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Conservative government used superinjuction to hide error that put Afghans at risk and led to £2bn mitigation scheme
Dan Sabbagh and Emine Sinmaz
Conservative ministers used an unprecedented superinjunction to suppress a data breach that led the UK government to offer relocation to 15,000 Afghans in a secret scheme with a potential cost of more than £2bn.
The Afghan Response Route (ARR) was created in haste after it emerged that personal information about 18,700 Afghans who had applied to come to the UK had been leaked in error by a British defence official in early 2022.
Panicked ministers and officials at the Ministry of Defence learned of the breach in August 2023 after data was posted to a Facebook group and applied to the high court for an injunction, the first sought by a British government – to prevent any further media disclosure.
British troops work with Afghan forces in the Sangin Valley in 2007. Photograph: Marco Di Lauro/Getty Images
It was feared that publicity could put the lives of many thousands of Afghans at risk if the Taliban, who had control of the country after the western withdrawal in August 2021, were to become aware of the existence of the leaked list and to obtain it.
The judge in the initial trial, Mr Justice Knowles, granted the application “contra mundum” – against the world – and ruled that its existence remain secret, resulting in a superinjunction which remained in place until lifted on Tuesday.
The gagging order meant that both the data breach and the expensive mitigation scheme remained hidden despite its size and cost until the near two-year legal battle was brought to a close in the high court.
At noon on Tuesday, the high court judge Mr Justice Chamberlain said it was time to end the superinjuction, which he said had the effect of concealing discussions about spending “the sort of money which makes a material difference to government spending plans and is normally the stuff of political debate”.
A few minutes later, John Healey, the defence secretary, offered a “sincere apology” for the data breach. In a statement to the Commons, he said he had felt “deeply concerned about the lack of transparency” around the data breach and “deeply uncomfortable to be constrained from reporting to this house”.
Healey told MPs that he was first briefed about the topic when he was in opposition in December 2023 by the junior Conservative defence minister James Heappey, at which he was “issued with the superinjunction at the start of the meeting”. Its existence was also made known to the speaker, Lindsay Hoyle.
However, the minister told MPs that neither Keir Starmer nor any other member of the current cabinet was briefed about the gagging order until “on taking office after the general election”.
The minister said the leaked spreadsheet also included details of MPs, senior military officers and government officials linked to individual claims. The defence official who passed on the information in error had “mistakenly believed they were sending the names of 150 applicants”.
In fact it contained 33,000 records among which was “personal information associated to 18,714 Afghans who had applied either to the ex gratia or the Arap [Afghan relocations and assistance policy] scheme on or before 7 January 2022”.
The defence secretary said Labour would now halt the Afghan Response Route, which will cost a total of £850m and will help an estimated 6,900 people. Stopping the scheme will save a projected additional spend of £1.2bn, defence sources said – meaning the potential cost could have risen to more than £2bn.
There were, Healey said, about 900 Afghans who were in Britain or in transit, with 3,600 family members at the cost of £400m and the UK would “honour the 600 invitations already made to any named person still in Afghanistan and their immediate family” – a number estimated at 1,800.
Halting the scheme, however, would mean another 9,500 people would not come to the UK, he added.
Three schemes, including the ARR, were created to help Afghans come to the UK after the Taliban takeover. So far, 36,000 people have arrived from the country, as of the end of March, and the government says the total cost of all relocation schemes will be between £5.5bn and £6bn.
A Cabinet Office memo dated February 2025 that formed part of the evidence submitted to the court suggested that keeping open the ARR, the policy at the time, would mean relocating 25,000 Afghans at a time when “the UK’s asylum and immigration system is under strain”.
It said the scheme would be extended by five years at a total cost of £7bn – but government officials said yesterday that sum was an error – and the figure in fact applied to the cost of all three Afghan resettlement schemes at the time. The other two were closed to new applicants at the beginning of July, with the costs now reduced, they said.
One law firm, Barings, said it was pursuing potential legal action on behalf of 1,000 affected people, many of whom were linked to the Afghan armed forces during the period when the UK and other western militaries were based in the country.
Adnan Malik, a lawyer with the firm, said: “This is essentially a database for anyone who wants to know who assisted the armed forces in Afghanistan.” He added: “If you’re someone whose family member or friend was killed by these individuals I’m sure you will want to take vengeance.”
The initial decision to seek an injunction was taken by Ben Wallace, defence secretary until the end of August 2023. “We were determined that no harm came to those on the lists. The injunction was not about [a] cover-up. The judge, not us, decided on it being super,” he said.
But it was maintained while Grant Shapps was defence secretary, with the ARR scheme devised to mitigate the risk following the leak. One ally of Shapps said: “We came in after the incident,” but added that it was “believed strongly” there was a duty to protect all those named on the list.
Court judgments show that the size of the ARR kept increasing under the Conservatives. Ministers on the cabinet’s domestic and economic affairs committee decided in November to relocate 150 affected persons and their families, a figure that had risen to 2,300 people and 11,500 family members by March 2024.
