Animals

Lords call for Zac Goldsmith to explain Kabul animal airlift email


Peers have called for Zac Goldsmith to explain why his office sent an email last August which said Boris Johnson had authorised a controversial airlift of animals from Kabul – yet he told the House of Lords in December this was not the case.

Ray Collins, a Labour peer, asked Lord Goldsmith, who was not present, “to return as a matter of urgency to make a statement to the house” to clear up the apparent discrepancy.

A Foreign Office email released on Wednesday showed an official working for Goldsmith, who is a Foreign Office minister, had written to a colleague on 25 August to say “the PM has just authorised” the staff and animals of the Nowzad welfare charity to be cleared for evacuation.

But, Collins said, Goldsmith had denied this was the case in the Lords on 7 December: Goldsmith said rebuttals made by Johnson that day were “from my own experience … entirely accurate”.

“My lord, only one of these two statements can be true. Which is it?” Collins said on Thursday, arguing that Goldsmith had a duty to explain himself under the ministerial code. “Ministers must correct any inadvertent errors at the earliest opportunity or offer their resignation if they have knowingly misled,” he added.

The government minister Nicholas True said Goldsmith had tweeted a statement on Wednesday, in which he said: “I did not authorise and do not support anything that would have put animals’ lives ahead of peoples’…. I never discussed the Nowzad charity or their efforts to evacuate animals with the PM.”

Later, Lord True added: “Allegations do not constitute evidence.”

Boris Johnson, Downing Street and other ministers have repeatedly denied the prime minister gave his personal permission for a privately funded rescue flight to land in Kabul at the end of August. However, an animal rights campaigner linked to Nowzad, Dominic Dyer, said he believed the prime minister did sanction the rescue.

On Thursday, Johnson said “this whole thing is total rhubarb”, and that he was proud of the military’s role in rescuing thousands of people stranded in Kabul after the Taliban’s seizure of Afghanistan’s capital.

'Total rhubarb': Johnson denies claims he approved Kabul animal airlift – video
‘Total rhubarb’: Johnson denies claims he approved Kabul animal airlift – video

A day earlier, Labour accused Johnson of lying, following the initial disclosure of the Foreign Office email from Goldsmith’s private office. A second email, sent later on 25 August by another Foreign Office official involved with the Kabul airlift, repeated the point. It said: “In light of the PM’s decision earlier today to evacuate the staff of the Nowzad animal charity … ”

Controversy about the rescue of the former royal marine Pen Farthing and his charity’s cats and dogs, and the involvement of the prime minister, has lingered for months after the previously hostile defence secretary, Ben Wallace, unexpectedly announced that he would allow their evacuation in a tweet sent at 1.33am.

There was support from some quarters for allowing the animals to be evacuated, but others said that creating a landing slot for the plane when thousands of Afghans were still desparate to be evacuated amounted to a prioritisation of “pets over people”.

Supporters of Nowzad engaged in an intense lobbying effort that Dyer said involved Goldsmith. Dyer also said he sent regular updates to the prime minister’s wife, Carrie Johnson, as the crisis unfolded.

Angela Smith, the Labour leader in the Lords, said: “If Lord Goldsmith has made a statement to this house that appears at the face of it to be at odds with the statement in an email from his private office that is now public, can he not come to the Lords to explain? I think that’s a very straightforward request.”





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