"Grant Shapps has questions to answer": Jacob Rees-Mogg on the Afghan MoD data breach

0:03The Telegraph.

0:09Tim Stanley of this parish has compared it in his sketch to the Watergate scandal. An almighty crisis has erupted with the details of 25 ,000 Afghan soldiers who worked for the British during the war with the Taliban, inadvertently leaked in a data breach, putting their lives at risk. Us taxpayers then had to fork out for them to claim asylum here in order to protect them, but we knew nothing about it because a judge allowed the details to be kept in secret. Joining me today is Jacob Rees-Mogg, who was around government at the time. Welcome, Jacob. Thank you very much, and I'll reveal what I did or, more pertinently, didn't know at the time.

0:49And poor old Rachel Reeves. She's just delivered her Mansion House speech to discover the following morning that inflation is up. a row about the economy at PMQs. I'm going to be asking Jacob how he thinks it's all going for the tearful Chancellor. Well, I think her face says it all. Welcome to The Daily Tea with me, Camilla Tomini. And Jacob Rees-Mogg.

1:19Right, Jacob, this is a complicated story, isn't it? I've got the front of the Telegraph here. Seven billion pound Afghan migrant cover up. And what's clearly happened is journalists at this newspaper and others, this has been led by my colleague Gareth Caulfield, have been working on this for the last two to three years. The data breach happens in 2022. A Royal Marine inadvertently sends this email to an Afghan naming thousands of fellow Afghans that have been very helpful to British forces serving in the Middle East. Because they are compromised and their safety is compromised, the MOD scrabbles to try and make up for this by ensuring that reporters like us cannot reveal these names and reveal what has happened.

2:02An injunction is initially granted, which is on the watch of Ben Wallace, who is Defence Secretary at the time. He's come forward to say that when he left in 2023, that injunction turned into a super injunction, which basically prevents journalists not just from reporting the story, but even discussing with colleagues that they have the story or any of its contents. That then blows up in court yesterday, thanks to applications by various newspapers, the Telegraph included, a sort of incredulous judge who cannot believe that this entire Farago has been covered up, not least when so many millions, if not billions of taxpayers' cash has been involved in trying to bring these Afghans to the UK, because if they stay in the Middle East, they're going to be potentially killed by the Taliban, who, as we know, are murderous terrorists.

2:53The judge says, no, this is ridiculous. We need to make this public. I mean, just initial reactions to what... Did you know anything about this? I knew absolutely nothing about this, that the first injunction came after I was out of government. The data breach took place whilst I was still in government, but I didn't hear about it. But then the department didn't tell ministers about the data breach until 18 months later. There's a real problem with the whole concept of super injunctions, mainly used to protect dodgy celebrities who have misbehaved with their mistresses and to cover up for them.

3:28They shouldn't really be allowed. They shouldn't be used for this purpose. They can, of course, be overruled by Parliament. You will remember John Hemmings stood up and revealed the story about Ryan Giggs using parliamentary privilege to do so. So if any MP had known, he or she would have been able to tell the truth about this. And I would encourage journalists in future to go to MPs and use their right to petition. It's a Bill of Rights protected ability to petition. And if you petition and say, this is what I know, that's protected in the announcement in Parliament is also protected. Well, let's just listen to the Defence Secretary now.

4:05John Healy addressed the concerns around the super injunction in the Commons. Members of this House, including you, Mr Speaker, and myself, have been subject to this super injunction. It is unprecedented. And to be clear, the Court has always recognised the parliamentary privilege of proceedings in this House, and ministers decided not to tell parliamentarians at an earlier stage about the data incident as the widespread publicity would increase the risk of the Taliban obtaining the data set. But as parliamentarians and as government ministers, it has been deeply uncomfortable to be constrained from reporting to this House.

4:50There's two elements to the super injunction, isn't there? Because on one hand, the MOD can quite happily argue, and I think quite safely argue, the reason we had to cover this up is because we didn't want to expose the names of the Afghans that have worked with British troops. They ended up on Facebook, of all places now. That is a publication, but not that many people knew that it was there. The counter-narrative to that is, no, you've also used the super injunction to cover up your own ineptitude in handling this scandal. Also, it's worth pointing out, isn't it, that this only came back to court because a review was carried out by a retired civil servant called Paul Rimmer about the danger posed to these Afghans that had been named in the leaked document.

