Last week, I was humbled to meet a democratically elected MP from Kabul, Afghanistan; a meeting I was eager to have. Like me, he really cared about his constituency, he knew it well and wanted to tell me about his community.

As in lockdown, when I had to work remotely, he too had to. That is where the similarities ended. He was working as an MP in exile. His colleagues were spread across Europe. His people were trapped in conditions unimaginable for any of us.

His constituents are facing escalating violence from the occupation by the Taliban; no longer rattling cages, they are killing in cold blood. His constituents were on the edge of one of the worst humanitarian disasters imagined as vital food and medical supplies struggle to reach the right places.

He needed the world to understand, he needed Parliament to help, he needed Government to act. I raised the plight of his people in Parliament the next day but remain appalled by the response I got. Just because our Prime Minister believes he has ‘got Afghanistan done’ and moved on to his next project, does not mean that the crisis is anywhere over; it has deepened and we carry a heavy responsibility to play our part.

Right now, the Home Office is gridlocked in a battle with other departments to find accommodation, or not, for those who have already been airlifted to the UK; but no-one is doing anything.

Some 15,000 people have arrived. They are staying in bridging hotels until they are settled in communities. These are the brave people who backed our soldiers up through the conflict, who risked their lives to save those that they served. Until they move out of the hotels then Government will not open the Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme and help women or girls or Christians or LGBT+ or Hazaras or human rights defenders or judges or so many more find safety. All being targeted; many friends and family of York residents are in a perilous situation.

We need those in charge to act.

As I have, going round knocking on the doors of the Armed Forces, the churches, city developers, housing associations and private residents. City of York Council have failed to deliver accommodation; failed them. They have estate they could repurpose, like York’s abandoned care homes. When I asked the Afghan MP if such a location would work, he agreed. Ideal, so families can be together and support one another. Raising a family in a temporary hotel is no way to welcome traumatised families.

Yet the urgency of this crisis, impeding genocide and starvation does not penetrate the corridors of power locally or nationally. All too happy to call York a Human Rights City and a City of Sanctuary, but all too happy not to strain every sinew for it to act on these grand titles. I haven’t given up.

But it gets worse. This week the toxic Nationality and Borders Bill is before Parliament. This Bill will introduce the next phase of the Home Secretary’s extreme plan to prevent the UK fulfilling its human rights responsibilities and obligations under the Refugee Convention.

Under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and the International Convention of Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS), assistance to anyone found at sea, in danger, must be provided. The Bill threatens those who provide rescue.

In the wake of the tragic deaths of 27 people in the channel, including 3 children, a pregnant woman and an Afghan refugee who served our forces, exploited by people traffickers, the Home Secretary’s latest reforms places such people in even more danger. Forced back through choppy waters.

For the record, I will vote against.

It is time, those in power walked in the shoes of people in need. Whether here in the UK or displaced around our broken and fragile world, the scars of our colonial presence is often at the route of climate and conflict, inequality and injustice.

Afghanistan is another such wound that we must work to heal. This time, instead of weapons and war, it must be with humanitarian aid and hospitality; I would suggest with humility too. I want York to fulfil its rich tradition and play the part worthy of the titles it adorns itself with, so we truly are the Human Rights City and City of Sanctuary we aspire to be.