'Serious questions' over UK secret Afghan relocations: PM / Photo: Justin TALLIS - AFP
'Serious questions' over UK secret Afghan relocations: PM
Ministers in the UK's last Conservative government have "serious questions to answer" over a secret resettlement plan for thousands of Afghans after a data breach endangered their lives, Prime Minister Keir Starmer said Wednesday.
Parliamentary Speaker Lindsay Hoyle said the affair raised significant constitutional issues" after it emerged that the previous government had obtained a court order banning media coverage and preventing any scrutiny by parliament.
Thousands of Afghans who worked with the UK and their families have been brought to Britain under the programme following the leak.
But the 2022 breach and the resettlement plan to protect those involved from potential repercussions only came to light on Tuesday after a court super-gag was lifted.
Defence Minister John Healey told parliament a UK official had accidentally leaked a spreadsheet containing the names and details of almost 19,000 Afghans who had asked to be relocated to Britain.
It happened in February 2022, just six months after Taliban fighters seized Kabul, he said.
In parliament Wednesday, Starmer said his government supported the principle of fulfilling "our obligations to Afghans who served alongside British forces" in the post 9/11 conflict in the South Asian country.
Healey had "set out the full extent of the failings that we inherited: a major data breach, a superinjunction, a secret route that has already cost hundreds of millions of pounds", he added.
"Ministers who served under the party opposite have serious questions to answer about how this was ever allowed to happen," he said.
- Kept from parliament -
The nearly two-year-long court ban secured by the previous government prevented any media reporting of the leak.
In addition, parliament was not briefed and there was no public knowledge of the resettlement plan and the costs involved.
Speaker of Parliament Lindsay Hoyle, who is responsible for the proper administration of the House of Commons, also commented on the affair.
"This episode raises significant constitutional issues. I have therefore asked the clerks to consider whether any lessons need to be learned from this case," he told lawmakers.
Under the Conservatives the secret programme was put in place in April 2024 to help those "judged to be at the highest risk of reprisals by the Taliban", Healey said told parliament.
Some 900 Afghans and 3,600 family members have now been brought to Britain or are in transit under the programme known as the Afghan Response Route, at a cost of around £400 million ($535 million).
Applications from 600 more people have also been accepted, bringing the estimated total cost of the scheme to £850 million.
They are among some 36,000 Afghans accepted by Britain under different schemes since the August 2021 fall of Kabul.
- 'No cover-up' -
Former defence minister Ben Wallace said he stood by his decision to seek secrecy from the court in August 2023 and rejected claims of a "cover-up".
"I make no apology for applying to the court for an injunction at the time," he said.
"If this leak was reported at the time, the existence of the list would put in peril those we needed to help," he told BBC radio.
When Labour came to power in July 2024, the scheme was up and running but Healey said he had been "deeply uncomfortable to be constrained from reporting" it to parliament.
He estimated the total cost of relocating people to Britain from Afghanistan under the various resettlement schemes at between £5.5 billion to £6 billion.
P.Ruiz--GBA
