very appropriate for the International Relations and Defence Committee to launch an inquiry into the Government’s policies on Afghanistan. I am very grateful to our chairman for agreeing to this.
My Lords, under the notable chairmanship of the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, who opened the debate so well, and with the assistance of a terrific secretariat, the International Relations and Defence Select Committee undertook a rigorous and thorough examination of the UK’s role in Afghanistan and explored what the future might look like. I agree with others who have said that it is quite wrong for a report of this importance, and which was clearly so urgent, to have been consigned to the long grass for so long. Referring to the report when Parliament was recalled on 18 August last to debate the unfolding and appalling chaos in Afghanistan, I said that the failure to debate its prescient recommendations and findings had been negligent. I repeat that today.
One year ago, the report excoriated the Government for showing
“little inclination … to exert an independent voice”
and it criticised the United States for “undermining NATO unity”. It insisted that troop withdrawal
“runs contrary to the UK’s objective of securing a durable negotiated settlement”
and had
“the potential to further destabilise the security situation in Afghanistan”.
So let no one say it was impossible to foresee the disastrous debacle that was coming.
Among the long-term consequences that we now have to deal with is a weakened America—or at least the perception of American weakness—emboldening a host of aggressors who threaten the liberal world order. The ill-thought-out abandonment of Afghanistan damaged alliances and networks, and had a chilling effect on vulnerable people bravely upholding human rights and the rule of law in fragile states. I have seen what has happened to judges and lawyers, some of whom I met earlier today with the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, and to public servants, journalists and teachers abandoning their homes and fleeing for their lives from Kabul. They ask: will they be next? Bullies retreat when met by strength and resolve, and advance when they sense weakness. Of course, the abandonment has emboldened the Taliban, which, along with all its other distortions, would probably apply to Afghanistan the words of Ernest Hemingway in For Whom the Bell Tolls:
It is an honour to follow the noble Lord, Lord Alton. He asked many important questions and I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say later. Like others, I welcome the chance to reflect on the report that I and my fellow members of the International Relations and Defence Select Committee published nearly a year ago just as we witnessed President-elect Biden take the oath. I want to thank the excellent secretariat, my colleagues on the committee, many of whom are here today, and the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, for her brilliant chairmanship.
Whatever one’s view of President Trump, being his friend and ally on the world stage was complicated—his presence being irregular and erratic—which is why I, like many others, welcomed Biden’s return to a more multinational approach to solving the world’s problems. Last year, we saw an immediate change of course—the decision to rejoin the Paris peace accord, for example—which is why I hoped that, at the very least, President Biden might pause and reflect on making the decision to press ahead with the withdrawal from Afghanistan. It made the fact that he went ahead with such speed all the more disappointing.
By the time I started working in No. 10 under the David Cameron Administration in 2010, we had already been one decade in Afghanistan. British lives were still being lost and it was beginning to be uncertain what success would look like. A rethink was on the cards. It became clear that there was little support for the continuation of a large deployment of troops, but there is a big difference between a drawdown and the chaotic exit we saw last summer.
In recent years, with a small number of troops, we were able to bring—or help to bring—stability to the country, train the Afghan army and police, and support aid operatives doing so much good on the ground. However, when President Trump announced the withdrawal from Afghanistan, he did so with no discussion with his NATO allies and with no apparent concern that this undermined any chance of success at the peace talks. It was clear to us on the foreign affairs Select Committee, reviewing the fragile state of affairs at the time, that it would be impossible to deliver peace with no leverage, and that leverage must come from the ongoing presence of US and NATO troops. This was never a peace plan; it was an exit plan, and it turned out to be a disastrous one at that.
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It is now the harsh wintertime in Afghanistan, which threatens to cut off areas of the country where families desperately depend on humanitarian assistance to survive the freezing months ahead. It is vital that those countries that sought to bring stability to Afghanistan over the past 20 years do not turn away now. International support is needed more than ever to tackle the humanitarian crisis on the ground. Our report highlighted that Afghanistan is the most aid-dependent country in the world. According to the World Bank, grants financed 75% of public funding in 2018-19. The UN and aid organisations now warn that basic services in Afghanistan, including the health service, are at risk of collapse.
Of course, the Taliban takeover led to a pause in international aid to the country. It is not clear how much aid is able to get to Afghanistan and, when there, how much actually reaches those who are in desperate need. I welcome the Government’s pledge last August to increase official development assistance to Afghanistan to £286 million but that is still less than our commitment in 2019, before the crisis, and it is not clear how much of that has actually been disbursed. On 15 December 2021 the Government stated that £81 million had been disbursed within Afghanistan and £10 million to refugees in the region. About a month later, on 12 January this year, Minister Ford said that £145 million had been disbursed, but I do not seem to be able to find any other mention of that figure. I would be grateful if my noble friend the Minister could clarify the position on that today.
