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On a freezing, foggy evening in December, the House of Commons finally formally responded to the last major financial sleaze scandal to hit parliament, and in doing so, sent an important signal about the way politicians look after themselves.

After more than a year of deliberation, the debate and vote late in the evening of Monday 12 December was the moment MPs would finally agree to a package of reforms in the aftermath of the Owen Paterson scandal.

Some might have expected fireworks, given they were collectively responding to the disgrace of one of their own found guilty of lobbying for cash during the pandemic – bringing the stench of political scandal back to Westminster and even hastening Boris Johnson’s departure after the former PM initially stuck up for Paterson.

The votes came shortly after 10.30pm and saw barely half of all MPs shuffling unenthusiastically through the division lobbies to register their position.

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I spent much of the evening in central lobby next door and detected little passion or interest about the subject under discussion from all but a handful.

A year earlier, such a vote would have been electric because sleaze was in the headlines, but as the temperatures that night dipped below zero again, it was clear neither MPs nor commentators cared much.

More on Westminster Accounts

What was agreed that night did amount to an important incremental tightening of the rules that was welcomed by campaigners. But the focus of the Westminster juggernaut had moved on with the change of prime minister. The vote was of little interest because many thought it of minimal practical consequence to them – it might mean up to 30 MPs have to reassess second jobs.

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How you can explore the Westminster Accounts

The Labour plan to ban second jobs had no chance of a majority after the Tories backed away earlier in the year. The debate, decision and votes generated not a single headline anywhere. Yet still, this moment sends a fascinating signal.

The real importance of what happened on 12 December 2022 was that MPs were telling the public that, in broad terms, the sleaze safeguards work well as they are. They were ultimately endorsing much of the status quo and deciding it was to stay in place.

The existing system to regulate MPs was, they were saying, fit for purpose and the current transparency declaration rules should stay as they are. And while there is genuine division over banning second jobs between the main parties, there was little sense of a need for other changes.

So what mattered that night was what was not on the table in the Commons and what was not discussed, but so many questions remain.

Is this the best system we could possibly have, given the Paterson affair happened as it did? Have MPs really come up with the best way to collect and publish data about outside earnings, gifts and donations? Is the register of members’ financial interests a sufficient guide to the financial dealings of MPs?

Why shouldn’t we be able to compare MPs’ outside earnings and rank them in order of what they get? Why shouldn’t we be able to work out who are the biggest donors to individual MPs, just as we can for political parties? Why shouldn’t we see more easily the networks donors give to? Who receives the largest sums, and which MPs appear to need no additional donations at all?

Just because there is no apparent appetite amongst MPs to explore these questions does not mean that others should not.

The Westminster Accounts is a collaboration between Sky News and Tortoise Media

That is why today Sky News launches the Westminster Accounts. Built as a collaboration with our partners at Tortoise Media, it marks a major experiment in transparency and public accountability in an attempt to shine a light on how money moves through the political system. And unlike most other exercises in journalism, we are sharing our workings.

In a landmark move, we are publishing a new publicly available tool to give voters the chance to explore. Everyone will be able to play with the financial data we have collected from publicly available sources about each MP, explore a new universe connecting the financial dots across our political universe – and draw their own conclusions.

It is an enormous effort lasting over six months, involving dozens of journalists, data scientists and designers from both media organisations, and is ready to use right now.

The Westminster Accounts in three steps

The Westminster Accounts involves three steps. Firstly, using publicly available data from parliament’s register of members’ interests and the Electoral Commission, Sky News commissioned Tortoise Media to build a spreadsheet showing us data about MPs’ earnings, donations and gifts in this parliament, since December 2019, alongside party donation data from the Electoral Commission database.

We now, for the first time, have a single figure for how much each MP has earned in this parliament and how much has been donated and from where. Alongside this, we have taken the information from the parliament website about the financial benefits provided by private companies and other organisations to fund all-party parliamentary groups that support informal networks of MPs, to help look at business activity in Westminster.

Secondly, Tortoise Media has turned this spreadsheet into a snazzy, carefully curated online tool accessible to everyone via the Sky News website and app. This allows anyone to, in the first instance, search the financial information of any MP and understand their financial affairs in comparison to colleagues.

