Markus Andrews

Dominic Raab has been accused of offering “pitiful” support to Afghanistan as he suggested aid spending could be increased by 10 per cent — despite millions already being removed from the budget due to government cuts.The foreign secretary’s remarks came after he claimed no one saw the swift Taliban takeover in the middle eastern country “coming”, as allied forces scrambled to evacuate foreign nationals and vulnerable Afghans from Kabul international airport.Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Mr Raab said the UK will “reconfigure” the aid budget in Afghanistan, stressing that “security capacity building money” that has previously been given to the country’s government would not be handed to the insurgents.“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,” he added.“We want to try and make sure it won’t go through the Taliban, but make sure we can alleviate humanitarian suffering.”The cabinet minister’s proposal, however, follows the decision of the government to cut the overseas aid budget — flouting a manifesto promise — from 0.7 to 0.5 per cent of gross national income, amounting to around £4 billion.In 2019 – the last year full statistics are publicly available for – Afghanistan was one of the top three recipients of aid from the UK government, alongside Pakistan and Ethiopia, with £292 million in assistance provided.According to a House of Commons Library analysis, seen by the i newspaper, the budget for 2020-21 was £167.5 million, which is yet to be published by the Foreign Office.However, a government projection for the financial year 2021-22 suggests the total spend in the region stands at £93.8 million — a cut of around 44 per cent on 2020/21 levels of spending.Liberal Democrat MP Layla Moran said in response to Mr Raab’s comments: “It is outrageous that the foreign secretary has come out of hiding to announce this pitiful amount of support.“This is the same person who cynically slashed aid to vulnerable women and girls in Afghanistan, making life even harder for people in the country.”“Raab and his heartless government cut aid funding to the bone and now they’re trying to put a sticking plaster over their failures,” she added.“They should do the honourable thing and immediately recommit pre-aid cut levels to Afghanistan and support those women and girls who need it now more than ever.”Speaking on the BBC, the foreign secretary also said that it was unlikely the government will “condition” humanitarian relief provided to the Afghan people for the “foreseeable future” due to the ongoing crisis in the region.Asked whether aid funding could become a point of leverage against the insurgents, the foreign secretary said: “We probably now need a contact group for Afghanistan — we’ll work with our partners to test that idea and see what the right membership will be to have the maximum effect.“In terms of aid, previously in the past and this won’t be possible with the Taliban at least for the foreseeable future, we’ve had the sort of framework arrangements that pegs what we’re willing to do and to stand as a governance.“I would expect that to include security, the claiming down on terror groups, but also the way they treat women and the other things we’re trying to achieve.“That’s in ordinary circumstances — that’s not going to be possible for the foreseeable future, I don’t think we will condition the humanitarian relief we provide to ordinary Afghans.” More

Dominic Raab has claimed no one saw the swift Taliban takeover in Afghanistan “coming”, as he suggested the UK government would have taken action earlier if they had.The frank admission came as the foreign secretary also said he would not have taken a holiday overseas in “retrospect” after the rapid fall of Kabul to the insurgents over the weekend.“We’ve monitored this very carefully, but the truth is across the world people were caught by surprise,” he told Sky News amid criticism of the government’s strategy.“I haven’t spoken to an international interlocutor, including countries in the region, over the last week, who hasn’t been surprised”.He added: “We saw a very swift change in the dynamics and of course this has been part and parcel of the withdrawal of Western troops, but it’s also been the way and approach of the Taliban, and of course it’s been a test for the Afghan security forces.“All of those factors have been very fluid, but no one saw this coming — of course we would have taken action if we had.”Echoing comments from yesterday following the end of a third emergency Cobra meeting of senior UK ministers, including Boris Johnson, he added: “We were all caught by surprise by the speed, pace and scale of the Taliban takeover.It comes after the US president Joe Biden told the American public he stood “squarely behind” his decision to withdraw troops from Afghanistan after 20 years in the region, but also admitted the Taliban takeover “did unfold more quickly than we had anticipated”.On the rapid collapse of the country’s US-supported government, Mr Biden claimed that in many cases, the Afghan civilian and military forces simply “gave up” rather than resisting a takeover by the insurgents.The foreign secretary also suggested a situation update he received on Tuesday morning showed the situation at Kabul international airport was “stabilising” following scenes of chaos yesterday, as thousands attempted to flee the country following the insurgent takeover.