Witnesses to our Select Committee told us of their concern about the time taken to disburse the funding and the extreme challenges of operating in the context of sanctions and the breakdown of the Afghan banking system. The UK played a vital role, of which we should be proud, in successfully negotiating UN Security Council Resolution 2615 last month. That should provide real support to aid operations in Afghanistan by reassuring banks that they can securely and lawfully offer the full range of financial services needed to facilitate humanitarian activities there.
However, NGOs such as the Norwegian Refugee Council and Christian Aid are concerned that the FCDO appears to be considering imposing new and burdensome restrictions on NGOs and the financial sector when the Government bring before Parliament the statutory instrument that should incorporate Resolution 2615 into law. It is feared that the provisions of the SI will undermine the very purpose of the UN humanitarian exception that was authorised under the UNSC resolution itself. I would be grateful if my noble friend the Minister could give an outline of the SI’s provisions and give an assurance today that the statutory instrument will not have that chilling effect.
It is important that the UK works with international partners to halt the rollback of the progress that has been made on human rights, particularly on women’s and girls’ rights, which had been hard won over the past 20 years. We were pleased to hear from the Minister, my noble friend Lord Ahmad, about the work that he has done on that issue. Events since August last year prove that our concern that the Taliban remained ideologically opposed to the progress on women’s rights was well founded. The position is now infinitely worse for girls, who cannot access their previous levels of education nor hope that they will be permitted to work unless in the most menial of tasks. What discussions has the Minister had with Ministers of like-minded countries to bring hope to the youth of Afghanistan?
Last August, we all viewed from afar the horrors of the Taliban takeover in Kabul and the desperation of those who wished to flee for their lives. I congratulate our Armed Forces on their professionalism and courage in delivering thousands to safety during Operation Pitting. But there are many who remain in danger in Afghanistan—in danger, because they worked with western Governments and NGOs to bring the hope of a better future to their country. Now they face the reality of reprisals wreaked on them by the Taliban.
The ARAP and ACRS are indeed welcome, but it is disappointing that the Government narrowed the eligibility criteria in December, leaving many UK partners such as the British Council in considerable uncertainty about the fate of their colleagues. I am pleased that the Government have now provided a little more detail on the Afghan citizens resettlement scheme, which was launched earlier this month, but there is still much uncertainty and concern among NGOs about how it will operate.
Last year, our committee wrote to the Foreign Secretary requesting clarification about the position of women judges and journalists, who are particularly vulnerable. We were disappointed by the response we received. I would be grateful if my noble friend the Minister could clarify today how the ACRS in particular will help those remaining in Afghanistan, whose lives are clearly in danger.
Finally, it is important for the Government to look ahead and set out whether and how they could engage with the Taliban on a diplomatic level to address the following three challenges. The first is the extent to which any engagement should be conditional on the Taliban halting the reversal of human rights advances over the past 20 years, while taking into account the significant humanitarian crisis faced by the people of Afghanistan. The second is the extent to which the Taliban appears to be influenced by terrorist groups in the country. Our report noted the close links between the Taliban and the Haqqani network and al-Qaeda. We also noted the threat posed by ISIS-K. After the August withdrawal, American officials labelled that organisation as the most imminent terrorist threat to the US coming out of Afghanistan. The third is the extent to which the UK can or should work with partners such as Pakistan, Iran and other regional actors to reduce instability within Afghanistan and the region.
This is not the time for the international community to avert its gaze from the heavy challenges of securing stability in Afghanistan and the region. The humanitarian crisis within that country makes it more important than ever that the Government should maintain their commitment, given last year, to
“continue to support stability in Afghanistan”.
I look forward to hearing from my noble friend the Minister how the Government plan to do just that. I beg to move.
So one is bound to ask: was it all a waste of time, resources and lives? What is, in fact, the legacy? What is left from that major allied and western effort? Is the report essentially now a historical document? Time will tell, of course, but many of the more educated and modern Afghanis have taken the opportunity to leave the country. There are major question marks over the plight of women and girls under the Taliban regime, but some of that taste of freedom might indeed linger and be capable of surviving when circumstances change, as surely they will one day.
Perhaps we should have had a more profound appreciation of history, such as the British history of intervention in the 1840s and 1880s as part of the great game, the Soviet intervention in the 1980s—what Gorbachev called the “bleeding wound”—a greater appreciation of the reality of Afghan society and the tribalism which apparently the Taliban are experiencing even now, and the intense localism I experienced when I visited Herat and heard that those trained were most reluctant to leave the immediate vicinity of their homes. Did we think that we could graft a western concept of democracy on a very different society? Are there lessons to be learned?
