Kwasi Kwarteng baffled at extraordinary cost of resettling Afghans as Britons foot the bill: ‘I don’t see how’

The breach occurred when a Royal Marine accidentally sent personal details of nearly 19,000 Afghans to contacts in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan in February 2022. The error potentially put at risk those who had helped British forces as soldiers, translators and administrators.

"Unless we're giving them a two bedroom flat in Neasden or wherever it might be I don't see how you get to those figures," Kwarteng said.

The former chancellor's concerns centre on the overall £7 billion price tag for the scheme, which he described as baffling. "So that really concerns me," he told GB News.

Defence Secretary John Healey revealed on Tuesday that the Afghanistan Response Route would cost a total of £850 million and help an estimated 6,900 people. The scheme was created hastily after officials learned in August 2023 that the leaked data had been posted to a Facebook group.Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said the programme was a "secret route that has already cost hundreds of millions of pounds" and represented failings inherited from the previous government.

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Kwarteng expressed particular disappointment with the government's handling of the situation, describing the cover-up as "very disappointing" and a "real breakdown of trust".

"We know what's happened, there's been a complete breakdown and they're trying to cover it up," he said. "And it also was foolish, because at some point the truth will get out."

The former chancellor, who acknowledged being part of the administration but without oversight on this issue, said the cover-up was "essentially trying to deceive" the public. "That's where the deception is," he told GB News.

A super-injunction had blocked all reporting of the breach until it was lifted on Tuesday.

Kwarteng revealed that "two thirds of the 20,000 were rejected as asylum seekers" according to his understanding of the situation. "We looked through the people and we only said a third were eligible," he explained.

The former chancellor characterised the entire episode as an "administrative balls up" and "administrative cock up". He acknowledged that "successive governments, our government, were poor on this issue" but maintained that "I don't think people were deceived because we wanted to let all these people in."

"Getting to the heart of it, it's been an administrative balls up. That's pretty clear," Kwarteng concluded.