Afghanistan: UK officials accused by Labour MP of cover-up over animal evacuation - BBC News
Senior civil servants deny claims the PM intervened to organise animal charity rescue, at select committee.
Labour MP Chris Bryant has just challenged the diplomats' version of events, delivering a withering assessment of the situation as it unfolded over those days after Kabul fell.

Here is what the MP said in full:

"What I think really happened is that ministers were desperate to please, they weren't courageous enough to say 'I'm sorry there's a limit to what I can do'.

"There wasn't enough preparation done from last year let alone from April this year to be able to do a proper evacuation of the numbers that we really knew we were likely to have to evacuate. We offered the prospect, the hope, the expectation, indeed, for lots and lots of people, that they might be able to come to the United Kingdom, cruelly in all honesty.

"And then when ministers had hundreds, and hundreds, and hundreds of emails from lots of MPs, and effectively the Foreign Office collaborated in making sure that ministers could say that 'we've ticked every single box' even though in truth not a single one of these names was ever really properly considered.

"That's what happened really, isn't it? And that's shameful."

Quote Message: ...effectively the Foreign Office collaborated in making sure that ministers could say that 'we've ticked every single box' from Chris Bryant Labour MP ...effectively the Foreign Office collaborated in making sure that ministers could say that 'we've ticked every single box'