Labour said it had taken a year since coming to power to review the situation, and that decisions were taken after the commissioning of a review by Paul Rimmer, a retired civil servant whose conclusions were also shared with and published by the high court.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news...d-data-leak-afghans-who-helped-british-forces
Dan Sabbagh and Emine Sinmaz
Conservative ministers used an unprecedented superinjunction to suppress a data breach that led the UK government to offer relocation to 15,000 Afghans in a secret scheme with a potential cost of more than £2bn.
The Afghan Response Route (ARR) was created in haste after it emerged that personal information about 18,700 Afghans who had applied to come to the UK had been leaked in error by a British defence official in early 2022.
Panicked ministers and officials at the Ministry of Defence learned of the breach in August 2023 after data was posted to a Facebook group and applied to the high court for an injunction, the first sought by a British government – to prevent any further media disclosure.
British troops work with Afghan forces in the Sangin Valley in 2007. Photograph: Marco Di Lauro/Getty Images
It was feared that publicity could put the lives of many thousands of Afghans at risk if the Taliban, who had control of the country after the western withdrawal in August 2021, were to become aware of the existence of the leaked list and to obtain it.
The judge in the initial trial, Mr Justice Knowles, granted the application “contra mundum” – against the world – and ruled that its existence remain secret, resulting in a superinjunction which remained in place until lifted on Tuesday.
The gagging order meant that both the data breach and the expensive mitigation scheme remained hidden despite its size and cost until the near two-year legal battle was brought to a close in the high court.
At noon on Tuesday, the high court judge Mr Justice Chamberlain said it was time to end the superinjuction, which he said had the effect of concealing discussions about spending “the sort of money which makes a material difference to government spending plans and is normally the stuff of political debate”.
A few minutes later, John Healey, the defence secretary, offered a “sincere apology” for the data breach. In a statement to the Commons, he said he had felt “deeply concerned about the lack of transparency” around the data breach and “deeply uncomfortable to be constrained from reporting to this house”.
Healey told MPs that he was first briefed about the topic when he was in opposition in December 2023 by the junior Conservative defence minister James Heappey, at which he was “issued with the superinjunction at the start of the meeting”. Its existence was also made known to the speaker, Lindsay Hoyle.
However, the minister told MPs that neither Keir Starmer nor any other member of the current cabinet was briefed about the gagging order until “on taking office after the general election”.
The minister said the leaked spreadsheet also included details of MPs, senior military officers and government officials linked to individual claims. The defence official who passed on the information in error had “mistakenly believed they were sending the names of 150 applicants”.
In fact it contained 33,000 records among which was “personal information associated to 18,714 Afghans who had applied either to the ex gratia or the Arap [Afghan relocations and assistance policy] scheme on or before 7 January 2022”.
The defence secretary said Labour would now halt the Afghan Response Route, which will cost a total of £850m and will help an estimated 6,900 people. Stopping the scheme will save a projected additional spend of £1.2bn, defence sources said – meaning the potential cost could have risen to more than £2bn.
There were, Healey said, about 900 Afghans who were in Britain or in transit, with 3,600 family members at the cost of £400m and the UK would “honour the 600 invitations already made to any named person still in Afghanistan and their immediate family” – a number estimated at 1,800.
Halting the scheme, however, would mean another 9,500 people would not come to the UK, he added.
Three schemes, including the ARR, were created to help Afghans come to the UK after the Taliban takeover. So far, 36,000 people have arrived from the country, as of the end of March, and the government says the total cost of all relocation schemes will be between £5.5bn and £6bn.
A Cabinet Office memo dated February 2025 that formed part of the evidence submitted to the court suggested that keeping open the ARR, the policy at the time, would mean relocating 25,000 Afghans at a time when “the UK’s asylum and immigration system is under strain”.
It said the scheme would be extended by five years at a total cost of £7bn – but government officials said yesterday that sum was an error – and the figure in fact applied to the cost of all three Afghan resettlement schemes at the time. The other two were closed to new applicants at the beginning of July, with the costs now reduced, they said.
One law firm, Barings, said it was pursuing potential legal action on behalf of 1,000 affected people, many of whom were linked to the Afghan armed forces during the period when the UK and other western militaries were based in the country.
Adnan Malik, a lawyer with the firm, said: “This is essentially a database for anyone who wants to know who assisted the armed forces in Afghanistan.” He added: “If you’re someone whose family member or friend was killed by these individuals I’m sure you will want to take vengeance.”
The initial decision to seek an injunction was taken by Ben Wallace, defence secretary until the end of August 2023. “We were determined that no harm came to those on the lists. The injunction was not about [a] cover-up. The judge, not us, decided on it being super,” he said.
But it was maintained while Grant Shapps was defence secretary, with the ARR scheme devised to mitigate the risk following the leak. One ally of Shapps said: “We came in after the incident,” but added that it was “believed strongly” there was a duty to protect all those named on the list.
Court judgments show that the size of the ARR kept increasing under the Conservatives. Ministers on the cabinet’s domestic and economic affairs committee decided in November to relocate 150 affected persons and their families, a figure that had risen to 2,300 people and 11,500 family members by March 2024.
Labour said it had taken a year since coming to power to review the situation, and that decisions were taken after the commissioning of a review by Paul Rimmer, a retired civil servant whose conclusions were also shared with and published by the high court.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news...d-data-leak-afghans-who-helped-british-forces