The report concludes that the US talks with the Taliban in Doha were about withdrawal rather than peace negotiations, and that the Afghan Government were sidelined and, indeed, undermined. It rightly points out that the UK and other allies very much played second fiddle to the US in the conflict, and that when the US left we had to leave, together with the European Union and other allies. Was this a reality check for us and the EU? Is it the Government’s view that the Taliban as a whole is in any way different from when it was last in power up to 2001? I would welcome the Minister’s views on whether the Taliban will encourage terrorist groups, such as al-Qaeda and ISKP—the Islamic State Khorasan Province? Will there be an even greater transfer of narcotics to the UK? These are key questions, which it is perhaps premature to ask at the moment and to expect clear answers from the Minister. It may be more productive now to reflect on some of the geostrategic consequences of the Taliban victory.
First, with the experience in Afghanistan and Iraq, will the West be a little more cautious about intervention? Perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, with his experience, will say something about this. Will nation-building be less high on the agenda and spreading democracy now be less favoured? Is there a danger that the correction will go too far in the opposite direction and be very cautious about intervention?
Secondly, the credibility and trustworthiness of the West has been damaged worldwide. It happened before, of course, given the US defeat in Vietnam, but then the US was very much the dominant hegemon and China was not the rival it is today. Taiwan and Ukraine will be especially worried. Countries in the Middle East and Africa will hedge their bets and seek to make peace with China. The UK and the European Union will be similarly affected. Perhaps, as a result of what has happened in Afghanistan, the integrated review needs now to be revisited.
Again, terrorism throughout the world, from Mozambique to the Sahel and Iraq, even in Pakistan, will exult and be emboldened. Is it likely that more such groups will find a safe haven in Afghanistan? What is the Government’s judgment in this respect?
China will, of course, take advantage of the US humiliation and seek ever closer links with Pakistan and the Taliban in Afghanistan, including mining concessions, particularly in respect of rare minerals. In short, the West will need to rebuild its credibility globally and it will take some time for this to happen. Perhaps China will, over time, overreact in Africa.
Positively, however, we in the UK need to have a period of soul-searching in respect of Afghanistan and make our priorities clear: for example, how to get aid to its suffering people and whether some of the assets need to be unfrozen. There is also how to get the aid there without channelling it through the Taliban. We need to reverse the cuts in our own aid and develop areas where we are a superpower, such as in soft power. We need to know ourselves better, avoid any pretensions to great-power status and rely massively on what remains as our major advantages globally.
“defines its legacy in terms of improvements in human rights, particularly of women and girls, and the strengthening of the Afghan state”.
Clearly, these have been failures since August. As we said:
“There is a real risk that … the gains … could be lost.”
Now we know that those gains have been lost, what is the way forward?
It is 20 years since the start of the American operation termed Enduring Freedom. Published just two weeks ago, UN OCHA’s planned humanitarian response for Afghanistan makes for profoundly depressing reading. I quote the foreword of the humanitarian response plan after 20 years of the operation:
“We go into 2022 with unprecedented levels of need amongst ordinary women, men and children of Afghanistan. 24.4 million people are in humanitarian need—more than half the population. Years of compounded crises and under-investment have resulted in nearly four times the number of people in need of lifesaving humanitarian assistance compared to just three years ago.”
That appeal has been matched with a funding appeal for the plan of $869 million, but, according to OCHA, there is a shortfall of $105 million. The UK has responded to the plan with $21 million, but that is behind Sweden, Germany, Japan, France and Denmark. Why are we behind those countries for this humanitarian response plan?
Our wider support is welcome. The UK has committed £82 million for the separate wider humanitarian appeal. However, as the noble Baroness indicated, a concern has been raised that, of the totality of the £286 million that has been announced over a three-year period, only around half—the figure of £145 million has been reported—has actually been allocated. I, too, want clarity on the distribution and allocation of the funds. Obviously, concerns have been raised among the charity and NGO sectors that if the remainder of the funding is not dispersed to the field before the end of this financial year, the Treasury will claw back any unallocated and undispersed funding. I hope that, in summing up, it will be a straightforward job for the Minister to state categorically that this will not happen; that no funds previously allocated to Afghanistan will be clawed back if they have not been distributed.
Urgency is key, of course, but there has been some degree of sympathy for the point made by the noble Baroness about the use of the Taliban for the distribution of certain funds. The Minister was categorical when he gave evidence to our inquiry and has been consistent to this day—he deserves credit for that—that funds will not be distributed through the Taliban. However, as we hear in some of the discussions with the UK envoy and in the discussions that Norway is now facilitating, there are areas controlled by the Taliban that, by necessity, UK funds will have to be distributed through.