5:31And he concluded that actually there was a limited risk to them, which then sort of caused the super injunction or the need for it into question. You're absolutely right. I've listened very carefully to what Ben Wallace has said, partly because he was an excellent Defence Secretary. Ukraine would have been swallowed up by Russia without Ben Wallace's actions with Boris Johnson as Defence Secretary. He's an important figure and a good figure. And his initial argument is plausible, isn't it, that you've got to defend these people who helped the British army and you don't want to sacrifice them to the Taliban.

6:05There are a number of problems with that. First of all, it's 18 months on. So this information has been in the public domain or has been leaked for 18 months before the government takes out an injunction. Why didn't the Taliban get hold of the information then? What evidence was there that in that period that people who were then potentially known about were at a heightened risk? Is it the case that the removing of the injunction has in fact increased the risk to these people? So I think the initial argument that this was for the security of the individuals listed is not copper-bottomed. And then you come to did this save ministers and civil servants from enormous embarrassment?

6:47And oh my goodness, yes, it did. So then you say, which argument is most credible? That it was done out of embarrassment to cover something up? or it was done 18 months after the event for security. Camilla, which do you believe? Probably a bit of both. I think it may have been injuncted with the best of intentions originally. And what makes me suspicious about the motivations around the super injunction is reading the piece that Johnny Mercer has written for us. Now, at the time, Johnny Mercer was a veterans minister inside the MOD, serving under Ben Wallace. He says a couple of things which I think should really ring alarm bells because there's been a discussion now about the Royal Marine that initially pressed send with this list attached.

7:33And we can have a discussion about the idiocy of that, but mistakes happen. This shouldn't come down, I don't think, I don't know what you think, Jacob, to one individual because actually heads must roll. Somebody must vicariously take responsibility for this, but we'll get onto that in a moment. He says, I can honestly say this whole farcical process has been the most hapless display of ineptitude by successive ministers and officials that I saw in my time in government, of which this poor individual was just the end of the line. And then if we look further into his piece, because this is political, I noticed that Kemi Badenowck didn't mention this at PMQs, which we'll get onto in the second half of the podcast, because we're going to discuss the economy.

8:17And she made her PMQs all about the economy. This is embarrassing for the Tories, because if it wasn't Ben Wallace, then who authorised the super injunction? Was it then his successor, Grant Shapps, who wasn't a particularly popular defence secretary due to his lack of military service? Just to be clear on what Wallace has said in The Telegraph, I make no apology for applying to the court for an injunction at the time. It was not, as some are childishly trying to claim, a cover-up. I took the view that if this leak was reported at the time, the existence of the list would put in peril those we needed to help out.

8:55But it's this line as well, from Johnny Mercer. I also saw how hard Ben Wallace, the Defence Secretary at the time, worked to do the right thing. but since then it has been awful. Yes, I mean, as I say, I think very highly of Ben Wallace. I think he was an exceptionally good defence secretary and getting the munitions to Ukraine to stop the Russian tanks was his effort against everybody really, all the officials, all the legal bods, our allies, nobody other than Boris and Ben wanted to do it. He's a really important figure and I think underrated. Also, he wanted to do the right thing. It seems to me a super injunction of this magnitude could not have been requested without the knowledge of both the prime minister and the cabinet secretary.

9:42They must have known that this was going on. Which would have been at the time? Would it be at the time Rishi Sunak and Simon Case? They must have known. And then think of the money. Seven billion pounds, according to the court papers. Now the government's come out and said, oh, don't worry, it's not that much. This is constitutionally extraordinary, that a government should be committing to spend billions of pounds secretly hidden from Parliament. Yes. This is not how public funds are meant to be spent. It raises all sorts of questions. If the government can spend£7 billion secretly, what else can it do secretly with our money?