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Then in a powerful and unprecedented move, once users have explored one MP’s financial affairs, they then have the ability to search by donor, MP and party in the political-financial universe represented by a series of globes. This tool will be updated every few weeks with the latest data provided by the authorities, at least up until the next general election.

Thirdly, Sky News has studied the data collected and used it to tell a series of interesting stories both about what we discovered and what the numbers reveal – but also about where the transparency promised by our leaders falls short.

Today we look at second jobs data, publishing a league table of the highest earners since December 2019, a feat not possible until now. But by treating the data as a starting point for our enquiries, we go deeper by examining company accounts of leading politicians and comparing second job promises with reality.

The significance of the stories in the coming days will be the discovery of what politicians have not told us, as well as what they have.

Risks of the project

This project is not without risk. We have created league tables of donors and earners, something the political system disliked. We will be told we have ignored context – some earnings are donated to charity, some MPs will earn more than others for less work, and MPs in marginal seats will have to raise more funds for campaigning than those in safe seats.

But we defend our right to look at the numbers in this way; and encourage the conversation that will follow, however difficult.

The most complex task, in crude terms, has been to turn the register of members’ interests into a spreadsheet. This involved turning the register’s complex written entries into stark figures for spreadsheet cells, stripped of the context which appears in their preferred format to allow us and our viewers to compare like with like. MPs will inevitably object, assert the project unfair and hunt for discrepancies.

This is not a process that – yet – can be done automatically and has involved hundreds of man-hours to check and double-check the entries. Given the volume of data on that scale, human error is an inevitability, and we will correct those and listen carefully to complaints.

However, we have assembled the data based on information MPs are required to submit, based on a methodology which has been externally validated and is available on this website. We profoundly believe and would justify our right to attempt such an exercise, to compare and contrast MPs – something by their nature they often feel uncomfortable about.

But rather than avoiding the exercise, Sky News is attempting to help shine a light on how money works in politics, so the public better understands what is going on.

If MPs are to defend what they believe are reasonable, legitimate practices, explaining them clearly rather than hiding them away might be a better answer.

Hannah White, director of the Institute for Government, goes further, suggesting it would have been entirely possible for MPs to do what we have – but avoided this for a reason.

“I think it’s a really good question why parliament hasn’t done this before for itself and the answer really is hiding in plain sight. There’s no incentive. For MPs really to make it easy to do the sort of comparison that you’ve done in this exercise.

“It’s much easier for them to say we’ve been transparent data is out there. People can go and look for it if they want to. But in fact, that data isn’t very easy to use, and it’s not real transparency.”

“I think the value of this tool is it enables us to see what real transparency might look like and hopefully, parliament and the Electoral Commission, will reflect and think, are we actually achieving the end that we’re trying to achieve? When we require transparency from our politicians, from our political parties, should we be doing this better ourselves? Should it be up to Sky and Tortoise to be doing this data analysis?”

Transparency is the best disinfectant

After every Westminster scandal, we are told that “transparency is the best disinfectant”. That is what we are testing in this exercise, and looking at the information they are required to submit to evaluate what it tells us.

We started from an important set of principles. There is no assumption money in politics is a bad thing, just a political reality. This project has not set out to find a scandal and nor have we stumbled across one.

We make no judgement on MPs’ holding second jobs or getting money from outside sources, just defend our right to try and compare MPs with each other on the basis of their earnings. (We note Sir Geoffrey Cox, who is happy to provide a lengthy explanation of his barrister work, was elected by the voters of West Devon and Torridge with healthy majorities at each of the last five general elections.)

Our only goal has been to understand better what goes on as money flows through the system.

But as viewers will see from our reporting this week, that transparency has felt like it too often falls short, and when MPs are asked questions about donations, earnings, donors or gifts, they shy away from the camera and try and ignore the questions. Far too often evasion is the default response when questions involve money.

Politicians always tell us that we can trust them because they are transparent – that they are upfront about all of their dealings.

Last month MPs quietly made clear they were broadly content with the level of transparency the public is offered, tinkering with rather than transforming the system. This week the Westminster Accounts will pose the question of whether the rest of us are too.

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Almost 7,000 Afghans being relocated to UK in secret scheme after MoD data breach

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Almost 7,000 Afghans being relocated to UK in secret scheme after MoD data breach

Almost 7,000 Afghan nationals are being relocated to the UK following a massive data breach by the British military that successive governments tried to keep secret with a superinjunction.

