UK Reveals Secret £850 Million Scheme to Relocate Thousands of Afghans After Dev

London, UK – July 15, 2025 – The United Kingdom government has today confirmed the existence of a previously secret £850 million scheme, the "Afghanistan Response Route," under which thousands of vulnerable Afghans have been relocated to the UK. This extraordinary and highly confidential operation was established in response to a catastrophic data breach in February 2022, where the personal details of nearly 19,000 Afghans who had applied for the Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy (ARAP) were inadvertently leaked by a Ministry of Defence (MoD) official. The revelation, made public following a High Court ruling that lifted a super-injunction, exposes a significant government effort to mitigate a severe security failure that put thousands of lives at risk.

The data breach, which saw sensitive personal information – including names and contact details – of ARAP applicants and their family members released "in error," came to the attention of the MoD in August 2023 when parts of the dataset were anonymously posted on Facebook. This alarming discovery prompted the then-Conservative government to swiftly establish the Afghanistan Response Route in April 2024. The scheme's very existence, and the underlying data breach, were kept under an unprecedented super-injunction for over 600 days, preventing disclosure to the public, media, and even Parliament. The High Court's decision today to discharge this gagging order has finally allowed details of this critical operation to emerge.

The ARAP scheme, launched in August 2021 as US troops completed their withdrawal from Afghanistan, was designed to facilitate the rapid relocation of Afghan nationals who had worked for or with the UK government and feared Taliban reprisals. However, the subsequent data leak fundamentally compromised the safety of those it was intended to protect. Judges had, in June 2024, estimated that between 80,000 and 100,000 people, including family members, were potentially at risk of harassment, torture, or death if their data fell into the wrong hands.
To date, approximately 4,500 individuals – comprising around 900 primary ARAP applicants and 3,600 family members – have been successfully brought to the UK or are currently in transit via the Afghanistan Response Route. The government anticipates that a further 600 individuals and their relatives will be relocated before the scheme officially closes, bringing the total number of people moved under this specific route to around 6,900. While the cost has already reached approximately £400 million, the projected total expenditure for this covert relocation effort, including legal costs and compensation, is estimated to reach £850 million.

Defence Secretary John Healey, addressing the House of Commons today, offered a "sincere apology" for the data breach, acknowledging the profound risk it posed to those who had bravely assisted British forces. He confirmed that the Afghanistan Response Route is now closed to new applications, though invitations already extended will be honoured. The decision to make the program public, according to Mr. Healey, was also influenced by an independent review which found "little evidence" that the leaked data would expose Afghans to a greater risk of Taliban retribution.
This secret scheme adds to the UK's broader efforts to resettle Afghans following the Taliban takeover. Alongside the Afghanistan Response Route, the UK has operated the Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy (ARAP) and the Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme (ACRS). As of March 2025, around 36,000 Afghans had been relocated to the UK under these various schemes.
The revelation of the secret scheme and the significant financial commitment underscores the grave consequences of the original data breach. Law firms representing victims, such as Barings Law, which is acting on behalf of around 1,000 affected individuals, have accused the government of attempting to conceal the truth from the public. The Ministry of Defence had previously faced a £350,000 fine in 2023 for a separate data breach, with the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) describing that incident as a potential "threat to life.

" The government had also recently agreed to pay compensation of around £4,000 to those affected by that earlier breach, projecting a total cost of £1.6 million.
While the Afghanistan Response Route provided a lifeline for thousands, its clandestine nature and the circumstances that necessitated it raise serious questions about data security protocols within government departments and the transparency of government operations, particularly when national security and human lives are at stake. The full extent of the impact of the initial data leak on those who were not relocated remains a pressing concern, as does accountability for the error that triggered this costly and complex operation.
Source@BBC