10:23The Defence Secretary John Healy told MPs that the scheme had cost£400 million to date, although, as you say, Jacob,£7 billion was initially earmarked. Mr Speaker, to date, 900 ARR principals are in Britain or in transit, together with 3 ,600 family members, at a cost of around£400 million. From today, there will be no new ARR offers of relocation to Britain. From today, the route is now closed. However, we will honour the 600 invitations already made to any named person still in Afghanistan and their immediate family. When this nation makes a promise, we should keep it. So now we get down to the nitty-gritty, Jacob, of who has come here and who hasn't, because the other aspect of this which is deeply disturbing, and it's again pointed out by Johnny Mercer, Now, there were a number of incredibly brave Afghans who served alongside British troops.

11:34I mean, these are people that put their lives and their families' lives at risk. So he says that's about 1 ,000 to 1 ,200 badge members of the CF333 and CF444. These are called the triples, OK? These are the people that should have been at the top of the list to seek asylum in the UK because clearly if the Taliban found out they were serving under the union flag, it would mean instant death for them. Mercer's now pointing out that some of these people haven't been able to come back and we've got no idea who has. This is the killer line. The net result of this spectacular cluster is that we've let into this country thousands with little or tenuous links to the UK and still some Afghan special forces for whom we set up the bloody schemes remain trapped in Afghanistan, Pakistan or worse, Iran.

12:33So is he suggesting that taxpayers have funded the importation of possible Taliban? Well, I think that's implicit in what he's saying, yes. I think that's been a problem with our broader migration policy, which seems to have been out of control now for many years. everything is wrong about this story, isn't it? Absolutely everything. So the people who ought to have come here, don't get here in an efficient way, the people to whom we owe a real debt. There is some administrative mistake. And I do think if you make a mistake in your job that risks thousands of lives, actually, you're in the army, isn't that a court martial offense?

13:14You know, if you run your ship aground, you're court martialed, it's just routine. and you may have lots of extenuating circumstances, but it gets looked at properly to see if you have done something negligent or graciously negligent. And I don't think it's unreasonable to hold individuals responsible. Indeed, I think it's essential that you have individual responsibility even within bureaucracies. So that goes wrong. Then they wait 18 months. What's happening in this 18 months? Are the officials lying to ministers? Do officials not know? Are the mates of this chap covering it up for him? What is going on for 18 months that it isn't thought necessary to get an injunction?

13:55Are they putting things in place then? You then get it brought to ministers' attention in a sort of panic. Yes. This is terrible. People are going to die. And of course the Secretary of State, when given that advice by his officials, says, of course, we must stop this. And actually the newspapers, I think it was Daily Mail initially, wouldn't publish to begin with under a D notice because it didn't want to risk lives of people who had supported. Newspapers are fairly responsible in these sorts of things. So you panic and get the injunction, and then you assume that everybody on the list is bona fide and can come in, even though some of the names don't necessarily seem to have done very much for the British.

14:37And as far as I'm aware, there's no evidence that the Taliban have been going after them anyway. So this is a very theoretical risk. You mentioning denotices, that makes the super injunction even more suspicious. Because on military matters, we remember the denotice that was issued, for instance, now famously about Prince Harry's two tours of Afghanistan. There was a kind of gentleman's agreement between the palace and the press that they wouldn't report on him being out there until he came back, but it was also denotists. Why couldn't a denotist handle this rather than an injunction or a super injunction?

15:13Well, that's a very good question. And I like the denotist system. I think it's a very British system that you don't restrict freedom of speech, but you say to people, look, you have the interests of the country at heart. You as a journalist, you as an editor, don't want to be responsible for the death of people who have helped the British. And therefore, you won't print this, will you? Until sometime at which it's safe to do so. But this is a discussion. The problem with super injunctions is it you're in contempt of court if you print, you risk prison. It's a way of really supercharging denotices and is, I think, a constitutional threat.

15:53Although maybe the argument is we have to use super injunctions and injunctions because while we can reach agreements with the mainstream media, unfortunately, there are so many rogue agents on the internet who just publish stuff with impunity. Doesn't matter because A, they don't know. And B, they can publish it from abroad with impunity anyway. Super injunctions don't run outside, technically, England and Wales. Yes. Okay. Yes. So this was a sledgehammer to crack a knot. That's right. It's why I would reiterate my suggestion that journalists go to MPs or peers and say, look, this terrible thing is happening, you should raise it in Parliament and use parliamentary privilege.