The blunder exposed the personal information of close to 20,000 individuals, endangering them and their families – with as many as 100,000 people impacted in total.

The UK only informed everyone on Tuesday – three-and-a-half years after their data was compromised.

Politics latest: Minister sorry after ‘extraordinary secrecy’ concealed data leak

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) said the relocation costs alone directly linked to the data breach will be around £850m. An internal government document from February this year said the cost could rise to £7bn, but an MoD spokesperson said that this was an outdated figure.

However, the total cost to the taxpayer of existing schemes to assist Afghans who are deemed eligible for British support, as well as the additional cost from the breach, will come to at least £6bn.

In addition, litigation against the UK arising from the mistake could add additional cost, as well as whatever the government has already spent on the superinjunction.

Details about the blunder can finally be made public after a judge lifted the injunction that had been sought by the government.

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Defence secretary on Afghan leak

Barings Law, a law firm that is representing around 1,000 of the victims, accused the government of trying to hide the truth from the public following a lengthy legal battle.

Defence Secretary John Healey offered a “sincere apology” for the data breach in a statement to MPs in the House of Commons on Tuesday afternoon.

He said he had felt “deeply concerned about the lack of transparency” around the data breach, adding: “No government wishes to withhold information from the British public, from parliamentarians or the press in this manner.”

The previous Conservative government set up a secret scheme in 2023 – which can only now be revealed – to relocate Afghan nationals impacted by the data breach but who were not eligible for an existing programme to relocate and assist individuals who had worked for the British government in Afghanistan.

Some 6,900 Afghans – comprising 1,500 people named on the list as well as their dependents – are being relocated to the UK as part of this programme.

Afghan co-workers and their families board a C-130J plane of the South Korean Air Force at an airport in Kabul during an evacuation operation. Pic: South Korean Defense Ministry/ZUMA Press Wire/Shutterstock
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Afghan co-workers and their families board a plane during the Kabul airlift in August 2021. Pic: South Korean Defense Ministry/ZUMA Press Wire/Shutterstock

This comes on top of the many thousands more who are being moved until the Afghan Relocation and Assistance Policy (ARAP). A lot of these individuals are also caught up in the data breach.

The Times, which has been battling the injunction, said a total of 18,500 people have so far been relocated to the UK, including those directly impacted plus their dependents.

Read more:
‘My family is finished’: Afghan man in UK military data breach says he feels betrayed

Analysis: Retreat from Afghanistan began as a farce, then it was a scandal, now it’s a cover-up

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Some 5,400 more Afghans who have already received invitation letters will be flown to the UK in the coming weeks, bringing the total number of Afghans affected by the breach being brought to the UK to 23,900. The rest of the affected Afghans will be left behind, the newspaper reported.

How did the data breach happen?

The disaster is thought to have been triggered by the careless handling of an email that contained a list of the names and other details of 18,714 Afghan nationals. They had been trying to apply to a British government scheme to support those who helped or worked with UK forces in Afghanistan that were fighting the Taliban between 2001 and 2021.

Hundreds of people gather some holding documents, near an evacuation control checkpoint on the perimeter of the Hamid Karzai International Airport, in Kabul. Pic: AP
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People gathered desperately near evacuation control checkpoints during the crisis. Pic: AP

Hundreds of people gather near an evacuation control checkpoint outside the airport at Hamid Karzai International Airport, in Kabul. Pic: AP
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The evacuation at Kabul airport was chaotic. Pic: AP

The collapse of the western-backed Afghan government that year saw the Taliban return to power. The new government regards anyone who worked with British or other foreign forces during the previous two decades as a traitor.

A source said a small number of people named on the list are known to have subsequently been killed, though it is not clear if this was a direct result of the data breach.

It is also not clear whether the Taliban has the list – only that the MoD lost control of the information.

Taliban members are seen on the second anniversary of the fall of Kabul on a street near the US embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, August 15, 2023. REUTERS/Ali Khara
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Taliban members on the second anniversary of the fall of Kabul. Pic: Reuters

Adnan Malik, head of data protection at Barings Law, said: “This is an incredibly serious data breach, which the Ministry of Defence has repeatedly tried to hide from the British public.

