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.
A dataset containing the details of nearly 19,000 people who applied to move to the UK following the Taliban takeover of the country was released in error by a British defence official in February 2022.
The Ministry of Defence (MoD) learned of the breach in August 2023 when some details were anonymously posted on Facebook.
In response to the leak, the government created a secret resettlement scheme – which has so far seen 4,500 Afghans arrive in the UK with a further 600 people and their immediate families still to arrive.
The secret scheme has cost £400m so far, the MoD said, and is expected to cost a further £400m to £450m.
The existence of this Afghan Response Route, which was established in April 2024, was kept confidential by an injunction but can now be reported following a High Court ruling on Tuesday.
The unauthorised data breach was committed by an unnamed individual at the MoD and included the names of large numbers of Afghans who were potentially at risk from the Taliban.
Speaking in the House of Commons, Defence Secretary John Healey confirmed the government was closing down the scheme but would honour offers already made to people still in Afghanistan.
He offered a “sincere apology” to those whose details had been included in the leak.
He said the leak was as a result of the 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 leaked document, he said, contained the names, personal details and some family details of applicants.
The MoD has declined to say how many have been arrested or killed as a result of the data breach.
Healey told MPs an independent review had found it was “highly likely” an individual would have been targeted solely because they appeared in the leak document, and that it had judged the secret scheme to be an “extremely significant intervention” given the “potentially limited” risk posted by the leak.
He also 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’.”
