The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has spent nearly £500,000 a month relocating Afghans following a data breach, it has been revealed. The Government admitted that it paid £457,833 on average every month to fly Afghans to the UK.
Both RAF and charter flights were used by the MoD. The identities of more than 100 British officials, including members of the special forces and MI6, were compromised in a data breach that also put thousands of Afghans at risk of reprisal. The fallout from the breach was kept secret by an injunction until mid-July, when the order was lifted in part by a High Court judge.
Political blog Guido Fawkes first reported the £500,000 monthly cost following a response to a written parliamentary question by Lord Kempsell.
In response, the Government said: “To resettle those under the Afghanistan Response Route (ARR), the MoD uses mixed cohort flights to relocate Afghans to the UK under the schemes that make up the Afghan Resettlement Programme. This includes the ARR and Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy (ARAP) scheme.
“These flights have also included a small number of people eligible for the Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme.
“The MoD has used both RAF and charter flights. Additionally, the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) to resettle eligible Afghans has run charter flights. For reasons that are commercially and operationally sensitive, we cannot name the companies that organised the charter flights.
“The average total monthly costs from MoD charter flights, Royal Air Force flights and IOM charter flights is to date £457,833.33.”
It was announced last month that an inquiry into the Afghan data leak that led to the unprecedented legal gagging order and a £850million secret relocation scheme is set to be carried out by Parliament’s intelligence watchdog.
Lord Beamish, chairman of the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament, said the cross-party group would launch a probe after considering defence assessment documents related to the case.
The peer has previously voiced concern over “serious constitutional issues” raised by the handling of the breach that saw the details of 18,714 applicants for the Afghan Relocations and ARAP scheme released in 2022.