The U.K. Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee has called for the resignation of the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office’s chief civil servant, Philip Barton, over his conduct during and after the evacuation of Afghanistan.
On Tuesday, the cross-party group of politicians who monitor foreign policy released a report that was highly critical of the government’s response to the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan in August, with a particular focus on FCDO’s leadership. It also accused officials of lying to members of Parliament.
After a lengthy and sometimes dramatic inquiry opened in September — which saw FCDO whistleblowers provide evidence and Barton mocked in the British press — the department was accused of repeatedly giving MPs answers that were “at best intentionally evasive, and often deliberately misleading,” the report said.
Highlighting a succession of FCDO failures during the crisis, the report said the committee had “lost confidence in the Permanent Under- Secretary [Barton], who should consider his position” — a British phrase meaning to think about leaving a job.
“Officials should not be expected to engage— nor be complicit—in obscuring the facts in order to shield others from political accountability,” said the report, adding that FCDO had failed to use the opportunity of a new foreign secretary, Liz Truss, to “re-commit to transparency and positive engagement with Parliament.”
It added, “Those who lead the Foreign Office should be ashamed that two [whistleblowers] of great integrity and clear ability felt compelled to risk their careers to bring to light the appalling mismanagement of the Afghan crisis, and the misleading statements to Parliament that followed.”
The report said it was “difficult to understand and impossible to excuse” why Barton did not return from a vacation until civilian evacuations were already over, while “staff across the department struggled to implement a poorly-planned evacuation process under intense pressure.”
It said the “bravery” and “sacrifices” of military and civilian personnel involved in the evacuation, including civil servants, “were undermined by deep failures of leadership in the system they were working within.” The event saw desperate Afghans attempting to evacuate on an already moving airplane, as well as a suicide bombing that killed more than 180 people.
“The absence of the FCDO’s top leadership - ministerial and official - when [Afghan capital] Kabul fell is a grave indictment on those supposedly in charge,” said the chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, Tom Tugendhat, in a statement. Dominic Raab lost his job as foreign secretary in September, which was widely seen as a punishment for the Afghanistan response, but some junior ministers remain in place.
Tugendhat continued: “While junior officials demonstrated courage and integrity, chaotic and arbitrary decision-making runs through this inquiry. Sadly, it may have cost many people the chance to leave Afghanistan, putting lives in danger. The integrity of the Civil Service depends on those leading these organisations showing the courage to tell the truth to the British people.”
Many Afghans who worked for the U.K., including on development projects, were said to be at risk but unable to escape Afghanistan as the Taliban consolidated control after a chaotic withdrawal by the United States and its allies.
“The UK’s part in this tragedy exposes a lack of seriousness in achieving coordination, a lack of clear decision-making, a lack of leadership and a lack of accountability,” added Tugendhat.
Afghanistan now faces a dire humanitarian crisis, with nearly 20 million people estimated to be acutely food insecure, according to the World Food Programme. And international relief funding has fallen far short of the estimated need.
The committee’s report also criticized the fact that development assistance to the country was halved in 2020-21 due to U.K. aid cuts. “These cuts, made at a time when Afghanistan was facing the withdrawal of international troops, speak to a disconnect between the UK’s development aid and its wider goals—something the merged FCDO was founded to overcome,” the report said.
Written before the United Kingdom’s new international development strategy was published, the report called for the document to “set out principles for delivering aid in hostile states where the UK’s strategic interests are so deeply engaged.” These were not included in the strategy, which was released on May 16.
A spokesperson for the British government told Devex: “Our staff worked tirelessly to evacuate over 15,000 people from Afghanistan within a fortnight. This was the biggest UK mission of its kind in generations and followed months of intensive planning and collaboration between UK government departments.”
The spokesperson said that the government has helped 4,600 Afghans leave the country since the end of the military operation and that the government drew on lessons learned in Afghanistan when responding to the war in Ukraine.
About the author
William Worley@willrworley
Will Worley is the Climate Correspondent for Devex, covering the intersection of development and climate change. He previously worked as UK Correspondent, reporting on the FCDO and British aid policy during a time of seismic reforms. Will’s extensive reporting on the UK aid cuts saw him shortlisted for ‘Specialist Journalist of the Year’ in 2021 by the British Journalism Awards. He can be reached at william.worley@devex.com.
