Witing in yesterday’s i newspaper, Layla Moran said we must help Afghans in the UK by moving them out of hotels and into homes.

The UK Government promised that our doors would be open to Afghans at risk – including women, LGBTQ+ people and minority groups – but it has shut them as soon as they thought nobody was looking.

What about those who did make it to the UK?… Ten thousand Afghans remain stuck in hotels up and down the country… A significant proportion of these people put their lives on the line to help UK forces during the war and were promised the chance to start a new life here in the UK. Instead, they’ve been left in limbo by the Conservative Government.

A year on government promises to Afghans and to the British public lie in tatters, Moran says. “We will not let those commitments be forgotten.”

Yesterday marked the first anniversary of the fall of Kabul to the Taliban. Layla Moran said in her article:

Last August, in a special Parliamentary session taking place just days after the Taliban retook Afghanistan’s capital city Kabul, Boris Johnson made three clear pledges by which the UK Government should be judged.

First, that the Government would “be doing everything [it could] to support those who have helped the UK mission in Afghanistan” including setting up a bespoke resettlement scheme “focusing on the most vulnerable, particularly women and children. Second, to do “everything that we [could] to avert a humanitarian crisis”. And finally, to give to “our all to prevent Afghanistan from once again becoming a breeding ground for terrorism”.

But a year on, those promises to Afghans and to the British public, lie in tatters. We will not let those commitments be forgotten.

The first promise – helping those who are particularly vulnerable in Afghanistan – has been a source of shame for the Conservative Government. What seemed like pitiful ambition at the time (a commitment to resettling 5,000 Afghans in the first year, and up to 20,000 in the long-term), has unravelled even further.

Many of the initial places were granted to people who were already in the UK. Women and girls in Afghanistan, who were meant to be a priority, were left without a specific route to apply. Foreign Office officials have admitted that many of those who helped the UK will not be resettled in the UK.

The promise of averting a humanitarian crisis was always going to be hard to achieve. And right now, nearly 20 million people face “potentially life-threatening” hunger. But ministers have shown neither sufficient interest provided the necessary financial support.

The government must open up safe and legal routes so that those at risk in Afghanistan can come to the UK so that Afghans can finally start their new lives in this country in a home, rather than a hotel room. It must restore the international development and lead on the world stage by hosting a security summit with our allies, to ensure terrorism doesn’t flourish in Afghanistan once more.

By taking these steps, we can finally uphold our obligations to Afghans.

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