Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the potential risk to life caused by the delays in opening the Afghanistan Citizens Resettlement Scheme.

The Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme (ACRS) commenced on 6th January. The ACRS will provide up to 20,000 women, children and others at risk with a safe and legal route to resettle in the UK.

This follows the immediate evacuation of over 15,000 people to safety in the largest and fastest emergency evacuation in recent history. We have continued to bring people to the UK, with around 1,500 people helped to enter since the evacuation.

Some of the people evacuated under Op Pitting will be eligible for the ACRS.

Details of how the ACRS will operate including the referral pathways for those outside and inside Afghanistan are set in the oral statement of 6 January. Given the complex and changing nature of the circumstances in Afghanistan and the region, it is not possible to give estimates of the numbers of people who will be resettled from outside or inside Afghanistan.

Those people in the UK following the evacuation who will be eligible for the ACRS, are being contacted to assist them in obtaining Indefinite Leave to Remain under the ACRS. People eligible for resettlement under pathways two and three of the ACRS will be contacted at the appropriate time.

We are working closely with UNHCR with the ambition of receiving referrals as part of the second pathway for vulnerable refugees in need of protection in year 1 of the ACRS. UNHCR have said that they will be able to do this from Spring.