That is why it is so important that charities and NGOs know with absolute clarity what the Government’s legislation will be on the use of sanctions. There are, of course, UN sanctions, but there are separate UK sanctions. Therefore, clarity and whether we will be in a position openly and substantially to debate the statutory instruments that will come through on this will be very important. Charities and NGOs have said to me and others that clarity is important for them, not just for now but to have ongoing security with a regime that is unlikely to change.
My second point was also raised by the committee: it is with regard to UK capacity and administration. A very brave Foreign Office whistleblower highlighted in a devastating report the lack of integrated IT, language skills and individual computers for staff; the 5,000 unanswered emails and the block-flagging of unread emails to show that they had been read; disengaged political and head of department leadership; and the complex decision-making which was set aside, notwithstanding the very hard work of certain officials in our Armed Forces and Civil Service. I do not cast any aspersions on our Minister’s work, but it is clear that some lives were lost. The Foreign Office spokesman said at the time that we could not help everybody but our support for those people was enduring. As my noble friend Lady Smith of Newnham and others will no doubt say in this debate, in many respects the meagre and confused resettlement schemes have not been an illustration of our enduring support as referred to by that press spokesman.
Finally, I shall pick up a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Anderson. Coincidentally, Losing Afghanistan: the Fall of Kabul and the End of Western Intervention, edited by Dr Brian Brivati, was published today. It raises difficult questions about the future of intervention, given the context of Afghanistan. My essay in the collection offers a slight degree of optimism but redefines what intervention must be. Only 16 months separated Operation Noble Anvil—the bombing of Serbia—and Operation Enduring Freedom. It is probably clear to many of us that one of those operations has been sustainable and more successful than the other. We need to redefine what intervention is. We need to look at the tools open to us and our allies and partners and be free to allow them to be used when we recognise that a regime that we sought to defeat and deny access is now in place. This is not a time for timidity, even though the circumstances and a humanitarian crisis are there. Reports such as this one and others from charities and NGOs have to be listened to.
Retired General Sir Jack Deverell, former Commander-in-Chief Allied Forces Northern Europe, said this about the book, and I think it is worth closing on it:
“Above all the book poses a question: how can we in the West claim we know so much yet demonstrate in Afghanistan that we understand so little?”
If we do not debate reports such this one and others, we will continue to understand so little at a time when the people of Afghanistan, especially the women and children, demand of us that we understand more.
Up to the point at which the Taliban took over last year, the number of interpreters and family members whom we had relocated to the UK was, I think, in the region of 5,000. I would like to know what the current figure is. I would also like to say on record, as I have done on previous occasions in your Lordships’ House, that although the redundancy and intimidation schemes sometimes left significant room for improvement in flexibility and generosity, this level of relocation, as well as the assistance provided in country, is to be commended and puts the UK at or near best practice among all our allies in their treatment of former interpreters.
What I would like to know now from the Minister is: how many interpreters were awaiting clearance for relocation to the UK under the ex gratia scheme or ARAP at the time of the Taliban takeover? How many had already been given clearance but had not yet travelled? How many wives and children of these two groups were involved? How many from each of these groups have managed to relocate following the Taliban takeover? On the assumption that not all will have successfully relocated but did have prior clearance or were very likely to secure it, what measures are now in place for locating and then relocating the remainder? Are our former interpreters eligible under ARAP or the ACRS, or both? Given their status and former role, is any priority being given to interpreters and their families?
On third-country residents, I was told by the noble Lady, Baroness Goldie—and it was echoed in the government response to the committee’s report—that “administrative difficulties” effectively prevented consideration of requests from former interpreters whose experience of severe intimidation had already driven them to flee to a third country; I believe that they are not eligible under ARAP either. However, she did say that discretion could and would be applied on a case-by-case basis. How many individuals have benefited from such discretion and how proactively are the Government acting to locate, communicate with and offer discretionary help to interpreters in a third country?
Two other issues were raised in the submission from my noble and gallant friend Lord Stirrup and me in evidence to the committee, on which the report is regrettably silent, so I would like to press the Minister for some comment at least and, even better, some commitment for further action.
First, contracting out to a private company the employment of the Afghan interpreters worsened their terms and conditions of employment, including their protection against intimidation. We do not believe that sufficient due diligence was done before awarding the contract and, although too late for those Afghan interpreters, we believe that handing over legal responsibility to a private company should not absolve the Government from the moral responsibility in the short or long term for the safety of interpreters. It is crucial to get this right to avoid serious risks to future military operations. Can the Minister say whether, and, if so, how, the private contractor is providing any assistance in locating former interpreters who may be in hiding but still wish to relocate to the UK?
