Taliban fighters 'may have been granted asylum in Britain' as former defence secretary admits 'we got things wrong'

Sir Ben Wallace refused to rule out whether the members of the terror group slipped through the vetting process unnoticed after the US withdrawal from Afghanistan sparked frenzied efforts to evacuate Kabul.

Speaking to the Commons defence committee as part of an inquiry into the Afghan data leak scandal, Sir Ben admitted we "didn’t get everything right" during the mass evacuation.

Lincoln Jopp, the Tory MP for Spelthorne, asked Sir Ben on Tuesday: "Do you think that we probably did let some Taliban in?"

Sir Ben replied: "I’m sure in a large-scale evacuation we didn’t get everything right, but ultimately we tried to vet and did as much as we could and that’s where we got the leak."

Read more: MoD knew risks of using inappropriate data systems before Afghan leak, MPs say

Read more: Elderly couple released by Taliban 'would like to go back to Afghanistan', lawyer claims

In 2022, a leaked Ministry of Defence (MoD) list exposed the details of thousands of Afghans who had applied for asylum under the Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy (ARAP) - a scheme that offers sanctuary in the UK to Afghans who supported British military operations during the conflict.

The leak, uncovered by LBC, cost the UK £7billion over five years.

The Government spent nearly two years using an unprecedented superinjunction to prevent the public from learning about the catastrophic breach.

“What I can’t talk about is the ARR (Afghanistan Response Route), when the ARAP morphed after I’d left, and what they did under the pressure of that leak and whether people dropped the bar.”

Sir Ben said he was “determined” that the Ministry of Defence (MoD) oversaw the ARAP mission. He insisted it was separate from the Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme (ACRS), aimed at offering asylum for vulnerable people including women, children and minority groups.

“The Home Office was always very keen to blur the two and I didn’t want to blur the two,” said Sir Ben. 

But he added that the move did cause the MoD to “effectively design and make immigration databases from scratch”.

“Maybe, in retrospect, I should have just handed it over and let the Home Office run its own immigration system. I think none of us in this room are ever impressed with the Home Office immigration system under any government, so I think it was rather better to just run it ourselves,” he admitted. 

The 2022 leak saw a soldier at Regent's Park barracks send a spreadsheet with what they thought was a small number of applicants' names to trusted Afghan contacts.

They failed to realise the spreadsheet had details of almost 19,000 people fleeing the Taliban.

The leak revealed that 80,000 and 100,000 people, including family members of the ARAP applicants, were affected by the breach and could be at risk of harassment, torture or death if the Taliban obtained their data, judges said in June 2024.

The News Agents’ and LBC presenter Lewis Goodall was barred from reporting it and initially forbidden from even informing his editor. Court hearings were held in secret, with even media lawyers excluded from "closed sessions."

The MoD sought and was granted a contra mundum superinjunction — a rare legal order that not only barred publication of the story but also prevented anyone from revealing that an injunction even existed. In court, it was described as “constitutionally unprecedented”.

The injunction was originally presented as a short-term emergency measure to protect lives while the government identified and helped those most at risk.

But subsequent hearings revealed that the number of people the MoD planned on assisting was just 200 individuals, plus their dependents - a fraction of those affected. 

Sir Ben said he ordered a time-limited injunction to  the news of the data leak while the MoD worked to establish what led to the mistake.

However, he has admitted it was wrong to issue the superinjunction, telling MPs: “I didn’t think it was the right thing to do. I didn’t think it was necessary.

The MoD says there is “no evidence to suggest any member of the Taliban had been relocated through the ARP”.

A spokesman added: “As the public would rightly expect, anyone coming to the UK must pass strict security and entry checks before being able to relocate. If they don’t pass these checks, they are not granted indefinite leave to remain in the UK.”