Ministers MISLED High Court over Afghan asylum scheme that cost taxpayers £7BILLION

However, it has now emerged that even the judge, who granted the super-injunction on the premise he was updated, was also kept in the dark.

The Daily Mail reported that the Ministry of Defence (MoD) misled Mr Justice Chamberlain over the timing of a crucial internal review that was key to the scheme.

It began after a UK database defence leak, putting 100,000 Afghans who had applied to a scheme offering sanctuary for those who had served British forces at "risk of death" from the Taliban.

The Government performed a "rescue mission" for those named in the data leak, at the cost of hundreds of millions of taxpayers' money.

Mr Justice Chamberlain agreed to extend the super-injunction for almost two years, on the condition that he was kept fully informed of all developments.

He said the super-injunction shouldn't last longer than necessary, adding it was "corrosive to the public’s trust in government" and "likely to give rise to understandable suspicion that the court’s processes are being used for the purposes of censorship".

However, in February 2025, Government officials told the judge that Defence Secretary John Healey was considering launching an internal review - the findings of which would ultimately lead to the judge lifting the injunction.

In a MoD document submitted to the court, senior Whitehall official Natalie Moore stated that the Defence Secretary was "considering whether to commence a specific review" of the scheme.

However, the MoD had already done so weeks earlier, back on January 23.

Following mass outrage in Westminster, the MoD has insisted that the court was not misled, though it later admitted it failed to explain why the judge was given incorrect information.

Tan Dhesi MP, chairman of the House of Commons Defence Committee, said: "It is unsurprising that questions of this kind continue to emerge given two years of secret court proceedings on the Afghan data breach. Secrecy understandably breeds suspicion.

"Ministers have a duty to be open and honest with the courts, and this duty applies all the more so in situations such as this, where Parliamentary and public scrutiny were absent.

"I look forward to seeing the MoD's response to this allegation. Meanwhile, the House of Commons Defence Committee’s broader inquiry continues, where we will continue to hold the Government to account for its decision-making."

The MoD dismissed claims the judge was misled as "untrue", although court documents show Ms Moore's statement to Parliament, which claimed to "provide cover on the numbers".

According to the Daily Mail, in a secret court hearing on November 11, 2024, Mr Justice Chamberlain said: "When you are dealing with public expenditure of that magnitude [£7billion]…it's not possible to lose that amount of money down the back of the sofa.

"It's not secret intelligence programmes - it's putting real people up in real accommodation in the UK without revealing it's happening.

"There was going to an announcement made [to Parliament] but which…the word 'cover' is used.

"The basis of the expenditure of all of this money isn't going to be revealed."