Joel Gunter & Sean Seddon
BBC News
Getty Images
The previous government set up a secret Afghan relocation scheme after the personal data of thousands of people was inadvertently leaked, it can be revealed.
The details of nearly 19,000 people who had applied to move to the UK after the Taliban takeover of the country was released by mistake by a British defence official in February 2022.
The Ministry of Defence (MoD) learned of the breach in August 2023 and created a new resettlement scheme nine months later. It has seen 4,500 Afghans arrive in the UK, with a further 600 people and their immediate families still to arrive.
However the existence of the leak and scheme was kept secret after the government obtained a superinjunction.
Details of the major data breach, the response and the number of Afghans granted the right to live in the UK as a result were only made public on Tuesday after a High Court judge ruled the gagging order should be lifted.
The leak contained the names, contact details and some family information of people potentially at risk of harm from the Taliban.
The government also revealed on Tuesday:
- The secret scheme – officially called the Afghan Relocation Route – has cost £400m so far, and is expected to cost a further £400m to £450m
- The scheme is being closed down, but relocation offers already made will be offered
- The breach was committed by an unnamed official at the MoD
- People whose details were leaked were only informed on Tuesday
Speaking in the House of Commons, Defence Secretary John Healey offered a “sincere apology” to those whose details had been included in the leak.
He said it was as a result of a spreadsheet being emailed “outside of authorised government systems”, which he described as a “serious departmental error” – though the Metropolitan Police has already decided a police investigation was not necessary.
Healey said the leak was “one of many data losses” related to the Afghanistan evacuation during that period.
The MoD has declined to say how many people may have been arrested or killed as a result of the data breach, but Healey told MPs an independent review had found it was “highly unlikely” an individual would have been targeted solely because of it.
He said that review had also judged the secret scheme to be an “extremely significant intervention” given the “potentially limited” risk posed by the leak.
Healey said those who have been relocated to the UK have already been counted in immigration figures.
The data involved the names of people who had applied for the Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy (Arap) scheme. As US troops completed their withdrawal in August 2021, the UK government set up Arap to rapidly process applications by people who feared reprisals from the Taliban and move them to the UK.
Arap has already been heavily criticised in the years since it was launched, with a 2022 inquiry by the Foreign Affairs Committee finding it was a “disaster” and a “betrayal”.
A superinjunction had prevented the leak being revealed but it was lifted today by a judge at the Royal Courts of Justice.
Healey told the House even he had been prevented from speaking about the breach because of the “unprecedented” injunction, after being informed while still shadow defence secretary.
Reading a summary of his judgment in court, Mr Justice Chamberlain said the the gagging order had “given rise to serious free speech concerns”.
He continued: “The superinjunction had the effect of completely shutting down the ordinary mechanisms of accountability which operate in a democracy.
“This led to what I describe as a ‘scrutiny vacuum’.”