FCDO's head, Sir Philip Barton, admits it was a mistake for him to remain on holiday through out the Afghan crisis. He only returned to work on August 26, 11 days after Kabul fell. Tells FAC: "I have reflected a lot. If I had my time again, I would have come back earlier”.
This is the first time Barton has revealed the date he returned to the Foreign Office. The last US military flight left Kabul on August 30, meaning Sir Philip stayed on holiday through almost the whole of the desperate three week airlift. This is simply staggering.
Tory MP Alicia Kearns, a former civil servant who has worked in FCO crisis centres, asks Barton: “If this isn’t what failure looks like, what does?”
FCDO's Afghanistan Director Nigel Casey unable to say whether his crisis centre in London was manned by a night shift over two different nights of the evacuation, August 22 + 23. Will only say a night shift "was rostered". Whistleblower claims civil servants refused to come in.
Sir Philip Barton is also unable to tell the committee that all emails sent to the FCDO address set up to process evacuation requests were opened and read. “We took the decision to prioritise people for evacuation rather than reply. I recognise we might have made mistakes".
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