Latest news with #superinjunction
Telegraph
25 minutes ago
- Politics
- Telegraph
Sir Ben Wallace doesn't know why Afghan superinjunction was imposed
Sir Ben Wallace said his government did not initially apply for a superinjunction to block reporting of a massive data leak relating to Afghan soldiers and he did not know why it had been granted. The then defence secretary said the original application from the Tory government was for a four-month injunction to stop the media from disclosing the details of the leak. But he said that this regular injunction was subsequently upgraded to a superinjunction but he was unaware of the reasons why. He told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme: 'We went to court seeking a four month injunction to be placed on the reporting of this leak. 'Many of these injunctions are constantly having to be refreshed and between now and back then on numerous occasions government lawyers would have been going back to the court justifying the reason for this. 'I am afraid I was not in court on the 1st of September, I had actually handed over. I don't know why Justice Knowles at the time converted that to a superinjunction. It wasn't what our application was.' The original application for the injunction was made in August 2023 after the Ministry of Defence became aware of the leak. It was revealed yesterday when the superinjunction was lifted that a dataset containing the personal information of nearly 19,000 people who applied for the Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy (Arap) was released 'in error' in February 2022 by a defence official. That prompted the government to set up a secret Afghan relocation scheme to help the victims amid fears they could have been targeted by the Taliban.
Sky News
an hour ago
- Politics
- Sky News
Defence Secretary John Healey 'deeply uncomfortable' with government using super-injunction after Afghanistan data breach
The defence secretary has told Sky News he is "deeply uncomfortable" with the government using a super-injunction to keep a massive data breach hidden. Almost 7,000 Afghan nationals are being relocated to the UK as a result of the breach by the British military, with the personal information of close to 20,000 individuals who helped or worked with UK forces being exposed. John Healey told Matt Barbet on Breakfast: "I'm really deeply uncomfortable with the idea that a government applies for a super-injunction. "If there are any [other] super-injunctions in place, I just have to tell you - I don't know about them. I haven't been read into them. "The important thing here now is that we've closed the scheme." Mr Healey defended the government's decision to keep secret a huge data leak that put thousands of lives at risk. The defence secretary said when he first came into government, "we had to sort out a situation which we'd not had access to dealing with before". "That meant getting on top of the risks, the intelligence assessments, the policy complexities, the court papers and the range of Afghan relocation schemes the previous government had put in place," he said. "And it also meant taking decisions that no one takes lightly because lives may be at stake." Mr Healey added that an independent review he launched says that it is now "highly unlikely that being a name on this data set that was lost three-and-a-half years ago increases the risk of being targeted", which is why the whole leak can be revealed. Ministers have to account for applying for a super-injunction Challenged on why it could not be revealed earlier if those on the list are no longer at risk, Mr Healey said the super-injunction "was a matter for the court". He said ministers needed to provide judges with a "fresh assessment" in order to have the super-injunction lifted. Mr Healey also refused to criticise the former Conservative defence minister Ben Wallace for initially applying for the super-injunction, saying he did not know what information the minister had when he took the decision. "But the important thing is they now have to account for those decisions," he added. Please refresh the page for the fullest version.
Sky News
an hour ago
- Politics
- Sky News
Who will take the fall for the Afghan cover-up?
👉Listen to Politics at Sam and Anne's on your podcast app👈 Now details of the enormous accidental data breach by a British soldier that put thousands of Afghans' lives at risk can be discussed publicly - Sky News' Sam Coates and Politico's Anne McElvoy try to address some of the biggest questions on this episode. Why did the government break the glass on using a super-injunction? Has anyone been sacked? Why did the Labour government keep the super-injunction in place for so long?
Times
6 hours ago
- Politics
- Times
Gagging order to cover up Afghan leak must never be used again
The Taliban's takeover of Afghanistan in 2021 resulted in a scramble to flee from Kabul airport WAKIL KOHSAR/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES T hat legal abomination, the superinjunction, is traditionally regarded as the last resort of the desperate celebrity attempting to conceal compromising information. It is a draconian device that not only prohibits the media from reporting a court case — an injunction — but prevents the world from knowing that such an injunction even exists (the 'super' bit). It is intended not so much to stifle legitimate journalistic scrutiny of a court hearing as to smother it. The blanket of secrecy a superinjunction confers means that cases involving serious misconduct by individuals and institutions can go unnoticed by the outside world for months or years, or possibly for ever. Disclosing its very existence can land one in jail. When the party seeking to conceal their actions for this length of time is the government, and when the parties being kept in the dark are the public and parliament, it risks becoming a tool of authoritarianism. Yet that is exactly what has occurred in a case revealed by this newspaper. One in which a military data breach that placed tens of thousands of Afghans in jeopardy, and resulted in a covert rescue and resettlement programme potentially costing £7 billion, being hidden for two years in what the judge finally lifting the order called a vacuum of scrutiny. It is the first time a British government has used a superinjunction in this way and it must be the last. In observing its terms, in place for so much longer than intended, ministers misled parliament, if largely by omission, concealing from relevant committees and the Commons as a whole a scandal that should have resulted in heads rolling down Whitehall. It concerned the unauthorised release in February 2022 of a Ministry of Defence database containing the names of tens of thousands of Afghans at risk of retribution from the restored Taliban regime. The list was transmitted by a soldier at a special forces barracks in London to Afghan contacts in Britain as he attempted to verify applications for sanctuary in Britain. The list subsequently found its way to Afghanistan. • Did the risk ever justify the secrecy in this Kafkaesque calamity? When one of the individuals it was passed to threatened to publish it on Facebook it became a potential death warrant for many of those named, and possibly their relatives. As a result, the then Conservative government decided to relocate thousands of Afghans, adults and children, to Britain in a covert programme that was later endorsed by the current Labour government. Incredibly, the existence of this operation, involving some 23,000 people, was kept secret even from the discreet Commons intelligence and security committee. The superinjunction was granted in September 2023, supposedly as a four-month measure to help cloak a rescue. But it would last for almost two years, the MoD continuing to insist that it was necessary to save lives, though there was a possibility that the database had already fallen into the possession of the Taliban. Whatever the reality of this, the superinjunction continued to act as a shield for official incompetence. Due to the continuing secrecy surrounding this fiasco it is not known who, if anyone, was disciplined for the breach. What is clear is the disquiet of a High Court judge involved in hearings in which The Times and Daily Mail sought to have details of the scandal released. At one point Mr Justice Chamberlain warned that it could be perceived as censorship. Concerns were also raised that the government was using the gagging order to control the narrative surrounding the scandal. Unfortunately, he was overruled by a court of appeal again swayed by MoD warnings of potential disaster. Now, those objections have evaporated, the risks apparently being overstated according to a review. So much for parliamentary and press oversight. In terms of free speech the superinjunction is a weapon of mass destruction. No government should be allowed to employ one again.
