MP's pledge on Afghan re-settlement schemes

HE SAYS THEY ‘MUST WORK PROPERLY’

- AINE FOX

A MINISTER said he is determined to make resettlement schemes for Afghans in the UK "work properly", as humanitarian groups branded them too slow and suggested people desperately fleeing the Taliban have felt forced to make dangerous Channel crossings instead.

Cabinet Office minister Johnny Mercer, the MP for Plymouth Moor View, who served in Afghanistan during his time in the military, acknowledged some people had been left behind after the Taliban takeover in August 2021 and still have not been brought to safety in Britain two years on.

Speaking to the PA news agency on the anniversary of Op Pitting the largest evacuation effort Britain has been involved in since the Second World War he said the UK should be "proud" of the efforts to rescue and resettle people in the wake of the chaotic withdrawal of Western forces from the country.

But, in the face of criticism from charities and humanitarian organisations that resettlement schemes are not working well and that some refugees who have been brought to the UK have spent their time in hotels, he also acknowledged that things could have been done differently.

Afghans have been the most common nationality to arrive on small boats crossing the English Channel in the first half of this year, according to the latest provisional data from the Home Office.

Six people died and at least many of 58 them Afghans were rescued after a boat got into difficulty in the Channel off the coast of France on Saturday.