A group of MPs has said the Ministry of Defence (MoD) made a predictable and serious mistake when it lost sensitive data about Afghan citizens in 2022. Their report accuses the government of years of delay, secrecy and poor decision-making over Afghan resettlement schemes.

The report was published on 29 July 2026 by the Defence Committee, a group of MPs whose job is to check how the government handles defence matters. The breach happened on 22 February 2022, when personal data belonging to Afghan nationals was exposed. The committee found that the MoD had been using ordinary Excel spreadsheets — the kind you might use for a household budget — to store information about people whose lives could be at risk.

The committee's findings are harsh. It said the government's habit of never commenting on special forces matters was "inappropriate" here, and that special forces involvement "should not prevent Parliament and the public from understanding how administrative failings occurred" (Defence Committee, parliament.uk).

At the heart of the committee's frustration is something called the "neither confirm nor deny" policy. This means the government refuses to say whether British Special Forces were involved in something, even when asked directly. The committee said this stopped it from finding out what really happened with the breach. The committee also questioned why opposition politicians were not told about the breach in confidence. Then-Defence Secretary Grant Shapps pushed back against plans to inform then-shadow defence secretary John Healey, according to the report (BBC News).

After the breach, the MoD set up the Afghan Response Route (ARR) to try to fix the damage. But the MPs' investigation went much further than the data incident itself. They looked at the whole system for resettling Afghans and the role special forces played in deciding who could come to the UK.

In February 2024, the BBC programme Panorama revealed that British Special Forces had what amounted to a veto over Afghan resettlement applications. One British Special Forces officer personally rejected 1,585 applications from Afghans with credible links to special forces in just a few weeks in 2023. He approved none.

The government launched a review of those rejections in 2024 and went on to overturn 884 decisions affecting former members of Afghan special forces who had served alongside UK forces. The Defence Committee report said the "proportion of decisions subsequently overturned demonstrates the seriousness of that failure" (BBC News).

The government closed the resettlement scheme, known as ARAP, to new applications in 2025.

The data problems did not stop with the 2022 breach. By August 2025, the department handling Afghan applications had suffered 49 data breaches in total, according to evidence given to the Public Accounts Committee — another group of MPs who check how public money is spent (Public Accounts Committee report). Sky News reported the committee's finding that using Excel spreadsheets for such sensitive data was a key reason the failure was foreseeable (Sky News).

The Defence Committee's investigation has been long. It said in March 2026 that it would hold two final public sessions to finish its work, and heard evidence on 21 April 2026.

There are also legal consequences. The defence secretary faces a legal challenge at the Royal Courts of Justice from former Afghan special forces personnel who have not been able to reach the UK.

The broader picture here is about secrecy meeting accountability. The committee's main finding is that the MoD combined weak data systems, a blanket refusal to discuss special forces, and resistance to telling opposition politicians what had happened. Each layer of secrecy made the next one worse: spreadsheets were used because no proper system existed; the breach was not properly investigated because special forces involvement triggered the "neither confirm nor deny" rule; and politicians were not briefed because ministers did not want to brief them.

The report raises pointed questions about where the line should fall between keeping military operations secret and letting Parliament do its job of checking the government's work. When the committee calls the failure "foreseeable systemic," it means the warning signs were there and were ignored. The 49 breaches that followed back that up. And the committee's insistence that special forces involvement should not be a blanket excuse to avoid scrutiny sets a precedent for future investigations.

For the Afghans caught in the middle, the consequences have been real. The 884 overturned rejections were real people who were initially told they could not come to the UK, through a process the committee has now judged seriously flawed. The legal challenge at the Royal Courts of Justice will test whether the government's current position holds up in court.