Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how many and what proportion of applicants that had been accepted under the Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy were not evacuated as part of Operation Pitting.

Regrettably we have not been able to evacuate all those we want to, despite the huge efforts that have been made. We have identified 311 individuals and their families who are eligible for relocation under the Afghan Relocation and Assistance Policy (ARAP) and were called forward for evacuation under Operation Pitting, but have not yet arrived in the UK. We are working hard to contact all of those individuals to confirm their status. Some have already made their way to third countries.

The nature of the security situation in Afghanistan, and our responsibility to keep our people safe, meant that we were not able to evacuate everyone we wanted to. We are continuing to work as hard as we can to relocate more people and are looking at all possible avenues to facilitate relocation, from third countries if possible, for those ARAP eligible people who have not arrived in the UK.