“There’s been a surge of UK and US troops,” he said. “The situation is stabilising, but we’re monitoring it very careful”.The cabinet minister suggested around 2,000 British nationals had contacted the Foreign Office from the middle eastern country as he said there was “always a risk” some people could be left behind if the situation deteriorates.He added: “We have made real progress, we had 150 British nationals come out on Sunday, over the last week we have also had 289 of those Afghan nationals who have served the UK so loyally in Afghanistan, and we expect over the next 24 hours to have 350 more both British nationals and Afghan nationals who have worked for us coming out.“So the situation is stabilising, but obviously we are monitoring it very carefully.“I do think that the airport is more stable today than it was yesterday, and we need to make sure that we consolidate that in the days ahead.”Addressing criticism of his overseas holiday as the crisis unfolded, he said “everyone was caught off-guard by the pace, scale of the Taliban takeover”, but stressed he was engaged in Cobra meetings and speaking to foreign counterparts “on an hour-by-hour basis”.“I left as soon as the situation deteriorated and demanded it,” he added. “We’ve been monitoring the situation in Afghanistan since the 2020 Doha agreement.“We didn’t predict we would be doing this on this scale because of the Taliban takeover, but look in retrospect of course I wouldn’t have gone on holiday if I had known.”A British holidaymaker told the Daily Telegraph that Mr Raab was relaxing on a beach on the Greek island of Crete on the day the Afghan capital was seized. “It was definitely him,” the source told the newspaper. “I’m not political and obviously accept everyone is allowed a holiday. But the foreign secretary shouldn’t be on the beach on the very day Afghanistan is imploding.” More

Ministers are facing demands to publish a full assessment of removing the £20-per-week universal credit uplift, as a coalition of organisations issued a warning about the impact on renters.With just two months remaining until the government removes the extra support – introduced at the onset of the pandemic – the groups stressed it risked pushing households in poverty and problem debt.The organisations, including homelessness charity Crisis, The Big Issue, the National Residential Landlords Association (NRLA) and the debt charity StepChange, urged the government to reverse the decision in a joint statement.Coupled with a freeze in local housing allowance, they warned: “We have seen no assessment from the UK government on the impact of either of these policies will have on the capacity of recipients to cover rent payment.”It comes after Conservative MPs raised the alarm over the imminent cut to universal credit last month, and a former senior adviser to Boris Johnson told The Independent it would be an “unnecessary evil” with thousands of families still struggling.Pointing to government figures, the coalition of groups said the number of private rented households in receipt of the housing element of universal credit increased by 107 per cent between February 2020 and February 2021.“Over 55 per cent of these households have a shortfall between the housing support they receive and the rent they have to pay,” the groups stressed.They said: “As organisations representing landlords, letting agents, tenants, people facing homelessness, and debt advice services, we are calling on the UK government to complete and publish a full assessment of the impact of both these policies on the ability of renters to meet their housing costs.”“We believe that the UK government should reverse its decisions to cut universal credit and to freeze local housing allowance,” the coalition of groups added.“To apply policies like these without doing any meaningful impact assessment is, we argue, lacking the necessary foresight and consideration of the impact they will ahem on people’s security of tenure and well-being and for many will threaten their chance of recovery.”According to a freedom of information request submitted by The Independent earlier this year, the Department for Work and Pensions has conducted an impact assessment of removing the universal credit uplift, but declined to release the work, citing an exemption.Speaking ahead of the summer recess, cabinet minister Therese Coffey told MPs that the uplift would be removed in the autumn, insisting a “collective decision was made that as we see the economy open up, we shift the focus strongly onto getting people into work and jobs”.Mr Johnson also suggested that as the government lifted Covid-19 restrictions, “the emphasis has got to be on getting people into work and getting people into jobs”.“If you’re going to make a choice between more welfare or better, higher-paid jobs, I’m going to go for better, higher-paid jobs.” More

