Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy

Luke Pollard Excerpts

Thursday 5th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for the Armed Forces (Luke Pollard)]

I thank the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) for raising this issue, and for presenting his argument in the way that he did. We have spoken about this case on a number of occasions, so he will know that I take responsibility for making sure that we make the correct decisions on ARAP. When I was on the Opposition Front Bench, where the right hon. Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois) is now sitting, I raised concerns about the functioning of the ARAP scheme. In office, we have made changes to the scheme to make sure that it functions better, which I will come to. The hon. Member for North East Fife (Wendy Chamberlain) mentioned communications, and I believe the right hon. Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis) quoted the Secretary of State’s comments on the Triples review, but I will address the issues raised by the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green in the first instance.

I very much appreciate the right hon. Member’s advocacy for the individual involved, and his passion for Afghan resettlement in general. He is absolutely right to say that we owe an obligation to the people who served alongside UK forces. What we have done with the ARAP scheme is implement as a nation, under the last Government and this one, probably the most generous Afghan relocation scheme of any of the allies that served in Afghanistan, and we have drawn a set of eligibility criteria that—with the exception of the Triples, which I will come to in a moment—have broadly remained the same under this Government and the preceding Government. I hear the right hon. Gentleman’s concerns about elements of that, which I will seek to address.

As a former Minister, he will know that I will not be able to address the individual circumstances of the case without permission, so I will make some more general remarks in respect of that individual case. However, I hope the right hon. Gentleman will not mind my saying that we have met previously on this matter, and I very much understand and appreciate his ongoing engagement. I have to be honest with him and say that when he and I first spoke about this case and I was briefed on it, I too was surprised by the decision that was made. That is why I undertook to take it back to the Department and to check on the eligibility of the case, which I did. Having done that, I am confident that the officials have followed the published criteria and applied them correctly to the evidence provided. The decision is appropriate and should stand. I should also be clear that there are no plans to ask to expand the criteria, which were implemented by the previous Government.

I do, however, recognise the context of this particular matter, and I am happy to take up the right hon. Gentleman’s challenge to see whether exceptional routes may be available. I do not want to give him false hope—I am not certain there will be such a route—but having spoken to him previously about this, I know the seriousness of the matter he raises, and I am happy to see whether we could look at additional opportunities to provide support in this case.

When it comes to the published criteria for ARAP, we must be absolutely clear about eligibility, and it is my job as the Minister responsible for Afghan resettlement to make sure that decisions are made correctly against the published eligibility criteria. Where decisions have been made, an individual has access to a review, and where there is a concern over an individual’s security while that review is ongoing—especially circumstances in which the life and safety of that individual are threatened—there is the ability to request an expedited decision.

[Lincoln Jopp]

The Minister’s civil servants will be proud of him. I think the point my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) was making was that when the computer says no and the Minister knows that the computer is wrong, does he not have an obligation simply to go away and change the system?

[Luke Pollard]

First, I put on record that we have exceptional civil servants working in this area who take the decisions very seriously and make those decisions in full consciousness of their consequences. I am absolutely convinced that we have a good team working on this.

On the point the hon. Member raises, we are making decisions against the published criteria, and it is right to do so. We know that amendments to the published criteria change the eligibility in respect of past cases. We also know that at the moment we have the most generous Afghan resettlement scheme. We have resettled 34,000 eligible persons in the United Kingdom under ARAP and the associated Afghan resettlement schemes, which is more than many of our allies. It is right that we make those decisions against the published criteria, and that we look carefully at them. That is why I undertook to do so in this case, and I have done so.

There is a real challenge, and I entirely understand it. As someone who has advocated for Afghans in my own Plymouth constituency who fell outside the published criteria, which were set in place by the last Government and that we have followed, I have often argued that we should look again at this obligation. I am entirely aware that the majority of my efforts on this have centred on the Triples, who I will come on to, and whether those decisions were made correctly. I will give the House an update on that in a moment.

I want to make sure that decisions are correct according to the published criteria. Those criteria are frequently challenged in the courts, and we have to uphold them to make sure that every decision is valid. Every case is assessed on a case-by-case basis, based on the information provided following a request for the information held not just by the Ministry of Defence but by other Government Departments and partners across Government, in order to make sure that the decision taken is as appropriate as possible. Individuals who get a decision that is not in their favour also have the ability to provide additional evidence and to have that decision reviewed.

