Select committee: Public Accounts Committee
Conclusion 7
54th Report - Afghanistan Response Route
Published 14 Nov 2025
Addressed to HM Treasury
Public Accounts Committee Afghanistan Response Route (ARR) All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Conclusion (the committee's words)
At the end of July 2025, the Department estimated that it would resettle 7,355 people through the ARR scheme as a direct result of the February 2022 data breach. This included 1,531 ‘principals’ (initial applicants) 6 C&AG’s Report, para 8 7 C&AG’s Report, para 22 8 C&AG’s Report, paras 9, 10, 17 9 C&AG’s Report para 9, Q 1 10 Letter from the Treasury Officer of Accounts, 26 August 2025 8 and their family members.11 A further estimated 16,108 people who were affected by the data breach were eligible to be resettled through the ARAP scheme because they or a family member worked with the UK government in Afghanistan in exposed or meaningful roles.12 The Department is also reviewing some rejected applications from people in the Afghanistan special forces, and it estimated that these applications could result in a total of up to 27,278 people affected by the data breach being resettled in the UK.13
From: Public Accounts Committee, 54th Report - Afghanistan Response Route (HC 1391), 14 November 2025
Government response
Latest Treasury Minutes progress report to the Committee of Public Accounts on the Fifty-fourth Report of Session 2024-26
The government responded to the whole report on 4 June 2026 (deadline 14 January 2026).
Treasury minutes: Government response to the Committee of Public Accounts on the Fifty-fourth report from Session 2024-26
Published 19 January 2026.
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The government agrees with four of the Committee's recommendations, including six-monthly updates on ARR resettlement from March 2026, and disagrees with the recommendation on separately capturing ARR costs.
- On updates, the government agrees to write to the Committee every six months from March 2026 until the ARR is complete, though it "may not always be possible to provide a precise breakdown by scheme".
- On the case working system, it agrees, stating the recommendation is implemented and that DACS (introduced in May 2022) addressed "many of the vulnerabilities", with the department "equipped with the right tools to minimise the risk" of a recurrence.
- On scrutiny, it agrees and gives a target date of Spring 2026. The Treasury will issue a Dear Accounting Officer letter on sharing information with the Comptroller and Auditor General in the event of a super-injunction.
- It disagrees on separate ARR costing, saying this would be "disproportionately complex and resource intensive", and instead offers an indicative cost allocation at the end of each financial year, included with the six-monthly updates.