Dominic Raab has admitted the government was surprised by the “scale and pace” of the Taliban takeover in Afghanistan, as the UK announced a further 200 troops would be sent to Kabul to assist with evacuation efforts.Following a third emergency Cobra meeting on the situation in the country, the foreign secretary also raised the prospect of sanctions and holding back aid if insurgents breached human rights and allowed the region to become a “base for terror”.“Everyone has been surprised by the scale and pace of which the Taliban have taken over in Afghanistan, and that’s a lesson we’ve all got to learn from,” Mr Raab said when questioned on the UK’s handling of the crisis.Insisting efforts were now focused on the evacuation effort amid scenes of chaos and desperation at Kabul international airport, Mr Raab said that in the early hours of Tuesday morning a further 50 British nationals would arrive back in the UK.Earlier, No 10 revealed 370 people, including UK citizens and Afghans provided with a visa, had arrived safely in the country, with “significant numbers” expected in the coming days – despite the uncertainty in the Afghan capital.In an effort to assist with the evacuation, the Ministry of Defence also confirmed a further 200 troops would be sent to Afghanistan, as the US authorised the deployment of another battalion to Kabul, according to Reuters.However, earlier on Monday, the defence secretary Ben Wallace fought back tears as he admitted in an interview that the UK may not be able to get all of the remaining nationals and Afghan allies out of the region, saying: “Some people won’t get back”.As pressure escalated over the effort to aid refugees, Mr Raab also echoed comments from Downing Street, declining to say how many Afghan refugees the UK could take under a potential resettlement scheme. Over the weekend, the Canadian government said it would offer sanctuary to 20,000 citizens facing persecution from the Taliban.No 10 said on Monday evening the prime minister will “shortly announce” a new and bespoke resettlement scheme for those Afghans most in need, but did not give any further details.Mr Raab also stressed the UK will hold the insurgents “to account for their commitment and to never allow Afghanistan to be used as a base for terror, to hold a more inclusive government and to protect the most essential human rights, including respecting the rights of women.”Quizzed on how the government would hold the insurgents to account without any presence in the country, he added: “Ultimately through working with our partners through everything from sanctions we can apply to the ODA [Overseas Development Assistance] that we will hold back pending reform and a more inclusive government.”Earlier, at an emergency session of the UN Security Council, Britain’s representative said Afghanistan was facing a “catastrophic human rights crisis”, with evidence emerging of Taliban abuses, including harsh restrictions on women, the persecution of minorities and allegations of civilians used as human shields.Mr Raab, who has faced intense criticism for being “missing in action” as the situation in the country deteriorated, returned from holiday on Monday, and insisted that “everyone was caught by surprise” over the advance of the Taliban.“I think the important thing to understand is right the way through last week – I was on a flight last night to get back – I have been directly in touch with my team, directing them,” he insisted. “I’ve been engaged in all the Cobra meetings.“The reality is the modern business of being a foreign secretary, whether you’re away on travel, or the very occasional time you get to go away on leave, I can always be in direct control of what the Foreign Office is doing,” he added.On Monday, it also emerged Boris Johnson had left No 10 on Saturday for a holiday in the West Country, but returned to Westminster the following day to host a second Cobra meeting on developments in Afghanistan.It is expected the prime minister will remain in No 10 until at least Wednesday when he will update MPs on efforts to evacuate British nationals and Afghans granted visas – after Mr Johnson requested the recall of Parliament.Following a phone call with the French president Emmanuel Macron, Downing Street said the prime minister also outlined his intention to host a virtual meeting of the G7 leaders on Afghanistan “in the coming days”.A Downing Street spokesperson 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.“At the same time, we are bringing together the international community to prevent a humanitarian crisis emerging in Afghanistan – it’s 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 twenty years and who are now in need of our help.” More

