The Ministry of Defence has disclosed that the average monthly cost of flights used to relocate eligible Afghans under the now-closed Afghanistan Response Route (ARR) stands at £457,833.33, according to a written response in the House of Lords.
In response to a question from Lord Kempsell, Conservative life peer, Defence Minister Lord Coaker stated that the Ministry had used a combination of Royal Air Force flights, Ministry of Defence-chartered flights, and charter flights run by the International Organisation for Migration (IOM).
The government declined to name the companies involved in providing charter flights, citing commercial and operational sensitivities.
“The ARR was created to support a limited cohort of people who were affected by the data loss incident and who were previously thought to be at the highest risk,” Lord Coaker said. He added that flights under the wider Afghan Resettlement Programme, which includes both ARR and the Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy (ARAP), also carried a small number of individuals eligible under the Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme (ACRS).
A separate response to Lord McCrea of Magherafelt and Cookstown confirmed that as of 15 July 2025, 900 Afghan principals had been relocated under the ARR, along with 3,600 family members.
The secretive scheme was established following a 2022 data breach, in which personal details of ARAP applicants were emailed outside official government systems. The previous government responded by securing a High Court super-injunction and creating the ARR to relocate those most at risk.
The Government announced the closure of the ARR earlier this month, following an independent review led by Paul Rimmer, former Deputy Chief of Defence Intelligence. That review concluded it was “highly unlikely” that simply appearing in the leaked dataset would still justify targeting.
“We have now made the matter public so it can be subject to full Parliamentary scrutiny,” Lord Coaker said.
If it has saved the lives of people who helped us then I’d say that was money well spent.
We can’t be seen as a country that abandons people who risk their families lives to help the UK military.
Agreed. Grand scheme of things it’s peanuts and over time they will add to our economy as they work and repay that cost We put them and their family in harm way and so it’s the least we can do as a nation.
Who do you mean to work?
The interpreters, or the dependents?
How many speak English and if they don’t speak English will they learn? And what jobs will be available? Or do you mean the interpreters and ex Afgan SF work while the families just stay at home?
Otherwise, yes the cost financially is minimal in a country of our GDP.
Still, I read it was 6 billion, and I asked elsewhere where that money is coming from.
Quite right. Iran has expelled 1.5 million Afghans, back to Afghanistan mostly, as paranoid fears/scapegoats of them spying for Israel! Deeply ashamed of the way Biden cut & ran from Afghanistan, leaving millions in dire peril.
They were on our side and they are welcome. The amount of money spent on them is nothing compared to that spent on illegal immigrants.
Um, how many worked for the UK, did every soldier have his own personnel Afghan, this is the cost stupid wars that end in same mess as they started. Afghan a mess run by the nutters, us having let more people stat here for what> what did the war do, did make Afghan better? lives lost for us run away. Harsh be we lost a lot to solve nothing,
Just done a quick google,approx 7000 afghans worked for the British,the number already here is north of 34000! It’s already been documented that a good portion of those had nothing to do with the Brits! Yet here they are🙄
Where has it been documented that they had nothing to do with supporting our soldiers?
20 years war involved a lot of afgan translators etc and then the number is increased significantly by their families that also need our protection.
You don’t keep up with the news then? Even Healy has admitted that there are people here who shouldn’t be on this ‘rescue’!
I repeat evidence please
You said a good proportion, that’s a very different thing from some.
Well as I can’t post links on here I suppose you can look it up for yourself cant you👍now if a defence minister admits that a good number should not have qualified that’s good enough for me!
Glad for you. I will stick with real stats and not political stories.
I’ll do it for you then,from the home office
“ it is difficult to ascertain the exact numbers but a significant portion of Afghans who have been resettled did NOT meet the criteria to be eligible for the scheme”
OK for you👍
No, that’s a statement wihout facts. If they weren’t eligible they would be exported. So stats please, how many were given settled status or immigration status that did not.
No one isn’t nieve to say some will be rejected and sent back, but let’s have stats and not vague statements, what percentage and what cost
Well you are also free to action your own investigations in order to corroborate (or not as the case may be) and update accordingly.
I await your rebuttal in due course. With facts, and primary sources of course.
In the meantime the fall out from this disastrous exit will continue.
Steve – try looking up Data Breach’ and ‘Super Injunction’ – all will be revealed.
All out of the defence budget I assume.
Taliban amongst them according to some reports.
Vetting?
I agree with bringing interpreters and specials to the UK, even though DSF tried to block them.
But, and it’s a big but, what is classed as family?
Immediate family, or does it include every aunty, uncle, cousin, grandparents, and how open is that to abuse?
Because with 34,000, so far, every British soldier seems to have had his own personal interpretor.
