Speeches by Thomas.

“In my first surgery as an MP in Plymouth, I met a constituent who had received an unspent conviction for a one-off crime committed 34 years ago when they were a child. Since then they have served their time, turned their life around and been a constructive member of society, in employment for 12 years. In 2022, they we…”

“12. What steps his Department is taking to help improve rehabilitation outcomes for people with unspent convictions.”

“Which we do not know.”

“There is an overlap.”

“Do either of you want to comment on that?”

“From some perspectives, it is not so easy to separate them, because ultimately we are talking about whether we can resettle people from one country. But I take your point.”

“I want to come back for a second to the wider question we were discussing a minute ago about resettlement of Afghans, and Afghans from particular units. As we ascertained earlier, there is an overlap with this data breach. Holly, you reported in July this year about the inquiry that two judges reported on into some of …”

“Secrecy is quite a burden to have. You had that for a long period of time, which you are used to as journalists because you protect your sources. So you have some element of secrecy anyway. However, the judge in the judgment in July of this year said that it was a “remarkable” feature of this whole situation that there…”

“Larisa, when you reported on this, you specified that some of the cases that were being reviewed, which had been rejected, were from Afghan special forces—is that right?”

“It is certainly shameful. I am just wondering whether it is incompetent or deliberate. Sam, you look like you would like to comment.”

“Do you put that down to bureaucratic incompetence, or do you think that is deliberate?”

“You have reported on the MoD saying that it was reviewing some cases of rejected applications from certain Afghans.”

“Larisa, are you able to suggest any reasons we might look into as to why it is becoming, seemingly from the reporting, harder and there is less of a willingness on the part of the UK Government to resettle certain Afghans in the UK?”

“Holly, I want to go back to something you alluded to earlier in the session. It comes from the discussion about the unknown numbers, from the MoD point of view, of Afghans being resettled. You said it is becoming much harder to resettle people from Afghanistan here. You recommended that we look into that and ask why. W…”

“So the super-injunction has been lifted, and most of this is out in the open now, but it is not all out in the open; there is still an injunction, and some things are covered by it. I want to ask you about that, but I will preface this by saying that we do not want you to say anything you should not; I am conscious tha…”

“That sounds like an epic task. On the things you have not been able to share—for example, the conversations and discussions around disclosing things to Parliament and the direct quotes that you have not been able to share—do you think the public would find them shocking?”

“You are talking about the statement in Parliament?”

“And that was when?”

“What do you mean by “provide cover”?”

“It must have been hugely challenging. Holly, do you want to touch on that? Give us a sense of the professional and emotional strain that the super-injunction put on you guys as reporters.”