“It involved the loss of personal and identifying information about Afghan nationals who have helped British forces to defeat terrorism and support security and stability in the region.

“A total of around 20,000 individuals have been affected, putting them and their loved ones at serious risk of violence from opponents and armed groups.”

The law firm is working with around 1,000 of those impacted “to pursue potential legal action”.

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It is thought that only a minority of the names on the list – about 10 to 15% – would have been eligible for help under the Afghan Relocation and Assistance Policy (ARAP).

The breach occurred in February 2022, when Boris Johnson was prime minister, but was only discovered by the British military in August 2023.

A superinjunction – preventing the reporting of the mistake – was imposed in September of that year.

It meant the extraordinary – and costly – plan to transport thousands of Afghans to the UK took place in secret until now.

Sir Keir Starmer’s government inherited the scandal.

What is a superinjunction?

In UK law, a superinjunction prevents the publication of certain information.

However, unlike a regular injunction, it also prevents the media from reporting on the existence of the injunction itself.

Superinjunctions can only be granted by the high court, with applicants required to meet stringent legal tests of necessity, proportionality and the risk of serious harm.

They are most commonly used in cases involving breaches of privacy, confidential business information, or where there is a risk of significant reputational damage.

Why was superinjunction lifted?

An internal review into the affair was launched at the start of this year by Paul Rimmer, a retired civil servant.

It played down the risk to those whose data is included in the breached dataset should it fall into the hands of the Taliban.

The review said it was “unlikely to substantially change an individual’s existing exposure given the volume of data already available”.

It also concluded that “it appears unlikely that merely being on the dataset would be grounds for targeting” and it is “therefore also unlikely that family members… will be targeted simply because the ‘principal’ appears… in the dataset”.

This is why a High Court judge ruled that the superinjunction could be lifted.

Mr Malik, however, said that he believes there is still a risk to those named in the breach.

He added: “Our claimants continue to live with the fear of reprisal against them and their families, when they should have been met with gratitude and discretion for their service.

“We would expect substantial financial payments for each claimant in any future legal action. While this will not fully undo the harm they have been exposed to, it will enable them to move forward and rebuild their lives.”

Latest MoD data breach

While the MoD’s data breach is by far the largest involving Afghan nationals, it is not the first.

Earlier this month, the MoD said Afghans impacted by a separate mistake could claim up to £4,000 in compensation four years after the incident happened.

Human error resulted in the personal information of 265 Afghans who had worked alongside British troops being shared with hundreds of others who were on the same email distribution list in September 2021.

In December 2023, the UK Information Commissioner fined the MoD £350,000 and said the “egregious” breach could have been life-threatening.

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‘My family is finished’: Afghan man in UK military data breach says he feels betrayed

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'My family is finished': Afghan man in UK military data breach says he feels betrayed

An Afghan man who worked for the British military has told Sky News he feels betrayed and “completely lost (his) mind” after his identity formed part of a massive data breach.

He told The World with Yalda Hakim about the moment he discovered he was among thousands of Afghans whose personal details were revealed, putting him at risk of reprisals from the Taliban.

The man, who spoke anonymously to Sky News from Afghanistan, says that for more than 10 years he worked for British forces

But now he says he regrets working alongside troops, who were first deployed to Afghanistan in 2001.

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Afghans being relocated after data breach

“I have done everything for the British forces… I regret that – why (did) I put my family in danger because of that? Is this is justice?

“We work for them, for [the] British, we help them. So now we are left behind, right now. And from today, I don’t know about my future.”

He described receiving an email warning him that his details had been revealed.

He said: “When I saw this one story… I completely lost my mind. I just thought… about my future… my family’s.

“I’ve got two kids. All my family are… in danger. Right now… I’m just completely lost.”

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The mistake by the Ministry of Defence in early 2022 ranks among the worst security breaches in modern British history because of the cost and risk posed to the lives of thousands of Afghans.

On Tuesday, a court order – preventing the media reporting details of a secret relocation programme – was lifted.

Read more from Sky News:
Minister defends handling of breach
The struggle for equality in Afghanistan
Afghan women throw babies to troops

Defence Secretary John Healey said about 6,900 Afghans and their family members have been relocated or were on their way to the UK under the previously secret scheme.