Daily Mail
9 hours ago
- Politics
- Daily Mail
Revealed: What the Government said in secret court sessions about relocating Afghans to the UK - and what it's saying now...
During two years and more than 20 court hearings, ministers argued a super-injunction was necessary to give them the chance to relocate tens of thousands of Afghans to the UK, with costs of up to £7billion cited regularly. Yesterday the Ministry of Defence was saying the numbers were in the single-digit thousands and the costs £400 million to £800 million. Here we contrast what they said in court – when journalists were gagged – and what they are saying now: THE COSTS WHAT THE GOVERNMENT SAID YESTERDAY: Defence Secretary John Healey to the Commons: 'On the question of the £7 billion, this was a previous estimate. It is not related simply to the Afghan recovery route. It is an estimate of the total cost of all Government Afghan schemes for the entire period in which they may operate. 'The cost of the ARR (Afghanistan Response Route) scheme to date, the cost and the sums committed to bring the 900 principals and their immediate families that are in Britain or in transit is around £400 million, and I expect a similar sum to be the cost of those still to come.' MoD officials: 'The total amount for ALL schemes was a potential £7 billion. Not for this incident alone. As you know £400 million is what is spent on this incident so far with about double to come.' WHAT IT TOLD THE COURT: An MoD briefing paper summing up an October 2024 meeting of the home and economic affairs committee of Cabinet members talked about 'the strategic approach to manage the impact of the data incident'. 'The current policy response to the data incident will mean relocating c.25,000 Afghans... this will mean relocating more Afghans to the UK... this will extend the scheme for another 5 years at a cost of c.£7billion.' Mr Justice Chamberlain in November 2024: 'I'm starting to doubt myself – am I going bonkers, because it really is £6 billion?' [Later confirmed to be £7 billion]Cathryn McGahey KC for the MoD: 'It it's a very large amount of public money being spent without currently any information to the public.' February 2025 Mr Justice Chamberlain, during discussions in court: 'You're going to have to say something about all of this, because you're spending £7 billion and you're letting in many thousands of people that you wouldn't have been letting in before. If you're doing all of those things, you're going to have to say something at some point.' July 2025 Mr Justice Chamberlain: 'People will want to judge for themselves... to know a bit of detail about what exactly was lost; what was it, that caused the Government to decide to spend £7 billion or whatever it is.' Ms McGahey KC for the MoD: 'Yes.' NUMBERS ARRIVING WHAT THE GOVERNMENT SAID YESTERDAY: Around 4,500 people, made up of 900 'principal' applicants and approximately 3,600 family members, have been brought to the UK or are in transit so far through the Afghanistan Response Route. A further estimated 600 and their relatives are expected to be relocated before the scheme closes, a total of 6,900 people. WHAT IT TOLD THE COURT: October 2024: Defence Secretary John Healey's presentation to the home and economic affairs committee of Cabinet members: 'This paper... argues for a reformed Afghan Resettlement Programme that could see c.36,000 settled. Assuming minsters are content to proceed as recommended, we would be aspiring to develop a programme which resettles c.36,000 people (of which c.3,500 are already in the relocation pipeline).' February 2025 MoD briefing paper in February 2025 summing up the HEA Cabinet meeting: 'The HEA agreed that the current policy response which offers relocation to the UK...(c.25,000 Afghans) remained appropriate.' 'The current policy response to the data incident will mean relocating c.25,000 Afghans' June 2025 Dominic Wilson, senior mandarin at the Cabinet Office, in a 'statement of truth' to High Court last month: There are 6,169 principal applicants affected by data breach who are eligible for relocation. Plus 14,952 confirmed family members and 21,451 family members remaining to be confirmed. Total 42,572 individuals, all data-affected and eligible for relocation. Of these 42,572, so far 16,156 individuals have already been relocated to the UK. A further 6,592 are 'currently being progressed' to the UK Another batch of 21,300 people not affected by the data breach are also coming.