Finally, I have spoken with the Minister several times before about the wider issue of protection for civilian interpreters in conflict zones, of which the case of the Afghans is a good example. An international campaign has, for some years now, been trying to get the UN Security Council to pass a resolution to mirror Resolution 2222, agreed in 2015, on the protection of journalists in conflict zones. The case for interpreters, I would argue, is even stronger, as journalists are usually able to go home to a safe country when their assignment ends, whereas interpreters are left to face potential intimidation and violence in their own communities. Such a resolution would pave the way for the Geneva conventions to be updated, and would send a powerful message that the UK and others value the vital role of interpreters and will honour their moral and practical obligations to them during and after the conflict that they are helping us to resolve. I hope the Minister can update us on where this issue currently stands within the Security Council and that he will undertake to follow up on it.
The second thing I would like us to learn is that you cannot have a policy based on bombing people into submission and then sending aid to rebuild the place. This is not a strategy. We may have to face the fact that in some parts of this great world of ours there are people who do not share our values, and we cannot force them to share our values. What Afghanistan has demonstrated is how quickly the castle can disappear into the sea because it is just a sandcastle. We have many people from Afghanistan now in Britain and in other western countries, but we had to pull them out because we had not built any structures that would survive for even a very short time.
I received, among other things, a rather good briefing from the BBC. It has got most of its people out. It has clearly done a good job there. We need to continue to support the BBC. But I find it bizarre that the funding for the World Service comes out of exactly the same pool as “Would I Lie to You?”, which is a programme on the BBC—it is not Prime Minister’s Question Time, incidentally. I really think that we need to see the World Service as a protected species; in other words, we need to make sure that it is protected, because it is the one body that is universally respected. I have travelled all over the world in my career and it is the one body that is always mentioned to me as something that people are very proud of and listen to and trust. We need to somehow pull the BBC World Service out of this mélange of BBC funding. It needs to be looked after.
What are the lessons for the future? Some 20 years ago, when this was just starting, I accompanied a Russian general around a museum of the Afghan war. In that museum there were letters from soldiers—their last letters—and various artefacts that had been in Afghanistan, and I always remember something he said to me: “You won’t win either and your enemy is much better armed than ours was in the beginning because your enemy has been armed by the Americans. They’ve armed the Taliban and it’s their arms that are now going to be used against you.” We need to look at things and say: “What can we actually do?”
A little closer to home, at the moment we are getting ourselves in a complete mess in Ukraine. Germany is refusing to let Estonia hand over its weapons. We cannot get overflight of Germany. But we need to reflect, as the German foreign office does, that we cannot do anything militarily in eastern Europe. If you talk to people at the German foreign ministry, that is what they will tell you. They will say that all you are doing is stoking up trouble. No one has ever won a war against the Russians. We are not going to be starting it. But we need a much sounder policy when we look at the lessons to be learned from Afghanistan. I think the lessons are that we can export western values through an aid and support programme and through helping with education and women’s rights—all the good things that we do—but we can do that only when we have fertile ground in which to sow our seeds. Self-evidently in Afghanistan we did not.
My conclusion on this excellent report is that we should use it as a series of signposts as to what we should not do again. That is the most important thing that comes out of it. I read it and at various points thought, “Hmm, maybe not. Better be careful there.” If we can get one good thing out of it, it should be realism in British foreign policy.
The evidence the committee received led to a report which pointed to the danger of the USA’s approach and our support of it. Select Committees do not always get things right and come to the right conclusions. On this occasion, most of the committee’s analysis and predictions have turned out to be correct. Indeed, if anything, it understated the disastrous outcomes of western policy. We argued that US and NATO troops should stay in Afghanistan until a negotiated settlement between the then Afghan Government and the Taliban was reached. There was a failure of diplomacy by the US Government in early 2020 because they made a unilateral agreement with the Taliban to withdraw their troops without adequate conditions. This agreement undermined the Afghan Government in their talks with the Taliban which followed. Since the US was going to leave regardless of the outcome of the talks, we said that this would be likely to destabilise the security situation—and so it did.
Do the Government regret their decision to support the US-Taliban agreement? Were decisions by NATO allies to withdraw made collectively rather than more or less imposed on NATO by the USA? The response of the Secretary of State for Defence at the time of the withdrawal suggested that at least he did not support it. In saying this, perhaps I should remind the Minister—I do not suppose he has forgotten it—that the numbers of US NATO troops remaining in the country were minimal and the costs therefore very small compared to the vast expenditure of the earlier war.
