Hello, I'm Susan Hume and this is the yesterday in Parliament podcast.

On Tuesday, the 15th of July, MPs heard for the first time about an extraordinary data breach

involving the personal details of thousands of Afghans and a covert resettlement scheme.

One wrong keystroke, one mistaken press of the send button,

had the potential to put thousands of people in harm's way.

It led to an unprecedented High Court super-injunction,

the establishment of a secret Afghan resettlement route,

and all at the cost of £400 million.

The Afghans involved were applying to come to the UK under what's known as the Arab scheme for those who'd worked with the British,

putting them at greater risk once the Taliban seized Afghanistan again.

The Defence Secretary John Healy said a defence official had emailed a casework file outside authorised government systems.

Now this official mistakenly believed that they were sending the names of 150 applicants. However, the spreadsheet, in fact, contained personal information associated to 18,714 Afghans.

As well as details of some family members and sponsors.

It was 18 months before ministers were told about the breach.

When they did find out, they set up a covert scheme to bring people affected to the UK.

A court's super injunction was granted to stifle any public mention of it for fear that publicising the breach would add to the risks. But John Healy had set up a review which reported that the risks were probably less than anticipated, partly because the Taliban already had access to plenty of personal information once it was back in charge. So, after some clear soul-searching, he was cancelling the scheme.

I would have wanted to settle these matters sooner because full accountability to Parliament and

freedom of the press matter deeply to me. They're fundamental to our British way of life.

However, lives may have been at stake.

And I've spent many hours thinking about this decision,

thinking about the safety and the lives of people I will never meet

in a far-off land in which 457 of our servicemen and women lost their lives.

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