Top Tory Grant Shapps claims Afghan data breach kept secret over risk of executions

Senior Tory Grant Shaps has defended the decision to keep MPs and the public in the dark over a massive Afghan data leak - claiming it risked people being executed.

In his first comments since news of an unprecedented superinjunction was released, the ex-Defence Secretary said his focus was on "sorting out the mess and saving lives".

Mr Shapps insisted he would "do the same thing all over again", adding he would "walk over hot coals" in order to stop people being murdered.

Details of almost 19,000 people seeking to flee from the Taliban after the fall of Kabul were released in 2022 in error by a Ministry of Defence (MOD) official. It led to a secret £850million relocation scheme being set up to bring people to safety.

Yesterday it emerged that as many as 100 UK special forces and MI6 spies were also mentioned in the massive data breach along with almost 20,000 names of Afghans.

Labour's Defence Secretary John Healey offered in the Commons on Tuesday a “sincere apology” to all of those Afghans whose lives were put in jeopardy.

READ MORE: At least 100 ex-Afghan special forces still on the run from Taliban death squads

Mr Shapps, who was in post while a superinjunction was imposed on the incident, suggested he believed it should remain in place because he thought there was a risk of those named being murdered if it did not.

The injunction was sought by Mr Shapps' predecessor, Ben Wallace, and a superinjunction was instead put in place by a judge when Mr Shapps took over the brief.

"It is the case that I thought that once the superinjunction was in place, it should remain as a superinjunction," he said.

Mr Shapps told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "The problem with this list and all of the uncertainty surrounding it, and one of the reasons why I haven't come out in the initial couple days of this to speak about it was that obviously, with the new information that's now been released about the fact that there were British Special Forces and secret services on that list, it seemed to me that if there was any doubt at all, that erring on the side of extreme caution, a superinjunction meant that that was entirely justified."

He added: "And I'll tell you what, anybody sat behind the desk that I was sat in as Defence Secretary and faced with the choice of whether that list would get out and people would be pursued, murdered and executed as a result of it.

"Or doing something to try and save those lives, I'd much rather now be in this interview explaining why a superinjunction was required, than being in this interview explaining why I failed to act and people were murdered."

Told Parliament was not able to scrutinise the decision - including MPs on the Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC)- Mr Shapps said the risks were "incredibly high".

He added: "In the end the number one priority is to make sure we protected lives and people weren't murdered. It was a pretty stark decision to make."

But the chairman of the ISC said on Friday there are "serious constitutional issues" raised by the Afghan data leak. Lord Beamish said the ISC was not informed of the breach, despite the names of more than 100 Britons being divulged - including spies and SAS operators.

He said: "You've got to understand how our committee got its powers in the first place.

"The Justice and Security Act 2013 introduced closed hearings into court for intelligence cases - the quid pro quo for that was to give the ISC the power to reassure, to be able to see the information legally, to reassure the public and Parliament that there was public scrutiny of the security services.

"Someone in government chose just to ignore that and go down the legal route, so I think there are serious constitutional issues here."

Earlier this week Keir Starmer said former Tory ministers had "serious questions to answer about how this was ever allowed to happen".

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