Hundreds of Afghan soldiers to be allowed to relocate to UK after U-turn

The authorities says it is allowing immoderate "eligible" Afghan peculiar forces soldiers who fought alongside the British subject to resettle successful the UK, aft they were antecedently rejected.

Under the erstwhile government, astir 2,000 Afghans who served with specializer units - known astatine the "Triples" - were denied support to relocate to the UK aft the Taliban takeover successful 2021.

Armed forces curate Luke Pollard told the House of Commons a reappraisal had present recovered immoderate applications were wrongly turned down.

Pollard said determination was nary grounds of "malicious intent" successful the archetypal decision-making process, alternatively blaming mediocre record-keeping for immoderate errors.

The alleged "Triples" were elite units of Afghan soldiers acceptable up, funded and tally by the UK.

On Monday, Pollard said the authorities has truthful acold overturned 25% of the rejections.

He said a reappraisal had recovered caller grounds that immoderate of the Afghan soldiers had been straight paid by the UK government, meaning they were eligible for resettlement - and this grounds had been "overlooked" during the archetypal resettlement applications.

These errors were caused by a “failure to entree and stock the close integer records, and challenges with accusation flows crossed departmental lines", helium said.

He criticised the erstwhile authorities for a "critical failure" successful locating the close paperwork.

The defence curate said the authorities had reviewed galore of the cases arsenic a substance of urgency due to the fact that galore of the Afghan troops "remain astatine risk" nether Taliban rule.

Some of the Triples are reported to person been targeted and killed by the Taliban.

The reappraisal into the rejected applications was announced by the erstwhile Conservative authorities successful February, aft erstwhile equipped forces curate James Heappey said the decision-making process down immoderate rejections had not been "robust".

Pollard said the review's findings did not mean that each Triples would beryllium eligible for relocation, adding officials were inactive re-assessing immoderate of the applications.

Shadow veterans curate Andrew Bowie welcomed the continuation of the review.

He said the Conservatives wanted the close decisions made connected the "very important and highly delicate applications arsenic speedily and reasonably arsenic possible".