16:32I think this judge, Chamberlain, has been extremely good. He has, yes. But in one of the reports I read, an initial overturning of the super injunction was stopped by the appeal court. What were they doing? I don't think the judges generally are on the side of freedom of speech. That's why I think Chamberlain is very impressive. So you're saying that the Royal Marine who pressed send should be accountable. What's happened to individual ministerial responsibility in this country, Jacob? OK, it can't be a case of deputy heads must roll. Whoever was responsible for this or oversaw it, and if it wasn't Wallace and it was Shapps, or whoever it might be, they must take responsibility, mustn't they?

17:16Well, I think that Grant Shapps has questions to answer, and he will no doubt be called before the Defence Select Committee to answer them. I think that's clearly important. There's nobody who can resign today because they're all out of office other than John Healy. And I wouldn't be suggesting he should resign. Nonetheless, Labour's got questions to answer because they've taken a year to unravel this. Now, I would have thought they'd have come in and thought this is wrong straight away, but they haven't. And I think that this is very helpful for Nigel Farage because Nigel can point to this and say, It doesn't matter who you vote for.

17:56It's not just Conservatives or Labour. They don't want you to know anything. They don't want you, the people, to know. The Uni Party wants to protect information. So I think this is damaging both for my party and for the Labour Party. The Uni Party that accepts washed-up Tories, including Andrew Jenkins, Jake Berry and whoever else is disgruntled. Well, David Jones is a fine man. David Jones as well, your fellow Brexiteers. Yeah, David's a great man. Are you on the precipice? Are you thinking? Me? Don't be silly. Are you? Am I? Unlike you, I've never been a member of a political party in my life.

18:29No, but you're as Tory as they come. Well, small C conservative, I like to say. As you know, I was extremely critical of the administration to which you once belonged. Absolutely, but capital T, Tory. What do you mean, capital T, Tory? What does that even mean? It means that you have proper conservative values. I think capital, can I say it like this? Yes. Capital T, Thatcherite. Oh, very good. Thank you. I like that. Don't put me in a box, Jacob Rees-Mogg. You've just put yourself in mind. I said, are you on the brink of defecting to reform, which many people are saying. But you're not, just for the record.

19:02No, I'm not. As I said, I'm not affiliated with any political party at this stage, but I am always affiliated to Maggie. Quite right. Whose picture is on my desk, as you as observed. Right, should we get into the economy, must we? Yeah, I thought Kemi was actually pretty good on the economy. Well, let's listen to her at PMQs and let's discuss why Rachel Reeves is still looking a little miserable. on the front bench. Little Miss Glum Bucket.

19:54long-term implications for the wider world. Search Iran The Latest and listen wherever you get your podcasts. We're also now on video. Watch us on YouTube and on The Telegraph's website.

20:12Being a man formerly of the city, I would imagine that you watched the Mansion House speech with great glee. Yesterday night, was it? God, so much has happened since then. Was it yesterday night? Rachel Reeves addresses the city. And what did you think of it? Well, I think she's moving in the right direction, actually. I think we want deregulation of the city. We want to allow people to take risks with their own money. If you try and stop them taking risks with their own money, where do you get the capital for good ideas to come from? I think there's complete confusion about what deposits do. Deposits are a very important part of the financial system.

20:48and cash icers are similarly useful because they provide cheap capital to building societies and banks which then get lent both to people who buy houses but also to entrepreneurs who often borrow against their house to invest in their business. So I think the sniffiness about deposits is really very silly but deregulating to encourage more financial market investment is a thoroughly good thing. So she went in there being quite blue rather than red which is sensible in the face of a huge amount of capital flight and a millionaire leaving apparently every 45 minutes. Well, her speech won't make any difference to that.

