Watch live as The Independent Social Affairs Correspondent Holly Bancroft gives evidence to a Defence Committee meeting over the Afghan data breach and super-injunction on Tuesday (4 November).
Ms Bancroft’s reporting revealed that a huge Ministry of Defence data breach put the lives of up to 100,000 Afghans at risk and prompted thousands of them to be evacuated to Britain under a covert £7bn scheme – then was kept secret for almost two years by an unprecedented superinjunction.
She is joined in Parliament by Larisa Brown from The Times and Sam Greenhill from the Daily Mail.
The leak, in February 2022, exposed the details of thousands of Afghans who said they were in danger from the Taliban because of their links to UK forces and now wanted to escape to Britain.
The blunder triggered a top-secret government operation, codenamed Operation Rubific, which involved 16,000 Afghans being brought to the UK as part of Britain’s largest covert peacetime evacuation, with some 8,000 still to come.
The whole operation was kept secret from MPs and the public, with ministers even deciding to hide the true reason for the evacuation from parliament.
