Afghanistan: Inquiry — House of Commons, 2021-11-04
Topic: Defense
Stewart Malcolm McDonald (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I congratulate the right hon. Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood), the Chair of the Defence Committee, on securing the debate, and commend him for the leadership he has shown in the weeks and months since the withdrawal was undertaken It would perhaps seem strange if we did not acknowledge the acres of empty Benches around us. Less than three months ago, this House was recalled from its summer recess to discuss the very issue we are discussing now, and today we have started the wind-up speeches only minutes after the Chair of the Select Committee got to his feet. That worries me and speaks to the reason why we need the inquiry that he has come here to ask the Government to instigate—a case he prosecuted forensically The SNP supports the right hon. Gentleman’s call for an inquiry. I think he is right that it is important to those who served. It is important to their families. In particular, it is important for those who went to Afghanistan and paid with their lives, whether they were UK armed forces or those who served alongside them. It was fashionable at the time of the initial withdrawal not to acknowledge the international coalition, but I think we should. Above all, we owe it to the people of Afghanistan, not just those who have lost their lives or been maimed or injured over the course of the west’s time there, but those who now face the long dark night of Taliban rule that stretches out before them. Yes, that includes in particular women and girls, minority groups, journalists and academics, but also all who tasted freedom over the past few years and have now had it rather abruptly snatched away It is notable that although there have been some other inquiries in different coalition countries, it is only the Norwegians who have set up a fully independent inquiry. That is something we need to do here. Yes, inquiries are expensive, necessarily so. Inquiries are slow, necessarily so. We have not had that many of them, necessarily so. But if the Government will not bring forward an inquiry on Afghanistan, then goodness knows what they will ever bring forward an inquiry on in future. They need to look at the long stretch of the mission, the motivation for why we went there in the first place, and the chaotic withdrawal, which we were recalled for less than three months ago I would like to put on record—the Minister and I exchanged on this last night—that I had actually thought this was a Ministry of Defence debate. As my party’s defence spokesperson, I wanted to put on record my thanks to the Defence Secretary for his conduct in the aftermath of the withdrawal. I do not think he and the Government got everything right, and the Foreign Secretary certainly did not, but I do not want to rehearse that this afternoon. It is important to acknowledge that the Defence Secretary seemed to be the only Minister who grasped the issue’s importance at the time—I will rephrase that: the only Cabinet Minister, because I do not want to be unfair on the Minister before us The right hon. Member for Bournemouth East touched on a broader point about political will and assessing exactly where we are with the implementation of our values. The Minister and I will disagree on much about defence and foreign policy, but fundamentally, our agreements are underwritten with the same kinds of values—on openness, tolerance and solving big issues in alliances with other countries I am a committed internationalist. Multilateral fora such as NATO and the European Union are, by a country mile, the best parts of the international architecture for advancing values of tolerance, liberal democracy and openness. If they did not exist, we would want to create them, and I would want Scotland to be in them and all the countries around us to be part of them. They are by the far the greatest vehicles for the kinds of values that we in this House all share. However, we must all reflect, and NATO at large must reflect, on this defeat—there is no other word for it. If there is a failure to do so and to have the kind of inquiry that the Chairman of the Defence Committee is asking the Government to initiate, those who want to overturn our values, as he mentioned, will take heart from that. Within hours, China was talking about the weakening of the west. Russia was in Kabul barely days after it had fallen, while we, in concert with others, were desperately scrambling—and failing in too many cases—to get people out quickly and alive Alongside an inquiry, the challenge is this: we must have a political discussion with other capitals that we are allied with about how we renew and reinvigorate the international architecture that underpins and drives the order that we have all benefited from and want to see us continue to benefit from. If we do not do that, who will benefit? It will be those who stand in opposition to our values. So the question is: what does Afghanistan and that withdrawal become? Does it become a low point for the liberal international order that we all believe in, or does it mark the point of no return? The Minister will have to answer that when he gets to his feet. If we do not have a full, independent inquiry, properly funded and properly prosecuted by a judge, with full powers of subpoena and all the rest of it, I fear that this will be a point of return, and I am sure that nobody in this House wants that The right hon. Gentleman has the full backing of my party for his proposal for an inquiry. Let us not shrug this off this afternoon. The debate will now, necessarily, be depressingly short; perhaps the acres of empty green Benches scream out that we need the inquiry that he asks for.