Lord Cameron answers Committee questions on Afghan resettlement

• Correspondence with the Foreign Secretary relating to the follow-up session to the Afghanistan inquiry , dated 14/12/2023 and 17/12/2023
• Inquiry: Government policy on Afghanistan
• Foriegn Affairs Committee

This correspondence was received in response to a letter from the Foreign Affairs Committee following an oral evidence session with Lord Ahmad, Minister of State in the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) for the Middle East, North Africa, South Asia, United Nations and the Commonwealth.

In his response, Lord Cameron outlines for the first time the allocation of departmental responsibilities within government on the resettlement of eligible Afghans into the UK.

Potential deportation of eligible Afghans

The Foreign Secretary says that, to date, “there has been one case under ACRS Pathway 2” which predates Pakistan’s current push to deport undocumented migrants.

The letter cites a meeting with the Pakistani Foreign Minister on 30 November, during which the Foreign Minister “repeated the assurances he had given my predecessor that our cohorts would not be targeted.”

On Iran, Lord Cameron says that “FCDO staff in the Embassy in Tehran and across HMG are working to relocate ARAP and ACRS families there to the UK as quickly as we can”.

Chartered flights from Pakistan to the UK

The letter reports that “the first Home Office/IOM charter flight for ACRS Pathway 3 arrived from Pakistan on 13 December with 246 EPs on board”, with another due to be “in the air” on 18 December.

Lord Cameron says that “those two flights will mean that almost all of the most vulnerable undocumented EPs will have left Pakistan before the Government of Pakistan’s deadline of 31 December”.

The Foreign Secretary also says that “over a third of all those due to come to the UK under this first stage of ACRS Pathway 3 will have got here before the end of the year.” The letter confirms that “plans are in place to bring the remainder of those now in third countries to the UK early in the New Year, leaving only those still in Afghanistan, of which our estimate is there are less than 700”.

Chair's comment

Foreign Affairs Committee, Chair, Alicia Kearns MP, said:

“This letter provides some much-needed clarity on the current state of Afghan resettlement schemes and the remits and responsibilities in government. This is a cross-cutting, complex area that the Foreign Affairs Committee has pushed the Government for answers on, and this is the first time these responsibilities have been set out so clearly.

“Two years since the fall of Kabul to the Taliban – and up against a hard and fast-approaching deadline from the Pakistani Government – it appears we are finally seeing some movement in the right direction.

“There are still serious concerns over the danger that eligible Afghans – including those who put their lives at risk for the UK – will be deported back to Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. This would be a betrayal of the promises we made to them and would place them in substantial peril.

“It remains the case that two thirds of the Afghans eligible for resettlement in the UK under the first stage of ACRS Pathway 3 haven’t been resettled, and this letter does not provide details on the Government’s plans to evacuate them to the UK.

“The Foreign Affairs Committee will continue to scrutinise the UK’s approach to the fallout from the Afghanistan evacuation, and advocate for those Afghans who made significant sacrifices on our behalf.”

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