Thousands of Afghans relocated to Britain as part of secret £850m scheme

The breach resulted in the creation of a secret Afghan relocation scheme, the Afghanistan Response Route, in April 2024.

GB News can now report the leak after an unprecedented superinjunction was lifted by judges at the High Court.

Speaking in the Commons, Defence Secretary John Healey said the relocation has cost the taxpayer £400million and called the leak a "serious departmental error."

The scheme is understood to have cost around £400 million so far, with a projected cost once completed of around £850million. However, millions more is expected to be paid in legal costs and compensation.

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) only became aware of the breach over a year after the release, when excerpts of the dataset were anonymously posted onto a Facebook group in August 2023.

Details on the dataset include the the names and contact details of the Arap applicants and names of their family members.

Arap was responsible for relocating Afghan nationals who had worked for or with the UK Government and were therefore at risk of reprisals once the Taliban returned to power in Kabul in 2021.

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Between 80,000 and 100,000 people, including the estimated number of family members of the Arap applicants, were affected by the breach and could be at risk of harassment, torture or death if the Taliban obtained their data, judges said in June 2024.

However an independent review, commissioned by the Government in January 2025, concluded last month that the dataset is "unlikely to significantly shift Taliban understanding of individuals who may be of interest to them".

Around 4,500 people, made up of 900 Arap applicants and approximately 3,600 family members have been brought to the UK or are in transit so far through the Afghanistan Response Route.

A further estimated 600 people and their relatives are expected to be relocated before the scheme closes, with a total of around 6,900 people expected to be relocated by the end of the scheme.

Projected costs of the scheme may include relocation costs, transitional accommodation, legal costs and local authority tariffs.

It is understood that the unnamed official had emailed the dataset outside of a secure government system while attempting to verify information, believing the dataset to only have around 150 rows.

However, there were more than 33,000 rows of information which were inadvertently sent.

A superinjunction was made at the High Court in September 2023 to reduce the risk of alerting the Taliban to the existence of the data, with the decision to apply for an order made by then- Conservative defence secretary Ben Wallace.

The Information Commissioner’s Office and Metropolitan Police were also informed.

The superinjunction, lifted on Tuesday, is thought to be the longest lasting order of its kind and the first time the Government has sought such a restrictive measure against the media.

At multiple hearings, lawyers for the MoD said in written submissions that there was a "very real risk that people who would otherwise live will die" if the Taliban gained access to the data.

Under plans set out last October, the Afghanistan Response Route was expected to allow up to 25,000 people, most of whom were ineligible for Arap but deemed to be at the highest risk from Taliban reprisals, to be relocated.

One internal Government document from February this year said: "This will mean relocating more Afghans to the UK than have been relocated under the Arap scheme, at a time when the UK’s immigration and asylum system is under significant strain.

"This will extend the scheme for another five years at a cost of c. £7billion."

However, the resettlement schemes are closing, with the review suggesting that the Afghanistan Response Route may be "disproportionate" to the impact of the Taliban obtaining the information.

As of March 2025, around 36,000 people had been relocated to the UK under Arap and other resettlement schemes.

Speaking in the Commons, Healy said: "My first concern has been to notify as many as possible affected by the data incident and provide them with further advice.

"The MoD (Ministry of Defence) has done this this morning, although I have to say to the House, it has not been possible to contact every individual on the dataset, due to its incomplete and out-of-date information.

"This serious data incident should never have happened.

"It may have occurred three years ago under the previous government, but to all those whose information was compromised, I offer a sincere apology today on behalf of the British Government."