‘16. The work of the Triples has placed members of the Triples at high levels of risk from Taliban reprisals. Some former members of the Triples have been tortured and some have been killed by the Taliban since the departure of UK forces from Afghanistan in August 2021. Members of the Triples who have not relocated to the UK are in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran, where the evidence shows that they remain at risk.’
‘Alongside British personnel, many Afghans also worked with commitment and courage to support the UK mission in Afghanistan. This includes members of Afghan specialist units, commonly known as the Triples, who fought valiantly alongside UK personnel, with some giving their lives and others suffering life changing injuries. … This Government are fully committed to delivering on the pledge made by Parliament to those in Afghanistan who are eligible to relocate and resettle, and we continue to welcome eligible Afghans and their families to the UK through our Afghan resettlement schemes. … Over the past 12 months, we have welcomed around 90 eligible families each month and we expect this pace to continue. This cannot, however, be an endless process and ultimately, the Government intend to reach a position where the UK Afghan resettlement schemes can be closed. We will update the House on this accordingly. We are grateful for the cross-Government commitment and approach to delivery on this important program and will provide further updates in the new year. We will continue to work to deliver on our commitment to resettle those eligible Afghans who have supported the UK, and to whom we owe a debt of gratitude.’
‘… Finally, as the Defence Secretary set out in his statement in December, the Government intend to reach a position where the UK Afghan resettlement schemes can be closed. We will update the House on this accordingly.’
‘7. Keeping ARAP open at BG will cause severe operational risk. ARAP casework is already slow due to its complex nature, and it is litigation intensive. With a current backlog of over 30k eligibility cases and 135 live legal challenges (over a third of which are delay-related) the inevitable surge in applications post-BG would exacerbate this to an unmanageable level. Even with the newly approved resourcing levels, completing the programme within this Parliament quickly becomes very unlikely. … 9. Leaving ARAP open for a month, or even a week post-BG, would provide more than enough time to inflict this operational damage to DARR’s current capacity. The only mitigation to this risk is closure before BG.’
‘6. Legislative and Legal Context 6.4 Due to the reasons set out above in section 5, and in section 11, these changes will come into effect at 15:00 BST on1 July 2025 as also detailed in the implementation section of the accompanying Statement of Changes. … 9. Impact Assessment 9.5 Closing the ARAP to new principal applications to the MOD after 15:00 BST on01 July 2025 will impact eligible individuals who would have otherwise applied after this point. Those who have not yet made applications will be unable to do so following immediate closure on announcement. … 9.6 The MOD has seen 13,000 new principal applications since October, with new applications still being received. The impact of the closure of the scheme with no notice period will prevent a spike in last minute applications and mitigate against an increase to the backlog of outstanding applications that need to be considered for eligibility by the MOD. Data on the expected volume of future applicants are not available, meaning it is not possible to quantify the expected impact of closing ARAP. … 9.8 There is a risk that closure of ARAP will displace applications from the MOD to the Home Office, either in the form of asylum claims, considerations for leave outside the rules, or other applications on family and human rights grounds. Similarly, there is a risk that eligible individuals will remain at risk, or will seek to use irregular routes, including small boats, following the closure of ARAP. The latter would result in wider costs to Government. However, it is not currently possible to estimate these potential impacts. … 11. Matters of special interest to Parliament 11.1 These changes will come into effect at 15:00 BST on1 July 2025 and therefore depart from the usual convention that changes to the Immigration Rules come into force no earlier than 21 days after their being laid in Parliament. 11.2 The ARAP scheme remaining open will lead to a growing backlog of cases for the MOD to consider. The rationale for breaching the 21-day convention is that the MOD anticipates that the closure of the route with 21-days’ notice, or less, would lead to a spike in applications, with the expectation that these would likely feature a high proportion of applications from individuals who are not likely to be found ARAP eligible, with over 95% of all applications submitted to date being duplicates or ultimately found ineligible. This would further increase the backlog of ARAP applications and, in turn, risk increasing the time it will take to process existing applications. 11.3 The MOD also considers that the majority of those who would be eligible for ARAP have now applied and considers the ARAP to have fulfilled its original purpose such that it can be closed to new principal applications. By bringing the scheme to a close with immediate effect, the MOD can focus on growing priority issues elsewhere and re-allocate critical defence resource currently assigned to servicing and case working the ARAP to where they are most needed – on our nation’s security, to combat the acute threats and destabilising behaviour of our adversaries. 11.4 An immediate closure will also allow the MOD to process outstanding ARAP applications more efficiently, mitigating delay for existing applicants who may be found eligible for ARAP and move Afghan friends and allies to safety in the UK at a reasonable pace.’
‘My clients have searched for records of an application relating to your client’s son [EBAS], they have used the information provided by yourself which would be captured in an ARAP application. They have not located an application related to the information provided, as stated in your letter it remains open to your client to submit an ARAP application.’