21:23And I think even more will go because the mood music around a wealth tax means why would you not stay? It seems very unlikely she's going to ameliorate death duties for non-doms, which was being gossiped about, but that's not going to play very well with the Labour-backed benches. So I think we will continue to see rich people leave. I think the question is whether you can persuade people who aren't going to leave to invest in the stock market. We also need pension funds to invest more in the stock market, whereas the regulators have been encouraging them to buy government bonds. And they've been doing that for years.

22:01On the whole wealth tax thing, I mean, she's meant to be more right-wing than that. She's not seriously entertaining, Neil Kinnock's suggestion. What was it? A 2 % tax on anyone with assets over 10 million, which is this idea that's been floated around by anyone left of... Well, I suppose Corbynistas love this idea. Yet in every country it's been tried, it's failed. Where it's tried, it's failed, and it has a crucial flaw. So, say you live in a£20 million house. Unlike you, I don't. Well, nor do I. How much is your house worth? Can't tell me that. I don't know. Right, more than mine, I bet. Better ask my bank, who holds the mortgage against it.

22:42I might just ask your wife. But say somebody is in, not you personally, in a£20 million house. There's£10 million, 2 % of that,£200 ,000. So where does that come from when they're not selling the house? You cannot sell 2 % of the second half value of your house, 1 % of the total value of your house. You can't go to somebody and say, will you buy 1 % of my house? No, you get a bigger mortgage and you pay it to the government. You have to borrow to pay the government or you have to earn it. To earn it, you're paying tax at nearly 50%. You therefore have to earn£400 ,000 to pay it. People don't have this sort of money against their non-earning assets, so they sell up.

23:25If people in£20 million houses sell up, that ricochets down and you suddenly find you've got a property crash on your hands. Because people have this tax bill to pay. They've got to sell to pay it. even if it's a relatively small amount of their total assets. So the knock-on effects of wealth taxes are very economically disadvantageous. Do we think Kemi played it well today? She avoided Afghanistan probably because it unfortunately does tinge the Tories heavily. It was on their watch. She tries to land these blows, doesn't she? And yet the Prime Minister sort of accuses her of being negative about the future of the economy.

24:04Let's just listen to... She did land one, I think, good blow. Let's have a listen. Mr Speaker, I'm not talking the country down, I'm talking him down. I asked him, I asked him, I asked him what a modest income was. He answered what a working person is. He doesn't know what a modest income is. And even on working people, they cannot define it. The Chief Secretary to the Treasury, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury said that working people are people who don't get a payslip, but millions of self-employed people don't get a payslip. So are the self-employed next in line for a Labour tax rate? But he does this thing.

24:45I mean, you loved performing in the House. He's not charismatic. He's not even a brilliant politician, but he does seem to get the better of her at PMQs with this repetitive line about what they've inherited and how well everything's going. Do you get the impression she's kind of failing to quite have him on the ropes? I think Sakhir, the Reverend Starmer, isn't buttering any parsnips at all. Right. I don't think people believe his black hole stuff. I think they look at him and think he's been in charge for a year. The one person who really talked the economy down was Sakhir Starmer and Rachel Reeves before the last budget who said we were all doomed.

25:26And it's different. When the government talks the economy down, that is authoritative. When other people criticize the government's management, that's discounted by financial markets. That doesn't lead to people making decisions. So they're talking the economy down had a damaging economic consequence. So I don't think people believe this really boring line that he comes out with again and again, and the 22 billion has been deconstructed as a figure. It is a dishonest figure. It is not true. And he keeps on with it. so I just think it makes people think he's a bit dodgy. Have you ever cried in the Commons?

26:01Of course I haven't. I haven't cried in my adult life. Are you serious? Yeah, of course I'm serious. You haven't cried? No, of course not. In your adult life? No, of course I haven't. What about when your father passed away? No, of course I didn't cry when my father died. My father was de Valente again, haven't. So when's the last time you think you cried? I was a schoolboy. What age? I can't remember. But I haven't cried in my adult life. This is decades ago. Of course it is. Haven't you ever cried watching DIY SOS? Never watched DIY SOS. Haven't you ever cried reading a piece of poetry or listening to Wagner?

