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1,991 recent contributions in Hansard
HANSARDAfghanistan: FCDO UpdateI am not going to go into too much of the operational detail, but it is fair to say that the new iteration of the Taliban are a more sophisticated operator in many ways—with…06 Sept 2021HANSARDAfghanistan: FCDO UpdateThe hon. Gentleman issues a fair challenge, but I am afraid that there is an equally fair and reasonable answer. We have standing evacuation plans in place for all high-risk…06 Sept 2021HANSARDAfghanistan: FCDO UpdateThe hon. Lady is absolutely right that ethnic groups—Hazaras and others—would be considered as part of the eligibility in the same way as LGBT people. Effectively we are looking…06 Sept 2021HANSARDAfghanistan: FCDO UpdateI thank my right hon. Friend. I know how much first-hand experience he has of these matters from his time in active service. Of course the relationship with the new Government of…06 Sept 2021HANSARDAfghanistan: FCDO UpdateI thank the hon. Lady for the work that she and the APPG are doing. She raises a really important point. It is a practical point, but one that will only exacerbate people’s fear…06 Sept 2021HANSARDAfghanistan: FCDO UpdateWe will not give aid to the Taliban. The Taliban have a choice and a set of decisions that they have to make about whether they want to preside over the wholesale economic and…06 Sept 2021HANSARDAfghanistan: FCDO UpdateI think what the hon. Lady says about the Germany case is not quite right. My understanding is that there was a previous German case that was allowed onward passage, but the…06 Sept 2021HANSARDAfghanistan: FCDO UpdateI have spoken to my counterpart, Foreign Minister Wang Yi, and I will speak to him again in the near future. There is a lot of talk about how China wants to rush in and fill the…06 Sept 2021HANSARDAfghanistan: FCDO UpdateBritish aid allowed 10 million more children to get access to a decent education over that last 20 years. Four out of 10 of them were young girls, who would have never seen a…06 Sept 2021HANSARDAfghanistan: FCDO UpdateI would just say to the hon. Gentleman that I understand the passion with which he speaks. We have taken more than 17,000 people. Many of those are British nationals, but there…06 Sept 2021HANSARDAfghanistan: FCDO UpdateI thank my hon. Friend for highlighting such cases and pay tribute to his work on the Council of Europe. We are clearly going to face challenging times and need to adjust our…06 Sept 2021HANSARDAfghanistan: FCDO UpdateI share the hon. Gentleman’s concern, which is probably the single biggest concern of hon. Members across the House. In the last analysis, we reserve the right to exercise the…06 Sept 2021HANSARDAfghanistan: FCDO UpdateI understand my right hon. Friend’s point. It is right to have the resettlement scheme over a number of years, because history tells us that we will be dealing with this challenge…06 Sept 2021HANSARDAfghanistan: FCDO UpdateThat is one of the reasons why I went to Islamabad, where I talked to the high commission team dealing with and supporting those applications and cases. We are trying to work…06 Sept 2021HANSARDAfghanistan: FCDO UpdateI appreciate what my hon. Friend says. The reality is that it will depend on two factors. The first is the ability to get Kabul up and running. That is in many ways the more…06 Sept 2021HANSARDAfghanistan: FCDO UpdateI understand the point the hon. Gentleman makes, but I think there is no country proportionally doing more, if we take not only what we are doing on the resettlement scheme, but…06 Sept 2021HANSARDAfghanistan: FCDO UpdateWe will do everything we can to support the hon. Member, and indeed hon. Members across the House. The thing to understand is that there are three separate ways of being eligible…06 Sept 2021HANSARDAfghanistan: FCDO UpdateMy hon. Friend makes a good point. The truth is that throughout this crisis we have had a litany of critique without really very serious or credible suggestions for doing anything…06 Sept 2021HANSARDAfghanistan: FCDO UpdateI thank the hon. Gentleman, who I think raises a very real issue. As I have already said to the House, we will make sure that vulnerability based on ethnicity will be considered…06 Sept 2021HANSARDAfghanistan: FCDO UpdateMy hon. Friend raises a good point. The Prime Minister has spoken to the UN Secretary-General, including on this, and I spoke to Jean Arnault, the special representative on…06 Sept 2021