Labour refuses to rule out gagging MPs and press again

Telegraph

17-07-2025

Downing Street has refused to rule out seeking super-injunctions in the future despite anger over the Afghan data leak cover-up.
As fresh details of the controversy emerged on Thursday, free speech campaigners said the use of the courts to prevent the public from knowing about the security breach, and subsequent secret asylum scheme, should never be repeated.
Sir Lindsay Hoyle, the Commons Speaker, has ordered an urgent review of the actions of successive governments in keeping him and MPs in the dark about the covert programme to bring up to 24,000 Afghans to the UK at a potential cost of £7bn.
He is not expected to take any action until the Clerk of the Commons has completed the review, but has made clear in private that he feels 'let down' by the current and previous administrations.
The High Court granted a super-injunction two years ago banning anyone, including MPs and the media, from revealing that the names of nearly 19,000 Afghans who had applied to come to the UK had been accidentally leaked by a Royal Marine.
It also prevented the public from finding out that billions of pounds had been set aside for a scheme to bring some of the people affected to the UK.
Speaker 'angry and let down'
A source close to Sir Lindsay said: 'He was told about the super-injunction when it was first imposed, when it was to protect the identities of people involved in a data breach, but he was never updated on the terms of the injunction being changed in subsequent hearings, or that the intelligence and security committee (ISC) hadn't been informed.
'He wants quick answers on this because he feels angry and let down. He is annoyed at the way the details of what happened are being drip-fed to the public now.'
However, when asked whether the Prime Minister would rule out ever seeking super-injunctions in the future, a Downing Street spokesman said: 'We're not going to comment on a hypothetical situation, but our broad principle is, of course, that government business should be carried out transparently and as transparently as possible.'
Lord Beamish, the chairman of the ISC, took the unusual step of releasing a public statement making clear the committee's displeasure with the Government.
He said it had demanded to be provided with defence intelligence reports relating to Operation Rubific – the codename for the Government's response to the data breach – as well as the legal advice given to ministers that kept the ISC in the dark.
The committee, which oversees the work of the security services, is made up of MPs and peers who are security cleared to handle highly classified material.
Meanwhile, Lord Young, the founder of the Free Speech Union (FSU), said he would like governments to be prevented from being granted super-injunctions, either by law or a convention in the courts.
He said: 'There are some circumstances in which it is clearly right for governments to be able to keep things secret, but I would have thought those circumstances are all covered – and then some – by the Official Secrets Act.
'The problem with governments being able to silence the press via super-injunctions is that they'll inevitably make use of them to save themselves from political embarrassment, which was clearly a factor in this case.'
Dr Bryn Harris, chief legal counsel of the FSU, added: 'Ministers and government departments are not private citizens – they belong indissociably to the public sphere, where their actions can be scrutinised and held to account.
'The use of super-injunctions to cosset ministers, as though they were embarrassed celebrities rather than servants of the Crown, is new, abhorrent and must never be repeated.'
David Davis, the former Cabinet minister and free speech campaigner, said: 'A super-injunction for up to three months would have been justifiable to get Afghans out, but the ISC, and the defence select committee, should all know about it.
'Whitehall has a propensity for secrecy, particularly when it has screwed up.'