Select committee: Foreign Affairs Committee
Conclusion 9
First report - Missing in action: UK leadership and the withdrawal from Afghanistan
Published 24 May 2022
Paragraph 33
Addressed to Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office
Foreign Affairs Committee Government policy on Afghanistan All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Conclusion (the committee's words)
The evacuation required clear decision-making, strong political leadership and tight coordination. We have seen little evidence of this. To the contrary, decision-making was so unclear that even senior officials such as the National Security Adviser could not be certain how key decisions were authorised. It is clearly unacceptable that neither ministers nor civil servants have been able to articulate the operational chain Missing in action: UK leadership and the withdrawal from Afghanistan 55 of command involved in conducting a major evacuation. The political leadership on offer vacillated so much that no clear priorities were set for who should be evacuated and in what order, giving many thousands of vulnerable people, to whom we owed a debt, a hope that could never be met. Although ministers claimed that they worked closely together, the decision to run the operation through three departments undermined coordination. This is particularly disturbing at a time when the UK faces significant foreign policy challenges, including in relation to Ukraine, Russia, the Balkan states, Yemen, and the Northern Ireland Protocol. Unity of purpose, clarity and coordination require serious intent and consistent political leadership.
From: Foreign Affairs Committee, First report - Missing in action: UK leadership and the withdrawal from Afghanistan (HC 169), paragraph 33, 24 May 2022
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 29 July 2022 (deadline 24 July 2022).
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The Government accepts that parts of its crisis response need improvement and agrees on future engagement with Afghanistan, but does not agree that it failed to plan for an evacuation or for closing the Kabul Embassy.
- It states that it "does not agree that it failed to plan for a possible evacuation", or that the FCDO failed to plan for the possible closure of the British Embassy in Kabul.
- On people not directly employed by the UK, it "will consider these arguments carefully" in planning years 2 and 3 of Pathway 3 of the Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme, but warns that very broad commitments would, "unless significantly qualified", go beyond the UK's practical ability to resettle people.
- The FCDO says it is "committed to seeing through the full implementation" of its Lessons Learned recommendations, with progress reviewed in November 2022 and an update to the Committee "early next year".
- On future engagement, it agrees that the UK should re-establish a diplomatic presence in Kabul "as soon as security and political conditions permit", and that aid should be sustained, committing the same amount again this financial year.