US EditionMoving Afghan nationals to UK forecast to cost more than £2bn
The Ministry of Defence's secret Afghan Response Route scheme will resettle about 7,355 people, costing an estimated £850 million, with total Afghan resettlement costs forecast to exceed £2 billion.
- In February 2022, a Ministry of Defence official accidentally emailed a spreadsheet containing details of 18,700 Afghan ARAP applicants, causing a significant data breach.
- The breach led the government to create the Afghanistan Response Route in April 2024, a secret scheme to resettle those at risk due to leaked data.
- The ARR scheme is estimated to result in about 7,355 people resettling in the UK, but the MoD cannot determine exact costs as these were not separately recorded.
- The MoD estimates the overall cost for Afghan resettlement, including ARR, to be around £2.7 billion, but the NAO lacks confidence in the accuracy of the £850 million figure linked to ARR alone.
- The data breach has prompted Commons committee investigations, political calls for transparency, and ongoing challenges calculating the full financial and human impact of Afghan resettlement schemes.
15 Articles
15 Articles
Al-Monitor
UK doesn't know how much massive Afghan data leak will cost, watchdog says
LONDON (Reuters) -Britain's defence ministry does not know how exactly much it will cost to relocate thousands of Afghans after a massive data leak, the government's spending watchdog said, adding it did not have confidence in the current estimate of 850 million pounds.In July, it was revealed that Britain had set up a secret scheme in 2022 to bring Afghans back to the UK after their personal details were leaked, putting them at risk of reprisal…
Moving Afghan nationals to UK forecast to cost more than £2bn
The estimated cost includes 7,355 people eligible for resettlement in the UK under the Afghanistan Response Route (ARR) scheme, which was launched for those whose personal information was leaked in a February 2022 data breach.
The Independent
The Independent (US)MoD does not know how much has been spent on bringing data-leak Afghans to UK
Britain’s spending watchdog says it does not have ‘confidence’ in the accuracy of MoD’s estimates
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