Grant Shapps defends Afghan data leak superinjunction that gagged media for two years

Sir Grant Shapps has defended the government’s decision to hide the catastrophic Afghan data leak from the public, arguing the decision saved lives.

The former defence secretary said a superinjunction preventing reporting of the leak should not have been in place as long as it was, but that “there are things that the state just has to do secretly”.

Breaking his silence days after the data breach was revealed to the public, Sir Grant told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “The public understands that there are times where you simply have to act in the most maximalist way in order to stop people from being murdered and executed, and that is quite simply what properly happened in this case.

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“I don’t think it should have carried on as long as it had. But when I came in, the problem was there. I dealt with it, and as a result, I think that we saved lives.”

It comes after it was revealed that British spies and special forces soldiers were among the tens of thousands of people potentially put at risk by the catastrophic Afghan data leak.

The breach, made by a Ministry of Defence official in February 2022, exposed the details of Afghans seeking an escape to the UK because they claimed links to British forces put them at risk of Taliban reprisals.

The blunder resulted in 16,000 Afghans affected by the data breach being evacuated to Britain, with some 8,000 still to come, and prompted an unprecedented two-year superinjunction preventing the publication of any details.

Now, defence sources have revealed that the names of more than 100 British government personnel, including MI6 spies, members of the SAS, MPs, government ministers and other senior military figures, were also exposed.

The latest revelations come after the defence secretary John Healey told MPs on Tuesday that “in a small number of cases, the names of members of parliament, senior military officers and government officials were noted as supporting the application”.

Meanwhile, the Intelligence and Security Committee, an influential group of MPs, have demanded answers about why they were not briefed about the Afghan data leak.

Mr Shapps said the influential committee was kept in the dark because “from time to time, things which are supposed to be secret, once they get out to more people, cease to remain entirely secret”.

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He said: “You can argue that actually that circle should be wider, but in the end, the number one priority was to make sure that we protected lives and people weren’t murdered.

“It’s a pretty stark decision to make, and the more you open that up, the more likely that is.”

Sir Grant also hit out at Labour, arguing that he believed the superinjunction would be lifted sooner and that it “was in place longer under the current government than it was under us”. Sir Keir Starmer has said he was “angry” when he found out about the data breach and that Tory ex-ministers have “serious questions to answer” about the scandal.