The UK Government has had to revamp its system for processing Afghan asylum applications after more than two weeks of chaos, the Defence Secretary has admitted.
MPs have warned that refugees in need of protection from the Taliban were “left to fend for themselves” because ministers were “unprepared to deal with the fallout from their own mess”.
At least four Government departments are involved in operating the two settlement schemes which apply to Afghan civilians fleeing their home country. Ben Wallace told a meeting of MPs that officials were dealing with thousands of messages about people who have been left behind despite the evacuation of 15,000 Britons and Afghans in August.
He warned that civil servants would be unable to respond to each message in less than a week and promised to set up a new spreadsheet ensuring that the requests ended up in the right place and revealed that staff are being redeployed to speed up the efforts. The Defence Secretary said: “Part of the work they are doing, and I sent over some defence intelligence analysts, is to try and tidy up the data sets, strip them through and make sure they are in the right place.”
In a reference to claims that thousands of emails to the Foreign Office from MPs and campaigners have gone unread, Mr Wallace told the MPs: “You can just clog up my inbox if you need to at Parliament, we will get them worked through to do that – in between the other emails I am having at the moment from a certain section of society.”
It is not known how many Afghan citizens may be eligible for the so-called Arap scheme, which grants asylum to those who worked with the British military in roles such as an interpreter, but MPs say they are dealing with several thousand individual cases between them.
Layla Moran, the Liberal Democrat spokesperson on foreign affairs, told i: “With the Government overwhelmed and unprepared to deal with the fallout from their own mess, failing to pull out all the stops to bring these people home at this crucial point would be morally negligent. Each case tells the tale of a family devastated by this Government’s failure to handle the crisis.”
Labour’s David Lammy added: “Hundreds of British Afghans have been left to fend for themselves, with no advice as to whether to run for their lives or to hide. While our troops have put their lives on the line to save others, they’ve been let down by hopeless ministers in Whitehall.”
As well as the Ministry of Defence, the Home Office and Foreign Office are partly responsible for the resettlement of Afghan refugees. Cabinet Office minister Michael Gove is chairing a Cabinet committee to co-ordinate the issue across Government.
How refugee schemes work
Up to 30,000 Afghan refugees are due to settle in the UK over the coming years, under two separate schemes which have been set up by the British Government in response to the Taliban takeover.
The Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy (Arap) was first announced in late 2020 following warnings that Afghan interpreters were in danger from the Taliban’s growing control of the country.
It applies to anyone who worked closely with the British military during the 20-year conflict, and who therefore has reason to believe they may be at risk of reprisals from anti-Western militants.
As many as 10,000 people are believed to have been accepted on the scheme, with the majority being airlifted out of Afghanistan in the past few weeks as the country’s government collapsed. The Government says the offer is “open-ended” so that anyone else who is eligible can come forward at any time in the future.
A separate resettlement scheme applies to asylum seekers with no prior ties to the UK but who fear for their lives under the Taliban. It is particularly targeted at women, children, ethnic minorities and gay, lesbian or transgender Afghans.
Ministers aim to resettle 5,000 of these refugees by the end of the year, although they must make their own way out of Afghanistan before they can travel on to Britain. The scheme will take 20,000 people in total, and they are likely to have greater rights than other refugees as well as free language lessons and help with education.