Following the appalling planning of the mechanics of withdrawal and the consequent chaos that followed last summer, the Prime Minister admitted that the situation in Afghanistan was “bleak”. The priorities that he set out were to work with our international partners in providing humanitarian support; to evacuate Afghans who had worked with the UK; and to establish a plan agreed by the international community to deal with the Taliban regime. I will deal with each of those in turn.
As soon as the country was overrun by the Taliban and they were back in government, NGOs providing development aid had to leave. Given that foreign aid accounted for 60% of government income with no prospect of it being replaced by domestic revenues, it should have been obvious immediately that a humanitarian crisis would follow. It has. So why were the UK and the international community so slow in devising and then implementing a scheme in which humanitarian aid would be increased, ring-fenced and then delivered by UN agencies?
As has been said, many children have already died from malnutrition. We are now in the depths of winter and a high percentage of the population, especially in rural areas, is suffering from acute hunger, many of them at risk of starvation. Does the Minister agree that it is not just food aid that is required but basic public services, notably in health and education? What increases are the Government making in our aid funding to Afghanistan through targeted subventions to UN agencies following the disastrous cuts to our aid budget—referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Purvis—in a context where, despite promises to reverse them, no date has been provided for when that is going to happen?
I know the Minister will have come armed with figures on the number of Afghans who worked for the UK who have been evacuated or subsequently given asylum to settle here, but it is hardly surprising that in the shambles of last summer many of those with a legitimate claim to come here were unable to leave and were left at risk of horrible Taliban reprisals. I am particularly concerned about recent stories of locally-engaged British Council staff who appear to have been largely forgotten under the ARAP scheme for resettlement in the UK.
I welcome the decision to open a new scheme, the ACRS, to cover not just those who helped the UK with our work in Afghanistan but other vulnerable groups too. These should include lawyers, academics and journalists, especially women in all three of those categories. How many from such groups have been able to resettle here, and how many is it planned to provide for over the next 12 months? Could the Minister respond to criticisms of the narrowing of the criteria for ARCS that was announced last month? Does he accept that the changes made renege on earlier promises? Does he agree that they will have a retrospective effect, crushing the hopes of some Afghans hoping to escape the country who believed that they were eligible for resettlement?
I turn to the third of the Prime Minister’s priorities last August. Where do the Government now stand on how to relate to the Taliban Government? When responding on this, I ask the Minister to report on a meeting apparently being held under the auspices of the Norwegian Government to consider these issues. What position are the UK Government now taking? Clearly the return of the Taliban as the Government of Afghanistan has had disastrous consequences, setting back the earlier improvements—even if limited—made by the previous Government?
There appears to be a lack of unanimity and conflict within the Taliban regime. Moreover, there is evidence that the Government are not controlling many of their adherents, who are committing atrocities at ground level that go unchallenged. What assessment have the UK Government made of the Taliban leadership? Do they believe that there are more progressive elements to whom it may be possible to reach out, or not? Is there not a case to be made, as Rory Stewart and others have said, for dialogue taking place with the Taliban, not just in respect of the delivery of humanitarian aid?
To conclude, without such dialogue, leading possibly to the eventual recognition of the Taliban Government providing certain conditions are met, it is hard to see anything other than continuing security challenges, as well as a bleak future for the people of Afghanistan. Its tragic history, which I described at the beginning, will not be reversed. Without economic development, the rule of law, stable government and basic human rights, those Afghans who can will seek to escape, and the flow of refugees to neighbouring countries and the West will go on and on.
“If we win here we will win everywhere.”
One of the inquiry’s most authoritative witnesses was Husain Haqqani, Pakistan’s former distinguished ambassador to the United States. While Kabul was being taken by the Taliban, he said that
“what is happening in Kabul will not stay in Kabul. Radical Islamists, armed with the powerful narrative of driving out two superpowers through jihad, will challenge the American-led order across much of the Muslim world”.
When our admirable Secretary of State for Defence, Ben Wallace, appeared before the Select Committee in October, I asked about the findings of the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy that
“recent events in Afghanistan suggest the NSC and the cross-government machinery that supports its work are inadequate to the task”,
a point referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Purvis. How have we addressed what it identified as “groupthink”—
“reluctance by Ministers and/or senior officials to engage fully with the realities of information presented to them”—
and the
“failure of diplomacy to bring forward an alternative NATO coalition on the ground”?
I have a number of other questions. Just a few days ago, on 17 January, a group of United Nations-appointed distinguished experts reported that the Taliban is attempting
“to steadily erase women and girls from public life”
by
“institutionalizing large scale and systematic gender-based discrimination and violence against women and girls”
including trafficking and forced marriage. As we heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, the Select Committee’s report warned that this would happen. In evidence to our committee, we heard that, since 2001, women had begun to enjoy their basic human rights, including the right to education. They were able to enrol in higher education and pursue careers, including in the judicial system, politics, medicine, the police and the armed forces. The committee found
“considerable improvement in the participation of women in Afghan society, politics and the economy since the fall of the Taliban administration in 2001, particularly in urban areas.”
