The Government is grateful to the Foreign Affairs Committee for its report on the UK’s 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan. The Government agrees that there are fundamental lessons to learn, and to act on, from this experience and the feedback received. The Government accepts that there were areas of its crisis response which need improvement, and is determined to raise standards in its preparedness for, and response to, future crises. The FCDO specifically is committed to implementing those lessons, as it seeks to do after every major crisis. The Lessons Learned section of this response sets out the steps the FCDO is taking as a Department both to deliver, and to monitor delivery of, that commitment.