Labour has written to ministers urging them to keep funding in place to help free up hospital beds and help the NHS cope with a crisis in patient demand.Shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth told health secretary Sajid Javid that the NHS needed urgent clarity on the money available to it from beyond the end of September.Specifically, his letter warned money was needed to keep in place an initiative started before the first Covid wave which saw patients discharged back into the community with the NHS paying for up to six weeks of care.This has been credited with releasing 30,000 NHS beds that were the available for Covid patients or for hospitals to use for patients waiting for surgery and other treatment.The government has only agreed a budget for the NHS until the end of September with negotiations between the Department of Health and Social Care, NHS England and the Treasury ongoing.In his letter to Sajid Javid, Jonathan Ashworth said the health service needed “immediate certainty” adding: “The service is in a summer crisis, with huge numbers of people in need of urgent and emergency care, record calls to ambulance services, and a soaring waiting list.“With only 16 days to the beginning of September, it is incredible that the service still does not have the budgetary clarity it needs to make major decisions about service planning.”“In the first few days of your tenure as secretary of state, you said that you wanted to give the NHS what it needs to recover from the pandemic. The NHS will now be wondering why you have not made a decision on this budget. Patients and NHS staff will consider this a test of whether you are true to your word to them.”He said the discharge to assess programme had been praised by the new NHS England chief executive Amanda Pritchard as well as NHS England’s director of strategy Ian Dodge.Mr Ashworth added: “Given the lack of any decision on extension of the funding, it is not clear whether your department or this Government are listening. NHS Providers and NHS Confederation had called for a decision to be made on this by mid-August. Regrettably, that deadline has now passed. This indecision and lack of clarity cannot be allowed to continue further.”His comments come as the latest NHS data shows a total waiting list of 5.5 million people, with 304,000 waiting over a year for treatment. More than one million 999 calls were made to ambulance trusts in July – the highest ever number ever recorded.Mr Ashworth challenged the health secretary over what assessment the DHSC had made of the impact of the discharge to assess funding and whether the government accepted the view of NHS England’s Ian Dodge that continuing the scheme would be vital to the NHS recovering its backlog of operations.While negotiations over NHS England’s budget continue, the Health Service Journal, has reported NHS trusts have been told to plan on the basis of needing to make 1.5 per cent cost savings for the rest of the year.Before the coronavirus crisis NHS England had signed hospitals up to a target of 1.1 per cent savings.Sally Gainsbury, senior policy analyst at the Nuffield Trust, told the HSJ: “We would warn the NHS against agreeing to what would be yet another settlement which assumes huge and unachievable levels of efficiency.“There’s covid, but you also just have to look at the NHS financial performance in recent years to see this is an unrealistic target.”The Department of Health and Social Care were approached for comment. More

Campaigners who have lost loved ones to the coronavirus fear the start of the public inquiry into the government’s handling of the Covid crisis will be pushed beyond the promised date of spring 2020.Lawyers representing Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice group recently met with the Cabinet Office last month to discuss the inquiry’s potential scope – but were told work has not yet begun on the basic terms of reference.The campaign group said the failure to lay any groundwork means the inquiry aimed at learning vital lessons on the pandemic is now “unlikely” to begin next spring.Boris Johnson announced in May that an independent public inquiry into his government’s response to the crisis will begin in spring of 2020 – promising it would put “the state’s actions under the microscope”.Families are angry that the Cabinet Office has refused to respond to their suggestions for the scope of the inquiry, and has yet to give them a date for a promised meeting with the prime minister.Lobby Akinnola, a 30-year-old campaigner who lost his father Femi to Covid last year, said: “The news that the Cabinet Office hasn’t even begun deciding the terms of reference alongside their refusal to engage with us, makes us think the government is trying to kick the inquiry into the long grass.