theguardian.com - Conservative government used superinjuction to hide error that put Afghans at risk and led to £2bn mitigation scheme.

Thousands of Afghans relocated to UK under secret scheme after data leak
Conservative government used superinjuction to hide error that put Afghans at risk and led to £2bn mitigation scheme

What we know about the secret Afghan relocation scheme
Afghan nationals: have you arrived in the UK under the Afghan Response Route?
Dan Sabbagh and Emine Sinmaz
Tue 15 Jul 2025 22.07 CEST
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Conservative ministers used an unprecedented superinjunction to suppress a data breach that led the UK government to offer relocation to 15,000 Afghans in a secret scheme with a potential cost of more than £2bn.

The Afghan Response Route (ARR) was created in haste after it emerged that personal information about 18,700 Afghans who had applied to come to the UK had been leaked in error by a British defence official in early 2022.

Panicked ministers and officials at the Ministry of Defence learned of the breach in August 2023 after data was posted to a Facebook group and applied to the high court for an injunction, the first sought by a British government – to prevent any further media disclosure.

It was feared that publicity could put the lives of many thousands of Afghans at risk if the Taliban, who had control of the country after the western withdrawal in August 2021, were to become aware of the existence of the leaked list and to obtain it.

The judge in the initial trial, Mr Justice Knowles, granted the application “contra mundum” – against the world – and ruled that its existence remain secret, resulting in a superinjunction which remained in place until lifted on Tuesday.

The gagging order meant that both the data breach and the expensive mitigation scheme remained hidden despite its size and cost until the near two-year legal battle was brought to a close in the high court.

At noon on Tuesday, the high court judge Mr Justice Chamberlain said it was time to end the superinjuction, which he said had the effect of concealing discussions about spending “the sort of money which makes a material difference to government spending plans and is normally the stuff of political debate”.

A few minutes later, John Healey, the defence secretary, offered a “sincere apology” for the data breach. In a statement to the Commons, he said he had felt “deeply concerned about the lack of transparency” around the data breach and “deeply uncomfortable to be constrained from reporting to this house”.

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