en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afghan_Response_Route

Official UK government guidance contradicts the claim that the Afghanistan Response Route "operated from 2023 to 2025." The Ministry of Defence states that the ARR "became operational in April 2024" and was discontinued on 4 July 2025. A separate GOV.UK page about the data incident likewise says the ARR "was established in April 2024."

There was policy work on the scheme in late 2023, but the government's own published description distinguishes that earlier planning from the route becoming operational. So describing the ARR as having operated in 2023 is inaccurate.

The published record shows that at least one senior Labour front-bencher was informed well before the July 2024 general election.

In the Defence Secretary's official statement to Parliament, John Healey said: "As Shadow Defence Secretary, I was initially briefed on the ARR ... on 12 December 2023." MOD written evidence to Parliament repeats that ministers in the previous government agreed to inform the then Shadow Secretary of State for Defence, John Healey MP, and that he was first briefed on 12 December 2023.

It is true that other members of the later Labour Cabinet were only informed after the general election. But that is different from saying Labour's front bench was not informed until after the election. Because the Shadow Defence Secretary was briefed in December 2023, this wording is inaccurate.

The date here is wrong.

GOV.UK states that "In early 2025, the Government commissioned" the review by Paul Rimmer. The High Court judgment publishes the review as "PAUL RIMMER, JUNE 2025" and says it considered Afghanistan in spring 2025. The House of Commons Defence Committee likewise says Rimmer was first approached in December 2024, brought into detailed discussions in January 2025, and that "The Review was conducted in the first half of 2025."

So the review was a 2025 review, not a 2024 one.

This claim is contradicted by the Defence Secretary's official statement to Parliament after the injunction was lifted. John Healey told MPs that "The full number of Afghan arrivals under all schemes has been reported in the regular Home Office statistics, meaning that they are already counted in existing migration figures."

That means the ARR was not excluded from immigration statistics in the blanket way this sentence claims. The government may not have publicly identified ARR as a separate named route while the injunction was in force, but the arrivals themselves were still counted in regular Home Office statistics and migration figures.