“This is not only leaving those who have suffered so much in the pandemic feeling dismissed and ignored, but far worse, it’s potentially putting more lives at risk.”The campaigner said: “If we’re going to be learning to live with coronavirus, then it’s common sense that we learn the lessons from the pandemic as quickly as possible, so that we can avoid repeating mistakes. That means the inquiry needs to start immediately.”Mr Akinnola added: “By not even preparing the terms of reference, the government is pushing the whole process back, and playing politics when lives could be at stake.”Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice has asked for a “rapid review phase” of the public inquiry which identifies failures and successes when it comes to pandemic preparedness and PPE.The inquiry should examine look at whether NHS cuts contributed to failures and make sure all “legal, regulatory and policy frameworks” to deal with a pandemic are fit for purpose, the group said.A government spokesperson said decisions on the scope of the public inquiry would be made “in due course”.The spokesperson added: “Every death from this virus is a tragedy and our sympathies are with everyone who has lost loved ones. As the prime minister said, we have committed to holding a full public inquiry as soon as is reasonably possible.” More

Home secretary Priti Patel wants police forces to “make an example” out of middle-class cocaine users in a new crackdown on recreational drug use, according to a report.The cabinet minister is said to be keen for senior officers to name and shame some wealthy, “high-profile” users in a bid to shift the perception that some can take class A drugs without any consequences.Chief constables have also been asked to target cocaine use at university campuses this autumn, with officials considering raids during freshers’ week to push home the message.“One of the issues is that they don’t think they will ever get punished, that there’s no realistic prospect of the police pursuing them,” a Home Office source told The Times.“This is a drive to make sure that people are being punished and others realise it. There will be high-profile arrests. We want to make examples of people who are held in high esteem but are fuelling ongoing crime and murders linked to the drug trade.”Confirming the plan, a police source said: “We have been told to actively look for high-value individuals to arrest those who see drugs as a part of their lifestyle and don’t believe that there will be any ramifications.”Ms Patel warned last month that recreational drug takers, such as middle-class cocaine users, would be targeted as part of a bid to tackle the class A drug trade, gang conflict and violent crime.Warning that there would be more “drug testing on arrest,” the Home Office said in a policy document that the aim would be to “crack down on recreational drug use and ensure those who break the law face consequences”.The government strategy is to change the “perceived acceptability” of taking class A drugs by making users aware of the link to gang violence and “exploitative and environmentally destructive” impacts in Central and South America.Policing minister Kit Malthouse also said earlier this month said the new strategy will target recreational users of class A substances to “illustrate the impact” on different communities.Former home secretary Sajid Javid said during the Tory leadership contest in 2019 that middle-class cocaine users should think about the lives “destroyed along the way” – viewed as a thinly-viewed swipe at rival Michael Gove after he admitted to have taken cocaine.London mayor Sadiq Khan has also previously said that “middle-class” cocaine use has helped contribute to the violent crime among criminal gangs in the capital.However, some experts believe that the focus should remain on targeting violent drug gangs rather than trying to name and shame users.While drug-related violence has been linked to the county lines gangs, most of the violence is believed to be related to dealing in crack and heroin.Journalist and commentator Max Daly said: “If the government want to do this they need to get their facts straight. No, powder cocaine use does not cause street violence in the UK and county lines dealing.”He added: “However its trade, while a lifeline for some in South America, is highly unethical.” More

