Overview
- The Public Accounts Committee said the MoD failed to learn from repeated breaches and judged that a similar incident could happen again.
- The leak began in February 2022 when a spreadsheet with 33,000 lines of personal data was emailed outside government and was only discovered in August 2023 after fragments appeared in a Facebook group.
- The government secured a superinjunction that suppressed reporting and oversight for nearly two years before lifting it in July, during which a large secret evacuation programme was run.
- Oversight bodies reported serious financial opacity, with the NAO saying it lacked confidence in the MoD’s figures, ministers approving a £7bn plan in October 2024, and the department later pointing to lower estimates including about £850m for the airlift.
- The PAC cited slow progress on resettlement with an MoD estimate of 27,278 people eligible but only 3,383 recorded arrivals, as the MoD claims improvements and a new secure casework system while campaigners warn risks and delays persist.