But 2 tier will be pleased, all goes towards his “core” 3% target and it doesn’t involve buying any extra kit!
Another question. What comparables are there with other nations who had troops in Afghanistan? Do they have schemes like this?
While foreign military aid can be counted towards NATO spending targets refugee resettlement cannot.
I have seen nothing that suggests this is coming from the defence budget.
It will becoming from foreign aid budget which refugee resettlement is a valid part.
I don’t think it’s fair to criticise Keir Starmer on a program secretly executed by Ben Wallace and Rishi Sunak in the last government due to a total cock up in their watchwhich they attempted to hide from the electorate specifically to keep Kier Starmer out of office.
Hi Jim.
I’m not criticising Sir Kier, I’m saying I think he will be pleased that as a HR lawyer I’m confident he supports this importing of the poor and needy of the world, vetted or not.
Which is an honourable thing. My own father had nothing when he came here. Except a job in place.
But all that has limits.
And many think those limits were breached a long time ago. Including me.
Yes, I agree, happy to include the Tories in the debacle as they were on duty at the time.
On who pays, I was basing that only on what I read online, a few articles and also some X pieces, which is why I mentioned assume. I’d agree ideally it should be from the aid budget. I’d like to see a definite on that.
Sorry but the U.K. isn’t a country for the poor and needy asylum is for people in danger not poor people bringing over interpreters most are fine with what a lot are not happy about is that person then claiming his 70 year old blind grandmother should come as well as 36 members of his so called family and for all of them to then go ahead of the native population in terms of social be that health or housing and to be granted indefinite welfare while making threats to the people in the U.K. if cuts to there services or higher taxes to pay for these things
Re read, Tim,
I agree with you.
One big problem is that mamy of these refugees are not refugees at all, but economic migrants.
No, the UK isn’t a country for the poor and needy. I said wanting to help them is honorable. But there are limits to that.
But every human rights or aid charity see migrants all as refugees.
Fair enough and most people would say we should help people but I’m of the view that bringing people to our country is the very last thing we should do I think the UN should do more for example with Syria they should have created a safe zone where refugees to go and use the UN troops to protect it and we should provide food medical etc it’s 1000x cheaper and more effective than bring over 10s of thousands to the U.K. dumping them in local authorities to deal with causing people to hate them creating untold problems for both we act like we are a rich country when we are not look at GDP per person that shows we are very average and getting worse it just can’t continue don’t get me wrong I have empathy for people in a bad spot but I think the way we are going will not end up good
I agree.
I’ve stated my opinion for over a decade that unlimited immigration is unsustainable.
For social cohesion as well as for public services reasons.
It’s why Reform are doing so well.
No one in the establishment ( Labour Tory ) listens. And if they say they are, they do nothing.
The Tories are now vowing to get tough. How convenient, with them not in power.
Blair talked tough too, so did Brown. When he wasn’t caught by a microphone calling a lady’s genuine concerns bigoted.
And if someone states an objection, they’re screamed at for being racist.
See above.
Thus how the left works I screaming down all opposition.
Well, things are changing.
I think the left have lost the argument now however I think it might be too late to do anything about it due to our system millions of people have been parachuted into well paid jobs in the government and employed due to silly rules saying u should employ people based on skin colour these people are then advancing through government departments earning more and more and bringing over more relations my wife is from abroad and she says the same thing she doesn’t understand why your own country discriminates against its own people and the government then wonders why there having social unrest I hate seeing my country start to burn
This is a very shortsighted decision that will have ramifications in our lifetime and more significantly on our dependents once we’ve gone?
The fact is 34000 are here from this that we know of, the cadre of actual interpreters etc is a small proportion of this. We had one dependent (a daughter resident here from one) demanding on BBC Newsnight that her grandmother is to be brought over, and legals and support from groups was to make this happen. I noted with a sigh, that she had an Afghanistan flag and country symbol as a necklace as she boiled with anger about how their rights were not met with her grandmother not being her, she mentioned her father wasn’t working anymore also. Then we find that an Afghan criminal blackmailed the government by threatening to release names from the leaked data or give him a ticket out. What did the government do? They caved and arranged a flight to bring that Afghan to the UK, he’s with us now, in some house somewhere in some town. Let’s not forget that Afghanistan was not a province of the UK like some sort of Roman province, we were there to help and to subdue the Taliban, not for conquest. It allowed girls to go to school etc, it went tits pi and the Taliban took over, we don’t owe them citizenship whether some worked for us or not.
Tits up , not tits pi! which I’m sure is not a pie I would see in M&S
What about the boats? Plenty of Afghans on them to.and when people say they were helping us… For there bloody good.
We didn’t bring all the resistance groups from Europe back to England did we??
This country is a laughing stock abroad a bloody disgrace.