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UK looking at bespoke Afghan refugee scheme - Dominic Raab
By Becky Morton
BBC News
The UK is looking at a "bespoke arrangement" for Afghan refugees, with full details to be set out in due course, the foreign secretary has said.
A new resettlement scheme will be aimed at helping those most in need - including women and girls - to come to the UK, No 10 has said.
Dominic Raab did not confirm how many refugees would be able to come but said the UK was "a big-hearted nation".
It comes after the Taliban seized control of capital city Kabul.
Mr Raab told BBC Breakfast the UK had "always been a country that has provided safe haven for those fleeing persecution".
However he added: "The most important thing we can do at source... is try and provide the stability so we don't see these large numbers of migrant flows.
"So I think that ought to be the number one priority but nonetheless asylum is really important."
Mr Raab said details of the new resettlement scheme would be set out by the home secretary and prime minister "in due course".
Parliament is being recalled from its summer recess on Wednesday to debate the situation in Afghanistan.
The BBC has been told the new resettlement scheme will be similar to that used to help Syrian refugees.
Around 20,000 refugees who fled the conflict in Syria have been resettled in the UK under the scheme since it was launched in 2014.
On Monday evening, the Home Office said the UK had already admitted more than 3,300 Afghan interpreters, staff and their families to the UK for resettlement.
The Home Office said "it will be guided by the capacity of local authorities" when deciding how many Afghan refugees to allow to settle in the UK after the Taliban seized power.
Mr Raab said the UK could also increase humanitarian aid to Afghanistan.
He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "I expect that we will increase our aid budget for development and humanitarian purposes, probably by 10% is what I have in mind on last year.
"We want to try and make sure it won't go through the Taliban, but make sure that we can alleviate the humanitarian suffering."
Hundreds of Afghan nationals have been evacuated on UK planes
Women's rights activist Malala Yousafzai, who was 15 when she was shot in the head by Taliban militants in Pakistan, urged the international community not to abandon Afghans.
"Countries need to open their borders to Afghan refugees, to the displaced people," she told BBC Two's Newsnigh.
Labour's shadow foreign affairs minister, Stephen Kinnock, said the government's offer to refugees needed to be "bold, ambitious and generous", and "backed up with the capacity to process it".
He also accused the government of "a dereliction of duty" in how it had handled the withdrawal from Afghanistan, describing it as "disastrous".
"I'm so worried about my parents and my sisters' safety"
It comes after a number of people died at Kabul airport on Monday, with large crowds on the runway eventually leading to all flights being halted for several hours.
Amid chaotic scenes at the airport, British ambassador to Afghanistan Sir Laurie Bristow was said to be working alongside UK staff and the armed forces to process visas for eligible Afghans.
On Monday, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) said the UK would send a further 200 troops to Kabul to help evacuate British nationals and Afghans who are eligible to resettle in the UK - taking the total number to about 900.
The MoD also said further personnel would be deployed to other countries in the region and able to move on to Afghanistan if needed, while more troops would be put on standby in the UK.
Most Afghan nationals currently eligible for relocation to the UK are those who have worked for the British government in frontline roles "that made a material difference to the delivery of the UK mission" in the country.
This group includes interpreters as well as cultural advisers and embassy staff. Others eligible are those deemed to be at high and imminent risk, according to the Ministry of Defence.
Mr Rabb said the government expected 350 more British nationals and Afghan staff to leave the country in the next 24 hours - and that numbers should increase "quite significantly" if the situation stabilises.
The UK could give refuge to tens of thousands of Afghans after the Taliban takeover as Dominic Raab vowed the government's response will be 'big-hearted'.
The Foreign Secretary said the resettlement scheme will be 'modelled' on the one that has allowed more than 20,300 Syrians to flee to this country over the last seven years.
Women and girls – whose rights are feared to be in severe peril under the new Taliban regime – are expected to get special priority under the programme.
Mr Raab said Boris Johnson would 'set out the details in due course' - with more information due to emerge when the PM addresses the recalled Parliament tomorrow.
He also signalled that the UK's aid spending on Afghanistan is set to rise 10 per cent as the security assistance previously received by Kabul is axed.
Mr Raab told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: 'We will reconfigure our aid budget. We of course will not give the security capacity building money that we previously gave to the government to the Taliban.'
But he added: 'I expect that we will increase our aid budget for development and humanitarian purposes, probably by 10 per cent is what I have in mind on last year.
'We want to try and make sure it won't go through the Taliban, but make sure that we can alleviate the humanitarian suffering.'
Downing Street said it is in 'everyone's interest not to let Afghanistan fail'.
'That means providing whatever support we can to the Afghan people who have worked so hard to make the country a better place over the last 20 years and who are now in need of our help.'
He added: 'We'll be speaking to other world leaders about how we can take a unified approach.
'I think it's clear no one country has the capability to deal with this alone and we want to work together on that.'
Cabinet ministers including Mr Raab and Priti Patel are finalising details of the scheme before handing them to Mr Johnson.
The PM yesterday led the Cobra emergency committee as it held its third meeting in four days.