The Taliban often uses a metaphor about clocks and time. As the clocks are now turned back in Afghanistan, will the rights of women be a priority for any engagement on Afghanistan? As the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, implied a few moments ago, in negotiations currently under way in Norway, will the position of women as a priority be a pre-condition for any kind of recognition? For us in the UK, will it also be a priority to ensure that any money sent through our aid programmes does not end up lining the pockets of corrupt men?
The committee also raised Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and its insistence on freedom of religion or belief. In his evidence, the Minister—the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon—said that the Taliban’s “ideological philosophy” needs to be addressed. He is right, of course. We asked for further information and were told that the then Afghan Government were seeking
“to create space for moderate Islamic scholarship and ulema.”
What will happen to that now? We were also told about the Minister’s welcome Declaration of Humanity, especially its call
“for multiple faiths and beliefs to unite in a common front to challenge damaging societal norms”.
What is the FCDO doing to prioritise the declaration?
Last week, for the first time in 20 years, Open Doors ranked Afghanistan in its World Watch List as the most dangerous place in the world to be a Christian, reporting:
“Men face ridicule, imprisonment, torture, sexual abuse and potentially death because of their faith. Men and boys also become targets for militias seeking to coerce them into joining their fighter groups … women … can be sold into slavery or prostitution, beaten severely, forced to marry a Muslim (in an attempt to re-convert them), or sexually abused.”
Since the Taliban came back to power, their community has had to flee or go into hiding, with the remnant living in acute danger and the Taliban actively hunting them down. Ali Ehsani said that the Taliban was merciless when it found out his family were Christian:
“One day, I came home from school to find that the Taliban had destroyed our home and killed my parents.”
The plight of the Hazara Shias is no better. The committee’s written evidence found that the Shia Hazara minority were
“regularly subjected to targeted killings, violence, and discrimination based on their ethnic and religious identity … The response from the Afghan government and international community has been largely inadequate or missing altogether.”
Subsequently, in August 2021, Amnesty International published a report shedding light on the mass killings of the Hazaras by the Taliban. Around the same time, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum published a statement on the risk of crimes against humanity, even genocide, against the Hazaras. I hope that the Minister can tell us whether the Government have carried out their treaty obligations under the convention on the crime of genocide to conduct a risk assessment of genocide from the moment that such a danger is known to exist. Such a risk assessment is a matter not for the courts but for the FCDO.
Furthermore, even in 2020, the Taliban’s affiliate, Islamic State Khorasan Province, was responsible for at least 10 attacks against Shia Muslims, Sufi Muslims and Sikhs, resulting in 308 civilian casualties. Subsequently, in a chilling report about the Hazaras, Amnesty described
“a recent resurgence of attacks ... Hazara schools and religious sites have been bombed, medical clinics targeted, and Hazara civilians murdered by the Taliban or ISIS-K.”
The Select Committee’s report called for an urgent review of the Home Office failure—unlike other Five Eyes countries, such as Canada—to include IS-K on its list of proscribed terrorist organisations. Can we have an update on this, please?
Through emails and questions, I have regularly drawn the plight of the Hazaras to the attention of the FCDO. Last September, I sent reports of ethnic cleansing of Hazaras in Daykundi who were sent letters telling them to leave their homes within three days. They left with only their clothes and bare necessities; their homes were given to Taliban fighters. Our committee report recommends:
“The UK should publicly champion the rights of minority communities, such as the Hazaras.”
How do we intend to do that when those persecuted on the grounds of their religion have been given no priority in the response to this terrible tragedy? Is it any wonder that such cruelty has led to a massive exodus of refugees, adding to the 84 million people displaced worldwide?
The committee’s report highlights the immense challenges faced by Afghan refugees. The UN estimates that some 3.5 million people are internally displaced, 80% of whom are said to be women or children. Millions of others are dispersed throughout the region and the rest of the world. On 25 October, in a Parliamentary Question, I asked the Government what assessment they had made of the World Food Programme estimates that 22.8 million now face acute food insecurity, 8.7 million face emergency levels of food insecurity, and 3.2 million children under five are expected to suffer from acute malnutrition by the end of 2021. Can we now hear from the Government whether they agree with those estimates?
In their response to the committee’s report, the Government said:
“Afghans remain in the top 10 nationalities for irregular migration into Europe and the UK. Irregular migration is facilitated by criminals operating along well-established routes, with migrants often suffering some form of exploitation during their journey.”
