Sir Ben Wallace has said he takes complete responsibility for the catastrophic data breach at the Ministry of Defence which put the lives of up to 100,000 Afghans at risk.
Sir Ben was defence secretary when a spreadsheet containing the personal information of nearly 19,000 Afghans was released “in error” in February 2022.
Ministers launched the biggest covert evacuation operation in peacetime, costing billions of pounds, with 24,000 Afghans either already brought to the UK or set to come in the future as a result.
Asked why the official responsible for the leak is still employed by the government, Sir Ben said: “I take complete responsibility for the mistake that was made by that person... I was secretary of state for defence”.
Current defence secretary John Healey said on Tuesday that the person responsible for the leak was “no longer doing the same job on the Afghan brief and in the end.”
The leak exposed the details of thousands of Afghans who said they were in danger from the Taliban because of their links to UK forces and had applied for sanctuary in Britain.
An unprecedented superinjunction was made at the High Court in September 2023 to reduce the risk of alerting the Taliban to the existence of the data, which banned any news about the leak being published or the order itself being discussed.
The subsequent top secret government operation, codenamed Operation Rubific, was kept secret from MPs and the public, with ministers even deciding to hide the true reason for the evacuation from parliament.
Following the lifting of the gagging order, Mr Healey declared that “accountability starts now”.
He told BBC Breakfast: “It allows the proper scrutiny of what went on, the decisions that Ben Wallace took, the decisions I've taken, and the judgments... and any action or accountability that may be appropriate can follow now."
And, speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Mr Healey added that decisions he took had allowed the superinjunction to be lifted. “If I'd been concerned to protect my position rather than confront the hard realities, the policies and the obligation to taxpayers, it could have been much easier to simply allow this scheme to continue.”
But he said: “You cannot have democracy with super injunctions in place.”
The former defence secretary said he makes “no apology” for seeking the injunction which resulted in the whole saga being kept secret for almost two years.
And Sir Ben, who was defence secretary from June 2019 to August 2023. said the decision to apply for the gagging order was “not a cover-up” and that if the leak had been reported it would have “put in peril those we needed to help out”.
Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, he pointed out that his government did not initially apply for a superinjunction to block reporting about the leak. Justice Knowles, in the High Court, proactively made the superinjunction.
Sir Ben said: "When we applied in August 2023, when I was secretary of state, we didn't apply for superinjunction. We applied for a four-month injunction, a normal injunction.
“I can’t speak for the subsequent two years, why a four month injunction became a two-year superinjunction.”
He defended his initial application for an injunction, but added: "I think the point here is I took a decision that the most important priority was to protect those people who could have been or were exposed by this data leak in Afghanistan, living amongst the Taliban who had no regard for their safety, or indeed potentially could torture them or murder them.
"That was my priority."
And he defended the government’s attempts to protect those on the leaked data set, saying: “I'm glad I'm not on this radio program today saying I'm terribly sorry all these people were killed or captured by the Taliban.”
Between 80,000 and 100,000 people, including the estimated number of family members of the Arap applicants, were affected by the breach and were feared to at risk of harassment, torture or death if the Taliban obtained their data, judges said in June 2024.
It is understood that the unnamed official emailed the data outside a secure government system while attempting to verify information, believing the dataset to only have around 150 rows.
However, more than 33,000 rows of information were inadvertently sent.
The Ministry of Defence only became aware of the breach when excerpts from the dataset were posted anonymously on a Facebook group in August 2023. The injunction was in place for almost two years, covering Labour and Conservative governments.
However an independent review, commissioned by the Government in January 2025, concluded last month that the dataset is “unlikely to significantly shift Taliban understanding of individuals who may be of interest to them”.
Writing in the Telegraph, Sir Ben said that when he was informed of the “error” he was “determined that the first priority was to protect all those that might be at risk”.
“I make no apology for applying to the court for an injunction at the time. It was not, as some are childishly trying to claim, a cover-up,” he said.
“I took the view that if this leak was reported at the time, the existence of the list would put in peril those we needed to help out.
“Some may disagree but imagine if the Taliban had been alerted to the existence of this list. I would dread to think what would have happened.”
Sir Ben left office shortly after the then-government became aware of the breach, having announced some time earlier that he intended to step down as defence secretary.
Mr Healey offered a “sincere apology” on behalf of the government in the Commons on Tuesday, and said he had been “deeply uncomfortable” being unable to speak about it in Parliament.
Kemi Badenoch also said sorry on behalf of the Conservatives.
Speaking to LBC on Tuesday evening, the Tory leader was asked whether she would apologise on behalf of the Conservatives who were in office at the time of the breach.
She said: “On behalf of the government and on behalf of the British people yes, because somebody made a terrible mistake and names were put out there… and we are sorry for that.
“That should not happen. And this is one of the tough things about, you know, being a minister, which is why even the Government – the Labour Government, now this didn’t happen when they were in power – they are apologising as well.”
