Dominic Raab has suggested the Foreign Office whistleblower did not have a full grasp of the pressures being face on the ground in Afghanistan as he was a "relatively junior desk officer".

Raphael Marshall, a 25-year-old desk officer, has submitted to the House of Commons’ Foreign Affairs Committee a dossier of evidence detailing the dysfunctional and bureaucratic process behind the evacuation this summer.

But Mr Raab, who was then foreign secretary, rejected Mr Marshall's claims that Whitehall's “work-life balance” culture and work-from-home directive meant junior officials were left to make significant decisions on their own.

"I constantly checked we had enough resource," he told BBC Breakfast. "I appreciate that Raphael was doing job under difficult circumstances himself at a relatively junior level in London but the real pressures [were] on the ground... it was the challenge and difficulty of ascertaining facts on the ground that was the biggest single pressure."

He told Sky News it might have felt "like you were under a lot of pressure" because Mr Marshall was so young.

This morning Tom Tugendhat, chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, suggested the minister could be asked to return to give further evidence before MPs, having already done so in an extraordinary session this summer.

Read more here: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2021/12/07/boris-johnson-sajid-javid-civil-service-afghanistan-tory-brexit/

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