CONSERVATIVE
New Forest East

DEFENCE – AT-RISK AFGHANS - 15 July 2025

DEFENCE – AT-RISK AFGHANS - 15 July 2025

Sir Julian Lewis: What worries me more than the lifting of this super-injunction is the fact that we have closed down all the Afghan schemes at the very time that undocumented Afghans who felt it necessary to flee to Iran and Pakistan are being rounded up for forcible repatriation to an Afghanistan led by the Taliban. I understand that the investigation into our obligation to the Triples – the special forces that our forces trained – will continue, and I welcome that. Will the Secretary of State confirm that despite the closure of the schemes, anybody who is found to have worked closely with our armed forces and is in imminent danger can still be rescued and admitted to this country?

[The Secretary of State for Defence (John Healey): It is more than four years since the previous Defence Secretary, Ben Wallace, launched on behalf of this country the Afghan relocations and assistance policy with the full support of this House. There has been ample time for anyone who could conceivably believe they might qualify to make their application. None of those schemes, including ARAP, was ever conceived or designed to last in perpetuity, which is why we closed them at the beginning of this month to any new applicants, and why I have taken the decision, based on Rimmer [review] and the other factors I have identified, to end the ARR [Afghanistan Response Route] scheme today. On the ARAP applicants – the sort of Afghans whom the right hon. Gentleman is concerned about – we will complete any remaining applications that are in our system waiting to be processed. On the Triples, we will complete the second phase of the review that we have given a commitment to them and to this House to undertake.]