Secret gagging order should not have been used to cover up Afghan data breach says former defence secretary Sir Ben Wallace The Independent

pNotifications can be managed in browser preferencesppPlease refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged inppSwipe for next articleppSir Ben Wallace said he was surprised that MPs on the defence committee were not informed about the Afghan data breachppRemoved from bookmarksppFrom reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing Whether its investigating the financials of Elon Musks proTrump PAC or producing our latest documentary The A Word which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messagingppAt such a critical moment in US history we need reporters on the ground Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the storyppThe Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum And unlike many other quality news outlets we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone paid for by those who can afford itppSir Ben Wallace has said he would not have backed the use of a secret gagging order to cover up the catastrophic Afghan data breach that potentially put thousands of Afghans who helped UK forces at risk from the Taliban ppThe former defence secretary told MPs on Tuesday that he had directed that a timelimited injunction be used to protect the news of the data leak while the Ministry of Defence MoD scrambled to understand what had gone wrongppBut Sir Ben said he was clear from the start that the government should not entirely cover up the breach which occurred after an official emailed a spreadsheet of contact details outside of the MoD ppThe leak which was discovered in August 2023 and led to thousands of Afghans being secretly relocated to the UK was only revealed to the public when a High Court judge lifted the unprecedented gagging order known as a superinjunction in July ppIt came after The Independent and other media organisations successfully fought to lift it 22 months after it was first imposed ppSir Ben said he told officials We are not covering up our mistakes The priority is to protect the people in Afghanistan and then open it up to the public We need to say a certain amount are out of dangerppSpeaking about an indefinite injunction Sir Ben said I didnt think it was the right thing to do I didnt think it was necessary He told MPs that the injunction should only be in place for as long as it would take the MoD to quantify the number of people whose data had been breached ppWhen asked about whether he would have used a superinjunction he added I said were not doing that The only thing were going to do is we need to basically hold off in public until we get to the bottom of the threat these people are under I said we wont cover up our mistakes well talk about themppA superinjunction is so strict that even mentioning its existence is forbidden ppHe added You can have an injunction I think without reporting the contents A superinjunction my understanding is you cant even say theres an injunction I think I would never have been in that space Public bodies are accountable If necessary you could even ring up the journalist and say please hold off people are at risk Most journalists dont want to put people at riskppThe MoD applied to the High Court for an injunction on the day that Sir Ben left government with a judge proactively granting them a superinjunction ppGrant Shapps then became defence secretary maintaining the gagging order until the 2024 general election when Labour took power Labour kept the injunction in place while they reviewed the risk assessments that the order relied on A review commissioned by defence secretary John Healey found that while killings and other reprisals against former Afghan officials do occur being identified on the dataset was unlikely to constitute sole grounds for targetingppThe Taliban already had access to significant volumes of data to help identify targets it said It added that knowledge of a data breach had spread but that the actual database had not been shared as widely as initially fearedppSpeaking about the moment of the breach in 2022 Sir Ben said it came about because someone didnt do their job He said that he had put in place new checking procedures in the MoD after another Afghan data breach but that that clearly didnt happen on this occasion someone clearly didnt do their job ppHe added that the public were kept in the dark about the general threat to the UK from bad actors to justify low spending on defence Sir Ben told MPs Its all secret and if its all secret theres not going to be a competing public pressure on the exchequer for moneyppHe said that defence is lower on the list of voters priorities but thats partly because they dont know the threat they are under ppFormer armed forces minister James Heappey told the committee that he was increasingly uncomfortable with the amount of information withheld from MPs when he was part of the last Tory government ppSpeaking about the previous committees investigation into armed forces readiness he said It is clear that during the Cold War your predecessor committees were shown things like stockpiles and held fleets and that the committee then redacted that before publication Both MoDs senior civil servant David Williams and I were very concerned that the dial had moved too much in terms of what was not exposed to the committee ppI would argue that one if the armed forces arent as ready as they should be then parliament should know that and if armed forces are as ready as they should be then there is a deterrent effectppJoin thoughtprovoking conversations follow other Independent readers and see their repliesppPlease refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically 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