The minister who requested a High Court injunction to cover up the Afghan data breach has insisted that the move “saved lives”.
Ben Wallace, who was Defence Secretary in 2023 when the court order was requested, told The i Paper that the injunction allowed the Ministry of Defence to investigate the breach and to get thousands of at-risk people out of the country.
His comments come as Labour government insiders said that senior Tories must face questions over a secret breach of Afghan nationals that they said put lives at risk and cost hundreds of millions of taxpayer money.
They said that the then prime minister Rishi Sunak, Lord Cameron, the former foreign secretary, and Wallace should be made to give “full account” of their decisions to apply an unprecedented superinjunction that kept a major data leak under wraps from the public for more than two years.
However Wallace said he, as Conservative Defence Secretary in August 2023, requested an ordinary injunction – not a superinjunction which bans publication of the existence of the order – in order to give the MoD time to get Afghans who may be at risk from the leak to safety.
The MoD asked the High Court in September of that year for an injunction for approximately four months.
But in December 2023, Judge Mr Justice Robin Knowles granted a superinjunction, beyond the initial request by the Conservative government.
Wallace said: “The judge did the right thing in granting the injunction initially because it gave us the time and space to both investigate the breach and to get people out and protect them. It saved lives.”
Former Defense Secretary Ben Wallace s (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko, Pool, File)A source from the previous Conservative government said there was some surprise when the judge imposed a superinjunction, and that it had been expected that the data breach would have been made public sooner.
A Ministry of Defence source told The i Paper that the Government applied to lift the superinjunction as soon as it had been given assurances that any Afghans named in the breach were no longer deemed to be at risk from the Taliban.
“We wanted to blow this open to give parliament the chance to do what it should, and that’s to hold those responsible to account,” the source said.
“Ben Wallace, David Cameron, all those ministers who were in charge and oversaw the data breach, they all have questions to answer as to why they applied for the superinjunction, why they created a secret resettlement route. They have never said why they did this and about them accounting for their own actions.”
A ‘wholly unacceptable mess’
The chairman of the Defence Committee, Tan Singh Dhesi, told the Commons on Tuesday that he is “minded to recommend” that the cross-party group of MPs “thoroughly investigate” the matter.
Labour MP Dhesi told MPs that the “whole data breach situation is a mess and is wholly unacceptable”.
He said he is “minded to recommend to my Defence Committee colleagues that we thoroughly investigate, to ascertain what has actually transpired here, given the serious ramifications on so many levels”.
A former government insider revealed that ministers and officials discussed in a top-level Cobra meeting whether to tell the Taliban about the secret list of Afghans, and seek assurances for their safety.
The discussions in Cobra took place in late 2023 and early 2024, the insider said, adding: “But at that time the assessment was firmly that it would cause way more risk to those affected.”
While government departments involved in the discussions would have included the Ministry of Defence and the Foreign Office, it is not known whether Cameron was aware of the proposal to talk to the Taliban.
His office declined to comment.
Defence Secretary John Healey offered a “sincere apology on behalf of the British Government” on Tuesday for the data breach.
Thousands of Afghans whose security was breached will not be able to flee
Tens of thousands of Afghans whose security was breached by a government data leak will not be able to seek safety from the Taliban in the UK.
A dataset containing the personal information of nearly 19,000 people who applied for the Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy (Arap) was accidentally leaked in 2022.
Fears that these people, many of whom had worked closely with the British, would be identified and killed by Taliban soldiers prompted ministers to launch a secret resettlement programme, kept confidential by a court super-injunction, and set aside £7bn to pay for it.
So far 24,000 people who’s details were leaked have been relocated or are waiting to do so. 17,000 of these are through the public scheme, with 6,900 through the secret scheme, costing around £850 million.
But Defence Secretary John Healey said the scheme – only made public for the first time on Tuesday – was now closed.
As a result around some 12,000 people identified on a list of Afghans applying to flee to the UK will not be granted settlement through the emergency scheme.
Including dependents up to 100,000 people are impacted by the breach could be at risk, it is understood.
But government insiders said they had reason to believe those remaining in Afghanistan would not be at risk from reprisals from the Taliban – despite the data breach being made public following a court order.
Chloe Chaplain
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