Defence secretary John Healey has warned “accountability starts now” after a data leak put up to 100,000 lives of Afghan lives at risk and prompted thousands of them to come to Britain under a £7bn resettlement scheme.
The dataset containing the personal information of almost 19,000 people who applied for the Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy was released in error in February 2022 by a defence official.
It triggered an operation to bring 16,000 Afghans to the UK – and saw an injunction, later upgraded to a superinjunction, issued that banned the media reporting on the leak in a bid to prevent the Taliban finding out.
Put to him that no one had yet taken accountability for what happened, Mr Healey told BBC Breakfast: “Accountability starts now, doesn’t it, because it allows the proper scrutiny of what went on, the decisions that Ben Wallace [former Tory defence secretary] took, the decisions I’ve taken, and the judgments… and any action or accountability that may be appropriate can follow now.”
Writing in The Telegraph, Sir Ben Wallace said the decision to apply for the gagging order was “not a cover-up” and that if the leak had been reported it would have “put in peril those we needed to help out”.
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Jabed Ahmed16 July 2025 09:44
Sir Ben Wallace says he takes complete responsibility
Sir Ben Wallace, who was defence secretary when the data breach happened, has said he takes complete responsibility for the leak.
Asked why the official responsible for the leak is still employed by the government, Sir Ben said: “I take complete responsibility for the mistake that was made by that person… I was secretary of state for defence”.
Archie Mitchell16 July 2025 09:31
John Healey: ‘Superinjunction lifting means lower cost and greater transparency’
John Healey has said there will be a lower cost to taxpayers and greater transparency about who is coming to the UK after the lifting of the superinjunction.
Asked whether he had misled parliament in the past, the defence secretary told Times Radio: “I’m comfortable that I’ve not misled people. But you know, parliamentary accountability started yesterday with my statement and the House of Commons and their committees will have the chance to examine former ministers and the decisions they took.
“They’ll have a chance to examine me and the decisions that I took. And the important thing about the decision I took and announced to Parliament yesterday is that there will be fewer Afghans coming into this country as a result. There’ll be a lower cost to British taxpayers and there is greater transparency now.”
Archie Mitchell16 July 2025 09:26
Liz Truss ‘shocked’ by Afghan cover-up
Liz Truss has said she is shocked by the government’s superinjunction to hide a secret relocation programme for Afghans put at risk by an MoD data breach.
The former prime minister, who was also foreign secretary when the data breach occurred, said: “I am shocked by the secrecy and cover-up over the admission of thousands of Afghans to Britain at the cost of £7bn to the taxpayer. A decision that was in itself wrong.“It is a huge betrayal of public trust.
“Those responsible in both Governments and the bureaucracy need to be held to account.”
Archie Mitchell16 July 2025 09:26
Farage should show sex offence evidence to the police, Healey says
John Healey has said he cannot account for every individual in the UK, but that if Nigel Farage has evidence of sex offences being committed by Afghan migrants he should show it to the police.
The Reform UK leader said: “Among the number who have come are convicted sex offenders. I am not, I promise you, making any of this up.”He did not offer any evidence to support the claim.
And Mr Healey told Times Radio: “I can’t account for individuals that are here. No doubt some of them have committed some offences and got into trouble. That’s true right across the board.”
He added: “If he’s got hard evidence of individuals that pose a risk, he needs to report that information to the police…We run security checks about the backgrounds of those individuals and where they pose those sorts of threats, they’re prevented from coming and denied access to Britain.”
Archie Mitchell16 July 2025 09:23
Defence secretary: Easy option may have been to continue cover-up
The defence secretary has said the easy option would have been to keep a gagging order in place, but said there can be no democracy with superinjunctions active.
John Healey praised the work he had done to allow the lifting of the gagging order on the secret relocation scheme for those affected by the catastrophic leaking of personal data by the Ministry of Defence.
He said without the report he commissioned, the order would not have been lifted.And he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “You cannot have democracy with super injunctions in place.”
He added: “Quite honestly, if I’d been concerned to protect my position rather than confront the hard realities, the policies and the obligation to taxpayers, it could have been much easier to simply allow this scheme to continue with the superinjunction in place, because nobody would hear anything about it.
“I wouldn’t be subject to this sort of cross examination on your program, or, as I was in parliament yesterday for nearly two hours in the House of Commons chamber.”
Archie Mitchell16 July 2025 09:23