Speeches by Pollard.

“Yes, what I am saying is that the previous Government had read on the Speaker and the Lord Speaker. In the event that a debate happened in the House of Commons, I think the previous Government made the decision, which I think was reasonable at the time, that in order to support the spirit of the super-injunction, there…”

“The written evidence is the Government’s position on this.”

“I will turn to Dominic to give some of the detailed recommendations, but broadly it was apparent for those who were following the Triples over a number of years—before the Triples review started—that the data required to demonstrate that the Triples had indeed worked alongside UK forces in Afghanistan was not being cor…”

“I suspect there was someone. That might be a question for Dominic. We would have to have kept a record of all those people who the super-injunction had been applied to, but that was not a long list that I was privy to—and nor was there a necessity for me to be.”

“Thank you for your opening remarks about the soldier we lost recently. That is much appreciated. It was immediately after becoming a Minister—I think it was 10 July 2024—when the super-injunction was disclosed to me, and I was read in on that injunction. In opposition, it was only the now Defence Secretary who was read…”

“It is not what he did, though, when he was in charge. Certainly, when we assumed office, having been briefed on the super-injunction and made aware of the other challenges affecting the ARAP scheme, our assessment in opposition was the one that I had immediately after coming into office: that it was a mess that needed …”

“I do not think I have—on taking office, I have had no correspondence that I can recall from Grant Shapps at all, and that is not one that I am aware of.”

“That is right. In opposition, as the shadow Armed Forces Minister with responsibility for Afghans, I had raised a number of concerns around data and the handling of the Afghan scheme, but I was not aware of the super-injunction until I became a Minister.”

“I am not privy to the decisions that the last Government made as to who they chose to read in on this.”

“My sense of this is, having inherited a situation where a number of parliamentarians were read on, that that work had already been done. Those people had already been read on. The legal application of the super-injunction had been applied to those individuals, and that was the current sense.”

“I am very happy to look into that.”

“The spirit of the super-injunction was that, due to the risk involved, only those individuals necessary for the protective action should be told about it. I was uncomfortable with the super-injunction; I think we all were in the Department—there was no one who was comfortable with this situation—and that led us, in tim…”

“When we took over and were made aware of the super-injunction, it was our sense that we needed to continue the spirit of the super-injunction due to the risk that, at the time, was applied to the individuals on the dataset. To be honest, it was pretty unpalatable for me as a parliamentarian, especially as someone who h…”

“During that period, I wrote to the Leader of the Opposition, inviting her to be read on. As you will recall from the time, it took a wee while to get a response to that, but we read her on ahead of the lifting of the super-injunction. And, just at the point of lifting the super-injunction, as part of a managed briefing…”

“My sense is that we have, yes. However, to answer your question fully and give you confidence on that, I will write to the Committee with the details, as per the Chair’s instruction earlier. We are not anticipating having operations in the same way as we have had in Afghanistan. However, we do work with partner forces …”

“Again, I will turn to Dominic for the details on that question, but broadly, on the basis of the Rimmer review that assessed a different level of risk, we were able to make a different decision around the risk, which enabled the Defence Secretary and me to agree to lift, or to apply to the court to lift, the super-inju…”

“That might be one for Dominic.”

“My message, very clearly, is that we will honour our obligation in full to eligible Afghans. This country, under both the previous Government and the current Government, has promised that we will honour that obligation. We have relocated 38,000 or so eligible Afghans to date, including key principal individuals and imm…”

“My assessment, broadly—without talking about individuals, because it is difficult for me to do so—is that I do not blame individual actions; I blame a system that was not set up to deliver the intended outcomes and was not comprehensive enough to access all the evidence and data that Defence held across our different s…”

“The decision was taken by the Secretary of State to close the schemes with immediate notice, based on the information we had available to us at the time, which would have been informed by the Rimmer review. The review not only looked at the implications for the individuals on the dataset but gave an assessment of risk …”