He is seeking to host a virtual meeting of G7 leaders, including US President Joe Biden, as soon as possible.
He spoke to French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday and ministers are hoping for a meeting of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council in the coming days.
Mr Johnson will update Parliament tomorrow when MPs are recalled early from their summer break for the first time in eight years to debate the crisis.
A Downing Street spokesman said: 'The UK team in Afghanistan is working around the clock in incredibly difficult circumstances to help British nationals and as many others as we can get to safety as soon as possible.'
Former Conservative immigration minister Damian Green called on the Government to take in any Afghan with a legitimate claim.
He said: 'There are times and places where we should be strict with asylum applications. Afghanistan today is the exact opposite. We should take anyone who can make a case.'
Chairman of the Commons defence committee Tobias Ellwood said the numbers accepted by Britain should run 'at least' into tens of thousands.
The former British Army captain told news website PoliticsHome: 'All Nato countries who participated in Afghanistan need to work together to coordinate efforts in order to facilitate arrival of what will be hundreds of thousands of families fleeing the country.'
Former Cabinet minister Lord Hammond described the situation as a 'terrible failure of Western strategy' warning of not just a 'humanitarian crisis but no doubt in time a counter-terrorism crisis for the West'.
Shadow Foreign Office minister Stephen Kinnock warned the intake 'needs to be a bold and ambitious and generous offer'.
Mr Kinnock told Today the new plan 'needs to be a bold and ambitious and generous offer'.
Asked if 20,000 people would be about right, he said: 'We need to see an offer that is also backed up with the capacity to process it
'As you pointed out, the situation on the ground there is so difficult at the moment that we have got to ensure that we don't open up an offer that we can't actually deliver on.
'So we need to see the detail of the plan from the Government, but it is absolutely right that we make an ambitious and bold offer.'
Asked if that means tens of thousands of people rather than a few thousand, he said: 'I would have thought so, yes, yes - we, of course, need to see the detail, but I think this needs to be a significant offer.'
Last night British legal bodies called for female Afghan judges and lawyers to be given priority, amid concern over their safety under Taliban rule.
The Bar Council and the Law Society said in a joint statement they were 'gravely concerned' about the 'perilous future' they were facing under the Taliban.
www.dailymail.co.uk
I was watching the videos last night on Sky News of the UK airlift which is virtually all family units, here are some pictures;
Whilst the US seems to be airlifting every cowardly man they can;
By Becky Morton
BBC News
The UK is looking at a "bespoke arrangement" for Afghan refugees, with full details to be set out in due course, the foreign secretary has said.
A new resettlement scheme will be aimed at helping those most in need - including women and girls - to come to the UK, No 10 has said.
Dominic Raab did not confirm how many refugees would be able to come but said the UK was "a big-hearted nation".
It comes after the Taliban seized control of capital city Kabul.
Mr Raab told BBC Breakfast the UK had "always been a country that has provided safe haven for those fleeing persecution".
However he added: "The most important thing we can do at source... is try and provide the stability so we don't see these large numbers of migrant flows.
"So I think that ought to be the number one priority but nonetheless asylum is really important."
Mr Raab said details of the new resettlement scheme would be set out by the home secretary and prime minister "in due course".
Parliament is being recalled from its summer recess on Wednesday to debate the situation in Afghanistan.
The BBC has been told the new resettlement scheme will be similar to that used to help Syrian refugees.
Around 20,000 refugees who fled the conflict in Syria have been resettled in the UK under the scheme since it was launched in 2014.
On Monday evening, the Home Office said the UK had already admitted more than 3,300 Afghan interpreters, staff and their families to the UK for resettlement.
The Home Office said "it will be guided by the capacity of local authorities" when deciding how many Afghan refugees to allow to settle in the UK after the Taliban seized power.
Mr Raab said the UK could also increase humanitarian aid to Afghanistan.
He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "I expect that we will increase our aid budget for development and humanitarian purposes, probably by 10% is what I have in mind on last year.
"We want to try and make sure it won't go through the Taliban, but make sure that we can alleviate the humanitarian suffering."
Hundreds of Afghan nationals have been evacuated on UK planes
Women's rights activist Malala Yousafzai, who was 15 when she was shot in the head by Taliban militants in Pakistan, urged the international community not to abandon Afghans.
"Countries need to open their borders to Afghan refugees, to the displaced people," she told BBC Two's Newsnigh.
Labour's shadow foreign affairs minister, Stephen Kinnock, said the government's offer to refugees needed to be "bold, ambitious and generous", and "backed up with the capacity to process it".
He also accused the government of "a dereliction of duty" in how it had handled the withdrawal from Afghanistan, describing it as "disastrous".
"I'm so worried about my parents and my sisters' safety"
It comes after a number of people died at Kabul airport on Monday, with large crowds on the runway eventually leading to all flights being halted for several hours.
Amid chaotic scenes at the airport, British ambassador to Afghanistan Sir Laurie Bristow was said to be working alongside UK staff and the armed forces to process visas for eligible Afghans.
