Hundreds of Afghans who labored with the UK and their households have been dropped at Britain in a secret programme after a 2022 information breach put their lives in danger, the British authorities revealed on Tuesday.
Defence Minister John Healey unveiled the scheme to parliament after the UK Excessive Courtroom on Tuesday lifted a super-gag order banning any experiences of the occasions.
In February 2022, a spreadsheet containing the names and particulars of virtually 19,000 Afghans who had requested to be relocated to Britain was by accident leaked by a UK official simply six months after Taliban fighters seized Kabul, Healey stated.
“This was a critical departmental error,” Healey stated, including: “Lives might have been at stake.”
The earlier Conservative authorities put in place a secret programme in April 2024 to assist these “judged to be on the highest threat of reprisals by the Taliban”, he stated.
Some 900 Afghans and three,600 relations have now been dropped at Britain or are in transit below the programme generally known as the Afghan Response Route, at a price of round £400 million ($535 million), Healey stated.
Functions from 600 extra individuals have additionally been accepted, bringing the estimated whole price of the scheme to £850 million.
They’re amongst some 36,000 Afghans who’ve been accepted by Britain below completely different schemes because the August 2021 fall of Kabul.
As Labour’s opposition defence spokesman, Healey was briefed on the scheme in December 2023 however the Conservative authorities requested a court docket to impose a “super-injunction” banning any point out of it in parliament or by the press.
When Labour got here to energy in July 2024, the scheme was in full swing however Healey stated he had been “deeply uncomfortable to be constrained from reporting” to parliament.
“Ministers determined to not inform parliamentarians at an earlier stage in regards to the information incident, because the widespread publicity would enhance the chance of the Taliban acquiring the dataset,” he defined.
– ‘No retribution’ –
Healey arrange a overview of the scheme when he turned defence minister within the new Labour authorities.
This concluded there was “little or no proof of intent by the Taliban to conduct a marketing campaign of retribution”.
The Afghan Response Route has now been closed, the minister stated, apologising for the information breach which “ought to by no means have occurred”.
He estimated the whole price of relocating individuals from Afghanistan to Britain at between £5.5 billion to £6 billion.
Conservative get together defence spokesman James Cartlidge additionally apologised for the leak which occurred below the earlier Tory authorities.
However he defended the choice to maintain it secret, saying the goal had been to keep away from “an error by an official of the British state resulting in torture and even homicide of individuals within the dataset by the hands of what stays a brutal Taliban regime”.
Healey stated all these dropped at the UK from Afghanistan had been accounted for within the nation’s immigration figures.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer has vowed to chop the variety of migrants arriving in Britain.
In 2023, the UK defence ministry was fined £350,000 by a knowledge watchdog for disclosing private info of 265 Afghans looking for to flee Taliban fighters within the chaotic fall of Kabul two years earlier.
Britain’s Afghanistan evacuation plan was broadly criticised, with the federal government accused by MPs of “systemic failures of management, planning and preparation”.
A whole lot of Afghans eligible for relocation have been left behind, many with their lives probably in danger after particulars of employees and job candidates have been left on the deserted British embassy in Kabul.