Thousands of Afghan refugees will be resettled in the UK after the Taliban seized control of Kabul, the UK government has promised.
The new scheme will see up to 20,000 Afghans offered a route to set up home in the UK in the coming years, reports the BBC.
In the first year, 5,000 refugees will be eligible – with women, girls and others in need having priority.
Home Secretary Priti Patel urged other countries to help, writing in the Daily Telegraph “we cannot do this alone”.
However, opposition parties have criticised the settlement scheme for not going far enough.
The new plan is on top of the existing scheme for interpreters and other staff who worked for the UK.
Some 5,000 Afghans and family members are expected to benefit from that policy.
Parliament has been recalled and Prime Minister Boris Johnson is to open a debate in the House of Commons about the situation in Afghanistan from 09:30 BST on Wednesday.
Downing Street said Johnson spoke to US President Joe Biden on Tuesday evening about the evacuation of Kabul.
The leaders “resolved to continue working closely together on this in the days and weeks ahead to allow as many people as possible to leave the country”, a spokesperson said.
“The prime minister stressed the importance of not losing the gains made in Afghanistan over the last 20 years, of protecting ourselves against any emerging threat from terrorism, and of continuing to support the people of Afghanistan.”
This proposal does not meet the scale of the challenge,” he added.
The Lib Dems foreign affairs spokeswoman Layla Moran said that “20,000 should be the starting point of this scheme, not the target”.
And Ian Blackford, the SNP’s leader in Westminster, tweeted that the scheme didn’t “go anywhere near far or fast enough” and the target should be at least 35,000 to 40,000 Afghan refugees.
A separate route for Afghan nationals to resettle in the UK, the Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy (ARAP), already offers the chance to live in the UK to Afghan staff who worked for the UK government in frontline roles.
Some 5,000 staff – including interpreters – and their families will come to the UK via that scheme this year. Nearly 2,000 have arrived since 22 June.
On Tuesday night an RAF plane carrying British nationals and Afghans landed at RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire from Kabul, Afghanistan’s capital.
The Foreign Office has advised all remaining UK nationals to leave the country.
Vice Adm Sir Ben Key, who is running the UK’s evacuation programme in Afghanistan, said it was “operating at full pace” but the changing political situation meant it couldn’t “afford to pause and wait”.
“We will go for as long as it takes us to either meet the demand, or when the security situation means that we’re no longer operating with consent,” he added.
