Business of the House

Tom Gordon Excerpts

Thursday 17th July 2025 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Powell]

I absolutely join my hon. Friend in congratulating Lucy Bronze and the rest of the women’s Euros team. We are all getting behind them in the coming days. He is absolutely right that our grassroots clubs, whether in men’s or women’s football, are the engine of the football pyramid. That is why I am really pleased, and I am sure the whole House—well, those of us on the Labour Benches, anyway—will be pleased that the Football Governance Bill has now passed all its stages and will hopefully soon receive Royal Assent. We are putting fans and community clubs right back at the heart of the football pyramid, which is as it should be.

[Tom Gordon (Harrogate and Knaresborough) (LD)]

A couple of weeks ago at a Quaker Asylum and Refugee Network event in Harrogate, I met constituents who came to the UK from Afghanistan under the Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy scheme, and who still have family living in Afghanistan. They showed me photos of their loved ones, some smiling and some a lot more brutal and bleak after attacks they had faced. The statement earlier this week focused rightly on the Afghanistan Response Route scheme and the associated super-injunction. Will the Leader of the House liaise with her Cabinet colleagues and look for further opportunities for MPs to meet relevant Ministers to discuss existing applications under the ARAP scheme, such as those of my constituents and their families?

[Lucy Powell]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising that issue on behalf of the Afghan refugees in his constituency. He is absolutely right that the UK made a commitment—the right commitment—to honour our moral obligation that we owe to those Afghans who stood with us through all those years of conflict and terror. He will be aware that, to date, around 36,000 Afghans have resettled in the UK under Government schemes—a significant number. We have to keep the schemes under constant review and assess the risks to those in countries such as Afghanistan. That is why we have taken the decisions we have to close some of the schemes recently, but I will ensure he gets a response from a Minister.