The House of Commons Defence Committee (HCDC) has published the Government's response to the report of the Committee's inquiry about the Afghanistan withdrawal, dealing with

• The Doha Agreement and fall of the Afghan Government
• The Evacuation and Relocation of Eligible Afghans
• Mental Health of Veterans
• Learning Lessons from Afghanistan

 On the evacuation and relocation of "eligible Afghans", the Government responds to criticisms by the HCDC, and concludes:

a) We owe a debt of gratitude to those Afghan nationals who risked their lives working alongside UK forces in support of the UK mission in Afghanistan. We have rightly committed to relocating to the UK all ARAP eligible Afghans and their families. We are honouring that commitment and ensuring that when they arrive in the UK, they are set up for a successful new life.

b) Since the start of the ARAP scheme, we have relocated over 12,200 vulnerable Afghans to the UK (applicants and their family members), including some 5,000 since the end OP PITTING. Getting Afghans with confirmed ARAP eligibility to safety outside of Afghanistan is a key priority. We continue to support the movement of ARAP-eligible Afghans into the safety provided by our third country partners at best pace and in a way that minimises risk to life in an increasingly challenging operating environment on the ground in Afghanistan.

c) Due to operational security considerations, we are unable to provide specific details on our ongoing relocation efforts inside Afghanistan and with our third country partners. However, a finite number of Afghans are eligible for ARAP and we estimate from HMG records that fewer than 620 Afghans eligible for relocation to the UK under ARAP remain inside Afghanistan. We are committed to finding and relocating them and their family members – approximately 3,075 people in total.

On mental health of veterans, the response says that

The Government is committed to the support and promotion of positive mental wellbeing for the whole Defence community, including veterans. Lead responsibility for the provision of veteran healthcare is led by the Department for Health and Social Care and its devolved equivalents. We recognise the potential impacts of Operation PITTING and the legacy Afghanistan campaign on those who supported operations from the UK and in-country.
On the completion of Operation PITTING MOD units and formations offered Trauma Risk Incident Management (TRIM) briefs and support to all individual Augmentees (IAs) and participants.

The Government accepted that "the withdrawal from Afghanistan had a negative impact on the mental health of some members of the veteran community". It described some of the ongoing work on veteran mental health, and said it "remains open to further engagement and collaboration across the charity sector to ensure adequate and accessible information, support and intervention is available to all in the veteran community."

On Learning Lessons from Afghanistan, the Government rejected the Committee's demand that "It is ... of critical importance that the UK Government conduct an open, honest and detailed review of the UK’s involvement in the country. This review should include military operations and political decisions covering the full timeline of the UK’s involvement..."

Instead, the Government's response concluded that:

Lessons learnt from Afghanistan have contributed to the revised thinking present in the Integrated Review (Refresh) work. The MOD assesses that the value of a further wideranging review of the totality of the Afghanistan Campaign is limited, would absorb considerable resource and does not coincide with the now-published Integrated Review (Refresh).