Matt Vickers admits taxpayers will have to 'pick up the tab' for Afghan asylum scheme after 'disastrous' data breach: 'Huge consequences!'

Pressed by host Dawn Neesom to "apologise" to Britons for the Conservative-led scheme, Vickers admitted he was only a "backbencher" at the time and knows "as much as the people do" about what happened.

Vickers explained: "I was a backbench MP, so I know as much as you really, and only know what I've read from the papers.

"But it is an utter mess, a disastrous data breach that has real consequences for those who were involved in the threat to them, but also for the taxpayer who's picking up the tab for this."

Calling for those responsible to be "held to account", Vickers stated: "Lessons need to be learned people do need to be held to account for the role they played in that, and we need to make sure it can never, ever happen again.

"The individual who breached the security around this and allowed that list to fall into the wrong hands is ultimately responsible, and I think they should definitely be held to account."

Grilled by host Cameron Walker on the possible added cost to the taxpayer amid "compensation claims" from the relocated Afghans, Vickers argued that the Government "did have a responsibility" to those people.

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Vickers told GB News: "It'd utterly devastating in terms of the outcome of it, but actually, we did have a responsibility to those people.

"They did their bit for Britain and fundamentally our services let them down, that data breach should never have been allowed to happen. It's terrifying.

"But particularly in the Ministry of Defence, we need to look at where those failings were specifically, and who is responsible for allowing flawed systems that let this data get into the wrong hands, because as we've said, huge consequences for the British taxpayer and huge consequences for the people who were named on that list."

Questioning the list of those affected by the data breach, Dawn claimed that the Government "doesn't know" exactly who everyone is coming into the country, and their backgrounds.

Vickers responded: "In the case of these Afghanis, we should know all about them, because we know who these individuals are that are arriving.

"We do know who these individuals are and they should be getting checked, the authorities should be checking every one of those individuals.

"Any one of them that poses a risk should be removed. In the case of people who arrive in this country illegally, very little is known, which makes it utterly terrifying, and that's why we should be removing them."

Highlighting his calls for the Labour Government to crack down on foreign criminals, Vickers concluded: "I've been making a lot of noise about this, actually, in the differential arrest rates that different people of different nationalities go through.

"Fundamentally anybody who commits an offence in this country should be removed, and we certainly should not be allowing people to come here who pose a threat to British citizens in such a way.

"If there's one person who has arrived in this country and has a history of doing such a thing, then that's one person too many and they should not be allowed to stay, and there should be deported immediately."