Other than repelling them from our shores, as some drown in the English Channel, what are going to do to give them practical help? The Minister knows that a day does not pass without him and Ministers at the Home Office receiving emails—there were more from me today—about desperate Afghans still fleeing for their lives. Some belong to the persecuted religious minorities. Some have worked for the allied forces or western organisations. Some are gay; some are journalists; some are judges and lawyers; some have family in the UK. They are scared. They are desperate, fleeing and fighting to survive.
I welcome the official opening of the Afghan citizens resettlement scheme but what provision is there in it for religious minorities facing existential threats? How many of the 20,000 who we say we will help are already settled in the UK, and how many will actually be new cases? My noble friend Lady Coussins has raised the issue of Afghan interpreters in third countries, where they often remain at risk. I hope that the Minister will respond to what she said about that.
I have some short, concluding points. At paragraph 187, the committee reminds its readers:
“Afghanistan is the largest source of heroin in the world”
and, at paragraph 279:
“Opium remains the main source of income for the Taliban, accounting for up to 65%.”
The report warns that
“terrorism, narcotics and regional instability, could worsen, and the gains made since 2001 could be lost.”
In January 2021 the committee said:
“The Government should seek to reinforce the need for a multinational approach, and be precise about its aims, including regional stability, counter-terrorism and countering narcotics production and trafficking.”
In sharp relief, we can see the consequences of failing to do those things but, undoubtedly, although heightened and made even more difficult to address, the same challenges now apply as they did in January of last year.
The decision to withdraw and the way in which it was done undermined US moral authority and western credibility globally, just when we need leadership so desperately as we face huge challenges such as Covid, climate change and the ongoing clash between China and the West. The events of the summer were grave days for all of us to witness, the good intentions of 20 years lying in tatters. Those many British and Afghans who risked, and in some cases paid with, their lives to bring stability and hope to Afghanistan deserved so much better. I think we all agree that this was not the endgame that any of us would have wished for.
As we try to pick up the pieces, there are still many unanswered questions. First, the speed and efficiency of the Taliban campaign seemed to surprise everyone. Why? This must have stemmed from either a failure of intelligence or a failure of leadership. We still cannot really tell which, amid the noisy blame game that has followed, but we should not allow that truth to be buried.
I pay tribute to all those who worked so hard to get friends and allies out of Afghanistan, but what of those left behind, as others have mentioned? I fear, as we all do, that many have been abandoned to their fate. Like others before me, I ask the Minister to report on recent numbers in the resettlement scheme.
Secondly, of the many people we let down, the terrible impact on the rights of women and girls in Afghanistan weighs heavily. We learn of hardship and threat to life every single day. What does that say about us and our values when we talk about human rights globally?
Thirdly, what does that tell us about our relationship with our closest allies? It is extremely disappointing, to say the least, that we were unable to exert more influence over the Americans. The NATO alliance is under pressure again, this time from Putin, and its ability to respond cohesively and effectively matters too much to allow NATO to dissipate as a relic of the last century.
Fourthly, our neglect is to the gain of others whom we do not call our allies, such as China, Iran and Russia. We have already seen the Chinese make inroads to Afghanistan and we are yet to know exactly how regional stability will play out. Twenty years on, we have simply delivered the very thing we were trying to avoid: a Taliban-run Afghanistan, a country which is likely to harbour terrorist groups and store up CT problems for us in the foreseeable—the very reason we went in there in the first place.
Fifthly, Afghanistan was already one of the most aid-dependent countries in the world before Covid and our withdrawal. With the effects of both, we are now looking at a humanitarian catastrophe worsened by the bleak winter and further waves of Covid. This was our mess in the creating, and I urge the Minister not to turn our backs on the people of Afghanistan; others have said this today. Whoever their masters may be, we must support them. I commend efforts to provide aid through UN agencies as well as other trusted NGOs and urge that this continues.
Those, like many of us in this Room, who ponder the withdrawal from Afghanistan should not forget why we went in there in the first instance. It was a NATO-led deployment in response to Article 5 after the devastating attacks of 9/11. However, it is often the case that the unified purpose of an intervention is far easier a task than to bring such a mission successfully to its end. No one wants forever wars. Perhaps we should put more strategic energy into thinking about what our mission is and what we owe to those who have supported and served with us on the ground.
Afghanistan seems fated to play a pivotal role in the 21st century, as it did in the century before and the one before that, from the advent of the great game to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 to the precipitation of 9/11 and the abrupt exit of this summer. The people of Afghanistan once again find themselves paying a heavy price for global politics. We should acknowledge our debt to them and continue to help where we can.