Wendy Chamberlain
Main Page: Wendy Chamberlain (Liberal Democrat - North East Fife)Department Debates - View all Wendy Chamberlain's debates with the Cabinet Office
(5 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
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Johnny Mercer
This is a cross-Government effort, so people from the Ministry of Defence and the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office are in contact with the high commissioner in Pakistan every day. We are well aware of this challenge. There are two separate issues here: one is the wider Pakistani policy towards Afghans, which is not part of my work in this space; and the other is that being applied to those who are entitled to be in the UK and have been pre-approved to be in the UK. It is the latter that I am concerned about. We are determined to get assurances on them and we will keep working until we do. I have already made a commitment that if a single one of them is deported back whence they came, I will have failed, but we will make sure that does not happen.
Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss) on securing this urgent question, particularly as it has given us some clarity today. The Minister has talked about accommodation. What I am hearing from my country contacts through the all-party parliamentary group on Afghan women and girls is that the focus seems to be on families, and that only families are being evacuated. That means that single women, many of whom have worked in politics and teaching, and those from the LGBT+ community are feeling particularly vulnerable, and they are most at risk of reprisals if they are deported back to Afghanistan. Can the Minister clarify what is happening for those single applicants?
Johnny Mercer
There is no de-prioritising of single applicants. Often they are easier to reintegrate and to accommodate in the United Kingdom because they are not a wider family. There are lots of stories going around the people in this cohort because they are very scared and vulnerable. Obviously, the hon. Lady is absolutely right to raise this with me, but that is not something that I have seen. None the less, I will go back and look for it.