## Former Defence Secretary Justifies Month-Long Briefing Blackout Amidst Afghan Data Crisis
Sir Grant Shapps, the former Defence Secretary, has steadfastly defended his contentious choice to keep senior parliamentarians uninformed for approximately a month following a critical Afghan data breach. Testifying before the House of Commons Defence Committee, Shapps asserted his belief that a broader disclosure during the initial, sensitive phase of the crisis could have directly imperiled lives.
### Prioritizing Lives Over Immediate Disclosure: Shapps’s Rationale
Shapps conceded that he deliberately withheld vital intelligence from key parliamentary figures, including the Shadow Defence Secretary, the Chair of the Defence Committee, and the Chair of the Intelligence and Security Committee. Under rigorous questioning from committee chair Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi, Shapps confirmed that this information vacuum persisted for roughly four weeks. He argued forcefully that his primary objective was to first establish all pertinent facts regarding the breach before widening its awareness. His decision, he explained, was not rooted in distrust, but in a meticulously calculated strategy of risk management.
“In any crisis situation, the first thing to do is not to widen the scope,” Shapps articulated during his appearance. “The first thing is to find the facts and then start to brief others.”
He adamantly maintained that even a marginal increase in the number of individuals privy to the compromised list’s existence would have significantly escalated the danger to both Afghan nationals and British service personnel. “Even a 1% greater risk is a 1% greater risk that people will die, including British forces,” he emphasized.
### Committee Challenges: Democratic Accountability and Public Knowledge
Committee members, however, vigorously disputed Shapps’s justification. They highlighted that journalists, human rights activists, and various Afghan individuals were already acutely aware of the breach, with specific details having already surfaced publicly online. The chair unequivocally labeled the failure to inform elected Members of Parliament as a grave dereliction of democratic accountability.
Shapps, though, firmly rejected this critique. He contended that in extraordinary circumstances, the state’s executive authority must occasionally take precedence over conventional parliamentary protocols. “There are just times where the state has to go about its business through Executive power,” he declared, adding that he would much rather face parliamentary scrutiny later than have to explain avoidable fatalities.
He further rebuffed attempts to compare the situation to routine parliamentary oversight, pointing out that certain highly classified intelligence and operational specifics – such as the positions of nuclear submarines or classified mission details – are routinely withheld even from senior MPs. “There are lots of things that we do not share with parliamentarians,” he noted.
### The Broader Inquiry and Lingering Institutional Fallout
This compelling exchange constituted a central element of the Defence Committee’s ongoing investigation into the Afghan data breach and the subsequent management of resettlement programs. Shapps testified alongside former Defence Secretary Ben Wallace and former Armed Forces Minister James Heappey. While the committee’s final conclusions are yet to be published, the nature of members’ questioning strongly suggested their belief that the restricted briefing policy exacerbated the political and institutional repercussions stemming from the breach.