[Sir Julian Lewis]

I know that the Minister sincerely cares about all of this, and I am sure that he really wants to do his best, however the key point being made by my hon. and right hon. and gallant Friends is that, if the criteria do not cater for a situation in which senior British military personnel give first-person testimony that somebody saved British lives by taking exceptionally courageous steps in our support, the criteria need to be adjusted. That is what should be done, as I hope he is going tell us that it may have been adjusted for the Triples.

[Luke Pollard]

I entirely understand where the right hon. Gentleman is going with that argument. Under the criteria in the scheme we inherited from the previous Government, which we have continued, we have made the decision, with the exception of the Triples, to keep the eligibility decisions the same.

Let me turn to the Triples, which the right hon. Gentleman raised. I believe that the quote of the Secretary of State when in opposition was in relation to the very concerning situation—I believe it was a concern to him and to me when in opposition—that decisions were made in respect of the Afghan special forces, the Triples, that were inconsistent with the evidence that was being provided. We backed and called for the Triples review, which was initiated by my predecessor in the previous Government. Phase 1 of that review has now completed and we have achieved an overturn rate of around 30%. A written ministerial statement on that was published— I think last month—should the right hon. Gentleman want to refer to the full details.

In that work, we interrogated the data that was available. The record-keeping of that period was not good enough, as I have said from the Dispatch Box a number of times since taking office. As part of that trawl, we discovered information in relation to top-up payments, which previously had been excluded from the criteria because they did not constitute the relationship with the UK Government that would have created eligibility. Our belief is that the way those top-up payments were applied may now constitute a relationship that needs to be re-examined, so phase 2 of the Triples review, which will be the final phase of the review, is looking at top-up payments. It was right to do that, because there was a clear point.

In the case raised by the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green, I am very happy to try to see what is available to support it. I feel very deeply that we need to honour our obligations to those people who served alongside our forces, from the Afghan translators and interpreters who live in the constituency I represent, to the people who fought, and in some cases died, alongside our forces. The ARAP scheme is a generous scheme, but it was not intended, at its point of initiation or now, to cover all Afghans who fought in that conflict over 20 years. It was designed to support those who we can evidence had a close connection to UK forces, often defined by a contractual or payment relationship—in blunt plain-English terms—where a sizeable commitment has been made. That draws a line for some individuals who were employed by the Afghan national army, the Afghan Government and elements of the security structures that the Afghan Government had at that time, for which eligibility is not created despite their role. The Taliban regime has created chaos, instability and terror through many communities in Afghanistan since our departure. That is why, as a Government, we are trying to accelerate and deliver the Afghan scheme.

The hon. Member for North East Fife mentioned communications. That is entirely right. It is something I have been raising since becoming a Minister. We will introduce, from the autumn, a new series of communications designed to help people understand where their application is in the process. The new performance indicators will kick in from September time—roughly in the autumn—and that will seek to help people to understand where they are in the process. There is concern around understanding for how long a case will be dealt with. I also hope the performance indicators will have time-bound targets to help people be able to rate the performance of the Ministry of Defence. Certainly, when the Defence Secretary published his statement on the Afghan resettlement scheme at the end of last year, he made the case that we need to complete our obligation and bring the schemes to a close, and it is our objective to do so.

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

rose—

[Wendy Chamberlain]

rose—

[Luke Pollard]

I will give way to the right hon. Gentleman; I hope the hon. Lady does not mind.

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

We are close to running out of time, I understand that. If I may, I just stress that the failing I am referring relates to the fact that the officer who commanded the garrison met this man regularly and had him at meetings in which they discussed future operations. He was trusted. He fed them intelligence. He helped support them, so that they did not go into areas where they should not have gone. The major who worked with this guy also made a statement about how important he was, even though, officially, there was not some kind of P45 that tied him to our pay structure. The reality is that he served us. All I ask is that the Minister recognises that, goes away and says, “This is not good enough. This individual needs to be saved very soon.” He may be dead. We do not have much time.

[Luke Pollard]

I am happy to continue the conversation with the right hon. Gentleman in the days ahead.

Question put and agreed to.