Penarth MP Stephen Doughty slammed the Prime Minister, Foreign Secretary and Home Secretary in parliament today, accusing them of being "asleep at the wheel" ahead of and during the events in Afghanistan that have seen the Taliban take control.

Mr Doughty said that troops had been "let down" by this inaction, and that Boris Johnson, Dominic Raab and Priti Patel had been "caught unawares" by the chaos at Kabul airport.

He also refuted claims that those who had died fighting in Afghanistan had done so "in vain".

The government has outlined plans for up to 20,000 refugees from Afghanistan to be resettled in the UK.

Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab described how the evacuation effort - which he says has been in place for four months - has three strands.

All British nationals were urged to leave Afghanistan back in April, he said, and many hundreds did so on commercial flights.

Since the security situation worsened last weekend, the government started chartering flights, according to Mr Raab. The first one left Kabul on Sunday with about 150 UK nationals and their dependants on board.

"In the last 24 hours, 646 people have been evacuated - a combination of nationals, Afghans who work for us and UK allies - and there will be eight flights following today," he said.

Here is what the Penarth MP said in full:

"I felt sick to my stomach this week for Afghan friends, for our veterans and their families, for those fleeing in terror, and seeing those scenes of bodies falling from planes in the sky.

"I just find it hard to comprehend as I think many others across this house and indeed in my constituency have felt these last few days.

"I want to pay tribute to all our forces, to all who served; in this house, in my own family, and my constituents, those 457 who never came back, those injured physically and mentally, and also to all of those different staff and NGOs I was proud to work alongside, human rights defenders, especially those working with women and girls, and also our media and journalists, especially BBC World Service, our language services, and also Afghan soliders.

"Thousands of them died for their country and freedoms and I think to suggest otherwise is completely wrong.

"But the sacrifices of all of them were not in vain, as the leader of the opposition and so many others have said today in this debate, they did succeed in making a difference to communities, in countering terrorism, to making a difference to individuals, I saw for myself in places like Musa Qala and elsewhere.

"The failures we shamefully now see are not theirs. They are on a political and strategic level. And I recall in Helmand and Lashkar Gah, meeting the government there and being told by somebody 'you are willing to spend the blood and treasure, but the Taliban strategy is to run down the clock and see if you have the patience'.

"Well, they certainly figured that out.

"And we now risk another failure if we accept the slick Taliban PR spin we've seen over the last few days while they execute, make lists, shoot civilians in the streets, and caveat everything about rights of being within that system of justice, especially for women.

"So, let's not be fooled.

"We've seen remarkable work on the ground by our troops and our ambassador in the last few days.

"But quite frankly, they've been let down by Prime Minister, Foreign Secretary and Home Secretary asleep at the wheel.

"They were already warned about the failures in supporting translators and others who supported our troops and our civilians, they were caught unawares by the chaos of the airport, we need to ensure every safe route is used.

"We need to ensure we can get people safely to the airport out of other routes if possible. And we need to base this on need not arbitrary numbers using every plane and resource. And let's not forget that as we speak, this government has been cutting aid to Afghanistan.

"So, we need urgent clarity on this new announcement. Is it new money or is it being diverted? Not least when we see such great needs elsewhere in the world in Haiti in recent days?

"How will it be delivered? We'll be following a Zimbabwean-type model where we make sure it doesn't go through a despotic government, will be through the UN through NGOs, and how will plans that we had in place being delivered?

"Finally, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I agree with what the honourable member Bradley Stoke said. There were not simple binary choices here.

"There were other options, and this has been wrong at every level. And we have to be aware of the consequences for our own security, that of our allies for civilians, democracy, development, human rights in the world, if we carry on down this path of diminishing retreat."