Afghanistan: Resettlement
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what assessment he has made of the potential impact of the August 2025 data breach for people with outstanding ARAP applications; and what assessment he has made of the potential impact of that breach on the (a) processing and (b) prioritisation of those cases.
Answered by Luke Pollard
The Ministry of Defence assessed that this incident did not pose a significant threat to the safety of ARAP principals. This incident surrounded data for those arriving on flights into the UK, meaning that their eligible decisions had already been made.
The data incident of February 2022 was announced in the Defence Secretary’s Oral Statement of July 2025. For this cohort, the published Rimmer Review considered it “highly unlikely” that merely being on the February 2022 dataset would be grounds for targeting by the Taleban, noting the time that has passed since the fall of Kabul and the wealth of data the Taleban already have access to.
All outstanding ARAP applications will be considered on their own merits against the ARAP criteria. Where there is a unique or imminent circumstance, officials can also consider expedition on a case-by-case basis. We aim to complete the process of relocation before the end of this Parliament.
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