A leading Conservative MP has predicted a “major” terrorist attack on the West following the fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban.It comes as America’s top general told senators in Washington that the US could now face a rise in terrorist threats from a Taliban-run Afghanistan.Tobias Ellwood, the chairman of the defence select committee, said the UK and its allies would come to “regret” the consequences of pulling troops out of the country.The influential MP claimed Afghanistan would become a “haven” for terrorists once again – warning that radical Islamist groups would be keen to demonstrate the futility of two decades of Western intervention.“We’re not just gifting this country to the very adversary [there] when we entered Afghanistan to defeat in the first place, but we’re actually seeing terrorist organisations now regroup and return back to their havens,” Mr Ellwood told Sky News on Monday.The MP added: “Really sadly, I predict another major hit on the West, the likes of 9/11. Because the terrorist groups will want to bookend our time in Afghanistan to show how futile the last two decades have been.”The Taliban had harboured Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda in the years before they carried out the 9/11 attacks. That sparked a US-led invasion that rapidly scattered al-Qaeda and drove the Taliban from power for two decades.General Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told senators on a briefing call that US officials are set to alter their earlier assessments about the pace of terrorist groups reconstituting in Afghanistan, a person familiar with the matter told the Associated Press.John Bolton, former national security adviser to Donald Trump, also said the withdrawal of Western troops was a “big mistake” that increased the risk of future terrorist attacks.“From the perspective of the US and its allies, this puts us back in the pre-September 11 2001 environment,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.“It seems almost inevitable that when Taliban does take final control it will allow Isis, al Qaida and other terrorist groups we haven’t even heard of yet to again find sanctuary in Afghanistan.”Mr Bolton added: “We run the further risk of those terrorist groups plotting attacks on the US and our partners, and it’s just intolerable that we’ve allowed this to happen.”And Robert Hannigan, former director of UK intelligence agency GCHQ, said “groups that want to attack the United States or the West will feel emboldened by this”.He told BBC Radio 4’s World at One programme: “We’re now going to be working with, essentially, a hostile power and that will make knowing what’s going on there more difficult than ever.”Mr Hannigan added: “I think generally across the world, groups that want to attack the United States or the west will feel emboldened by this.”It comes as a fellow Conservative backbencher called for Boris Johnson to apologise to the families of people who died in Afghanistan.John Baron criticised the government as British troops try to help remaining UK nationals and their local allies flee the country.“On behalf of previous governments, the prime minister should apologise to the bereaved families of service personnel, and to those personnel who are still paying the price for this folly.”Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said the aim of preventing Afghanistan from becoming a “terrorist state” was the right course of action, but was “setting the bar very, very low”.Families of soldiers who died on previous tours of Afghanistan have criticised both the British and US governments’ handling of the withdrawal from the nation.Graham Knight, father of 25-year-old RAF Sergeant Ben Knight who was killed when his Nimrod aircraft exploded in Afghanistan in 2006, said the British government should have moved more quickly in recent days.Mr Knight said: “I think it was all started too late again. It [the evacuation] should have started about a week ago … I feel very sorry for them, they’re obviously fighting for their lives. Anybody who feels like that is in a desperate situation. It’s like Saigon all over again.”Responding to calls for Mr Johnson to say sorry to those who served in Afghanistan or those who lost loved ones, a No 10 spokesman stopped short of an apology and said the PM recognised it would be an “extremely difficult time” for them.Asked if Mr Johnson would apologise, his spokesman said: “Look, I fully understand that this must be an extremely difficult time for service personnel who served in Afghanistan and indeed the families of those who lost loved ones.”“As the PM has said, the UK can be proud of what has been done in Afghanistan over the past 20 years. It is thanks to their sacrifices that we’ve seen now no al-Qaeda attacks against the west for a very long time, there are millions of girls and young women who have been educated in Afghanistan, and that cannot be taken away.”Defence secretary Ben Wallace became overwhelmed with emotion over the crisis on Monday morning – admitting on LBC radio that “some people won’t get back” from Afghanistan as a desperate struggle to get UK nationals and local allies out of the country continues.MPs will be called back from their summer break to parliament to discuss the worsening crisis and the government’s response for one day this Wednesday. More