26:33I haven't even cried reading... I haven't even cried when the Empress of Blandings has been stolen from her star and Lord Emsworth gets to it and finds it empty. No. Look, I don't believe in this crying in public life. Starfaring is a lot of nonsense. And people should stiffen their lips and behave properly. So no sympathy for Weepy Reeves? Oh, not at all. Lacrimose chancellors. She's the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Wouldn't you have put an arm around her had you been at the other side of the dispatch box? I'm not a great one for putting arms around ladies, actually. You're getting frightful trouble doing that.

27:01Yes. I think gently bowing is preferable to... Wow. But what does it say about the Chancellor's state of mind? It says she's not up the job. Look at her today. What do you think? Back to the glum buckets. Yeah, well, she's trying to do kind of... And then she gets... ...faux bonhomie. She's trying to smile. Tim actually wrote about this. So it's like she's finding everything unnecessarily hilarious. because she doesn't want to look so sad. No, no, no. On the day, I felt very sorry for her because it looked miserable and anyone crying is desperately sad. But she's the chance that it's checker. She's got an important job to do.

27:37She needs to be up to it. And going from boo-hoo one week to... is just ridiculous. Do you think her days are numbered? Oh, mene, mene, tekel you, Farsin. You come out with these phrases, I don't even know what you're saying Oh, it's the writing on the wall Yes, you know what I'm talking about You've been weighed in the balances and found wanting I think she has been weighed in the balances and found wanting The question is, is she a human shield for Sakia Exactly Who is also deeply wanting She's the sponge, isn't she? She can soak up all of the criticism She's quite convenient, actually, to him right now For the time being But you can't sack a Chancellor, can you?

28:20Because you just end up sacking yourself Depends. Sometimes you can. Wow. Or if she resigns. I mean, look at Rishi and Boris. That was the final nail in the coffin. It was, but Boris was able to fire Sajid without any difficulty. He'd only been there for five minutes. Yeah, I know, I know. But she's only been there for five minutes. It depends on the Prime Minister, it depends on the Chancellor. Tony Blair probably ought to have fired Gordon Brown after the 2001 election. Depends on where you are in the polls, what your status is. Margaret Thatcher got rid of Geoffrey Howe in 1983, admittedly promoted him to Foreign Secretary.

28:53When Nigel Lawson went, that was a calypso-collapso for her. John Major, though he had a hopeless time, managed to replace Norman Lamont with Ken Clarke. And I think Starmer is in a very much John Major post-1992 ERM collapse stage. Is he? Oh, yeah, yeah. Well, he's also in a Gordon Brown post-2008 financial crisis stage, according to his approval ratings. Or possibly in terms of his command of events. post the point at which he failed to call an election in 2007. He said he was going to, or there was a lot of briefing that he was going to. Then there was one ban opinion poll and he bottled it.

29:30And from then on, his authority was fundamentally weakened. I think the retreat on welfare has really damaged Starmer's authority in a way the ERM debarked damaged Majors' authority. So, yes, he can change chancellors and he can stay as prime minister until 2029, but he doesn't have that raw authority that effective prime ministers need. So much to watch over the next three to four years. When do we think this election is going to happen? Well, the rule of Tharman, as you're Rishi Sunak, is that you have an election at the last possible date if you're behind in the opinion polls. So we're looking at early August 2029.

30:07I wrote on Saturday that rumours are circulating that he might call a snap election next year. Well, he'd lose. I know. But to ensure the evisceration of the Conservatives, who are not ready, reform aren't ready either, let's be honest. They've got one MP who's had to resign the whip. They've got to find 646 more. Ready doesn't stop you winning elections. Starmer wasn't ready. One with a majority of 170. Yes. But then it could be a clean fight between sensible Starmer and Labour or the maniacs at reform under Farage, untried, untested, unserious. I mean, if Starmer wants to make Nigel Farage Prime Minister, that would be the way to go about it.

30:55Right. Which I doubt is his main ambition in life. No, maybe not. Let's see. Watch this space. We'll be covering it all on The Daily Tea. Jacob, as ever, it's been a pleasure. Camilla, delight to join you. We'll be back tomorrow, 5pm.

31:12Thank you.