He said no one else from Afghanistan would be offered asylum, after a government review found little evidence of intent from the Taliban to seek retribution.

But the anonymous Afghan man who spoke to Sky News disputed this. He claimed the Taliban, who returned to power in 2021, were actively seeking people who worked with British forces.

“My family is finished,” he said. “I request… kindly request from the British government… the King… please evacuate us.

“Maybe tomorrow we will not be anymore. Please, please help us.”

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Retreat from Afghanistan began as a farce, then it was a scandal, now it’s a cover-up

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Retreat from Afghanistan began as a farce, then it was a scandal, now it's a cover-up

The retreat from Afghanistan during the Taliban takeover in 2021 began as a farce, then it was a scandal and now it’s a shoddy cover-up.

The farce was when the then foreign secretary Dominic Raab remained on his holiday sunbed in Crete rather than return to work during the height of the evacuation crisis.

Politics latest: Minister sorry after ‘extraordinary secrecy’ concealed data leak

It was a scandal because around 200 people were killed in the chaos, with distressing pictures of terrified Afghans clinging to the wings of moving aeroplanes at Kabul airport.

And now we learn that in a massive cover-up, the Tory government of Rishi Sunak took out a superinjunction to gag the media from reporting a data breach that put 20,000 Afghans in danger.

Over the years, superinjunctions granted by UK courts have been condemned for enabling celebrities and sports stars to cover-up extra-marital affairs, drug-taking and other secrets.

The superinjunction granted to the government in 2023 to conceal a secret scheme to relocate Afghan nationals was obviously entirely different and no doubt sought for honourable motives.

More on Afghanistan

But it was a cover-up nonetheless and not so honourable because it hid a data blunder exposing names and contact details of 18,000 people who had applied for asylum in the UK under a resettlement scheme.

The scheme had been set up by the government in 2021 to provide asylum for people who had worked with the UK armed forces and could be at risk of Taliban reprisals for working with western forces.

In the Commons, the current defence secretary, John Healey, said it was “deeply uncomfortable” to be prevented from reporting the data breach blunder to MPs until now.

Read More:
‘My family is finished’: Afghan man in UK military data breach says he feels betrayed
Almost 7,000 Afghans being relocated to UK in secret scheme after MoD data breach

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Afghans being relocated after data breach

The ministers involved in seeking the gagging order were the former defence secretary Ben Wallace and the then armed forces minister James Heappey, he said.

But while most MPs welcomed Mr Healey’s apology, it’s probably fair to say that if it hadn’t been for tenacious campaigning by media organisations the superinjunction might not have been lifted by the High Court.

One Tory MP, Mark Pritchard, accused the defence secretary of “wriggling” and said: “The fact is that he is justifying this superinjunction and not telling parliament, the press, the public and, unbelievably, the Afghans who were potentially in harm’s way.”

And, among a number of individual cases highlighted by MPs, Liberal Democrat Calum Miller told MPs that “in the chaos of withdrawal” a constituent who left Afghanistan was promised by British officials that his pregnant wife could follow him.

“Two years later, we have still not kept that promise,” said Mr Miller. “My constituent’s wife and child continue to move around in Afghanistan to evade the Taliban and my constituent is so desperate that he is talking about returning to Afghanistan – despite the risk to him – to be reunited with them.”

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Reform UK’s Zia Yusuf hit out at the Tory government’s asylum policy, writing on X: “24k Afghans secretly granted asylum, costing British taxpayers up to £7bn.

“The government covered it up. Who was in government? Home secretary: Suella Braverman. Immigration minister: Robert Jenrick.”

Later, Mr Healey was asked on LBC’s News Agents podcast if the official responsible for the data breach is still employed by the government. “They are no longer doing the same job on the Afghan brief,” he replied.

Hmm. That suggests the person hasn’t been fired, which will alarm those MPs who remain extremely concerned about this whole fiasco.

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Asked whether he would have taken out the superinjunction if he had been defence secretary in 2023, he replied: “Very, very unlikely.”

But when he was asked if he could rule out the use of superinjunctions by the Ministry of Defence in the future, Mr Healey said: “Well, you can never say never.”

So while Mr Healey will obviously be determined to avoid a farce in future, it appears that the threat of another Ministry of Defence cover-up in future hasn’t gone away.

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