On Monday, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) said the UK would send a further 200 troops to Kabul to help evacuate British nationals and Afghans who are eligible to resettle in the UK - taking the total number to about 900.
The MoD also said further personnel would be deployed to other countries in the region and able to move on to Afghanistan if needed, while more troops would be put on standby in the UK.
Most Afghan nationals currently eligible for relocation to the UK are those who have worked for the British government in frontline roles "that made a material difference to the delivery of the UK mission" in the country.
This group includes interpreters as well as cultural advisers and embassy staff. Others eligible are those deemed to be at high and imminent risk, according to the Ministry of Defence.
Mr Rabb said the government expected 350 more British nationals and Afghan staff to leave the country in the next 24 hours - and that numbers should increase "quite significantly" if the situation stabilises.
UK looking at bespoke Afghan refugee scheme - Dominic Raab
The foreign secretary says the UK is a "big-hearted nation" and full details will be set out soon.
www.bbc.co.uk
The UK could give refuge to tens of thousands of Afghans after the Taliban takeover as Dominic Raab vowed the government's response will be 'big-hearted'.
The Foreign Secretary said the resettlement scheme will be 'modelled' on the one that has allowed more than 20,300 Syrians to flee to this country over the last seven years.
Women and girls – whose rights are feared to be in severe peril under the new Taliban regime – are expected to get special priority under the programme.
Mr Raab said Boris Johnson would 'set out the details in due course' - with more information due to emerge when the PM addresses the recalled Parliament tomorrow.
He also signalled that the UK's aid spending on Afghanistan is set to rise 10 per cent as the security assistance previously received by Kabul is axed.
Mr Raab told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: 'We will reconfigure our aid budget. We of course will not give the security capacity building money that we previously gave to the government to the Taliban.'
But he added: 'I expect that we will increase our aid budget for development and humanitarian purposes, probably by 10 per cent is what I have in mind on last year.
'We want to try and make sure it won't go through the Taliban, but make sure that we can alleviate the humanitarian suffering.'
Downing Street said it is in 'everyone's interest not to let Afghanistan fail'.
'That means providing whatever support we can to the Afghan people who have worked so hard to make the country a better place over the last 20 years and who are now in need of our help.'
He added: 'We'll be speaking to other world leaders about how we can take a unified approach.
'I think it's clear no one country has the capability to deal with this alone and we want to work together on that.'
Cabinet ministers including Mr Raab and Priti Patel are finalising details of the scheme before handing them to Mr Johnson.
The PM yesterday led the Cobra emergency committee as it held its third meeting in four days.
He is seeking to host a virtual meeting of G7 leaders, including US President Joe Biden, as soon as possible.
He spoke to French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday and ministers are hoping for a meeting of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council in the coming days.
Mr Johnson will update Parliament tomorrow when MPs are recalled early from their summer break for the first time in eight years to debate the crisis.
A Downing Street spokesman said: 'The UK team in Afghanistan is working around the clock in incredibly difficult circumstances to help British nationals and as many others as we can get to safety as soon as possible.'
Former Conservative immigration minister Damian Green called on the Government to take in any Afghan with a legitimate claim.
He said: 'There are times and places where we should be strict with asylum applications. Afghanistan today is the exact opposite. We should take anyone who can make a case.'
Chairman of the Commons defence committee Tobias Ellwood said the numbers accepted by Britain should run 'at least' into tens of thousands.
The former British Army captain told news website PoliticsHome: 'All Nato countries who participated in Afghanistan need to work together to coordinate efforts in order to facilitate arrival of what will be hundreds of thousands of families fleeing the country.'
Former Cabinet minister Lord Hammond described the situation as a 'terrible failure of Western strategy' warning of not just a 'humanitarian crisis but no doubt in time a counter-terrorism crisis for the West'.
Shadow Foreign Office minister Stephen Kinnock warned the intake 'needs to be a bold and ambitious and generous offer'.
Mr Kinnock told Today the new plan 'needs to be a bold and ambitious and generous offer'.
Asked if 20,000 people would be about right, he said: 'We need to see an offer that is also backed up with the capacity to process it
'As you pointed out, the situation on the ground there is so difficult at the moment that we have got to ensure that we don't open up an offer that we can't actually deliver on.
'So we need to see the detail of the plan from the Government, but it is absolutely right that we make an ambitious and bold offer.'
Asked if that means tens of thousands of people rather than a few thousand, he said: 'I would have thought so, yes, yes - we, of course, need to see the detail, but I think this needs to be a significant offer.'
Last night British legal bodies called for female Afghan judges and lawyers to be given priority, amid concern over their safety under Taliban rule.
The Bar Council and the Law Society said in a joint statement they were 'gravely concerned' about the 'perilous future' they were facing under the Taliban.
UK must welcome 'tens of thousands of Afghan refugees', urges Labour
Boris Johnson is set to give details of the arrangements as he runs the gauntlet of MP fury in a statement to the recalled parliament tomorrow.
I was watching the videos last night on Sky News of the UK airlift which is virtually all family units, here are some pictures;
Whilst the US seems to be airlifting every cowardly man they can;
