Pressure on Shapps over leak of Afghan data

Grant Shapps insisted that the Ministry of Defence press for the continuation of an extraordinary superinjunction to prevent reporting of an embarrassing leak of personal data belonging to 18,700 Afghans, it has been claimed.

- Dan Sabbagh Peter Walker

Two sources present in the MoD at the time say that Shapps, who at the time was the defence secretary, wanted to mount an aggressive legal defence in the hope that the data breach affecting would-be Afghan refugees to the UK would remain secret for as long as possible.

One said Shapps believed that as secretary of state in other departments he had been successful in fighting legal actions by being combative, though other officials thought the superinjunction was excessive and unlikely to endure.

Shapps was approached for comment directly and through a former aide. He has not so far commented on the affair, though he was the defence secretary during a period when the data breach was covered up - and a secret relocation scheme for about 15,000 Afghans affected was drawn up at a cost of £2bn.

The legal battle between the MoD and media groups ran on so long that the data breach and its consequences did not become public before the July 2024 election. Though a high court judge had wanted to end the superinjunction in May 2024, the MOD successfully took the case to the court of appeal, three weeks after the vote.