‘If our client is forced to submit a new ARAP application, in light of the difficulties faced by our client in obtaining the necessary evidence of his deceased son’s CF-333 service; the 10-week delay to respond to our letter of24 March 2025 ; and the unexpected and immediate closure of the ARAP scheme, please confirm that your clients will exercise their discretion to accept our client’s ARAP application, in the unusual circumstances of this case.’
‘Insofar as your letter seems to suggest that our clients should exercise their discretion to accept your client’s ARAP application given the “unusual circumstances of this case” it is not open to our clients to do so. … As clearly explained on the gov.uk website – ARAP policy: “All ARAP applications received before the scheme closed on 1 July will be processed, but new principal applications will not be accepted after this point. Those who are found eligible will still have their immediate family members – such as one spouse and children under 18 – automatically considered for relocation. They will also have 30 days from accepting their ARAP offer to make an application to relocate any additional family members to the UK. However, no new applications will be accepted following the closure of the scheme”.’ “All ARAP applications received before the scheme closed on 1 July will be processed, but new principal applications will not be accepted after this point. Those who are found eligible will still have their immediate family members – such as one spouse and children under 18 – automatically considered for relocation. They will also have 30 days from accepting their ARAP offer to make an application to relocate any additional family members to the UK. However, no new applications will be accepted following the closure of the scheme”.’
‘3.1 This Statement of Changes in Immigration Rules has immediate effect and therefore departs from the usual convention that changes to the Immigration Rules come into force no earlier than 21 days after their being laid in Parliament. 3.2 The Government considers this departure from that convention to be necessary and proportionate for reasons of national security and the operation of the immigration system, and to be consistent with the purpose of the closure of the Tier 1 (Investor) route to new applicants. It is anticipated that closure of the route with 21-days’ notice, or less, would trigger a “closing down sale” effect, involving a very substantial upturn in application levels in advance of closure. It is, moreover, anticipated that this effect would be most likely to feature a high proportion of applications from individuals that represent some degree of potential harm. A similar “closing down sale” effect was triggered by anticipated reforms in the wake of a Migration Advisory Committee report in 2014.’
‘68. The search for principle surely starts with the theme that is current through the legitimate expectation cases. It may be expressed thus. Where a public authority has issued a promise or adopted a practice which represents how it proposes to act in a given area, the law will require the promise of practice to be honoured unless there is a good reason not to do so. What is the principle behind this proposition? It is not far to seek. It is said to be grounded in fairness, and no doubt in general terms that is so. I would prefer to express it rather more broadly as a requirement of good administration, by which public bodies ought to deal straightforwardly and consistently with the public. In my judgment this is a legal standard which, although not found in terms in the European Convention on Human Rights, takes its place alongside such rights as fair trial, and no punishment without law. That being so there is every reason to articulate the limits of this requirement – to describe what may count as good reason to depart from it – as we have come to articulate the limits of other constitutional principles overtly found in the European Convention. Accordingly a public body’s promise or practice as to future conduct may only be denied, and thus the standard I have expressed may only be departed from, in circumstances where to do so is the public body’s legal duty, or is otherwise, to use a now familiar vocabulary, a proportionate response (of which the court is the judge, or the last judge) having regard to a legitimate aim pursued by the public body in the public interest. The principle that good administration requires public authorities to be held to their promises would be undermined if the law did not insist that any failure or refusal to comply is objectively justified as a proportionate measure in the circumstances.’
‘41. There is first an overall point to be made. It is that both these types of legitimate expectation are concerned with exceptional situations (see Lord Templeman in Preston at 864; compare ABCIFER[2003] QB 1397 per Dyson LJ at paragraph 72). It is because their vindication is a long way distant from the archetype of public decision-making. Thus a public authority will not often be held bound by the law to maintain in being a policy which on reasonable grounds it has chosen to alter or abandon. Nor will the law often require such a body to involve a section of the public in its decision-making process by notice or consultation if there has been no promise or practice to that effect. There is an underlying reason for this. Public authorities typically, and central government par excellence, enjoy wide discretions which it is their duty to exercise in the public interest. They have to decide the content and the pace of change. Often they must balance different, indeed opposing, interests across a wide spectrum. Generally they must be the masters of procedure as well as substance; and as such are generally entitled to keep their own counsel. All this is involved in what Sedley LJ described (BAPIO[2007] EWCA Civ 1139 paragraph 43) as the entitlement of central government to formulate and re-formulate policy. This entitlement – in truth, a duty – is ordinarily repugnant to any requirement to bow to another’s will, albeit in the name of a substantive legitimate expectation. It is repugnant also to an enforced obligation, in the name of a procedural legitimate expectation, to take into account and respond to the views of particular persons whom the decision-maker has not chosen to consult.’
‘41. In summary, procedural fairness is well-established and well-understood. Substantive unfairness on the other hand – or, in Lord Dyson MR’s words [2016] Bus LR 1200, para 53, “whether there has been unfairness on the part of the authority having regard to all the circumstances” – is not a distinct legal criterion. Nor is it made so by the addition of terms such as “conspicuous” or “abuse of power”. Such language adds nothing to the ordinary principles of judicial review, notably in the present context irrationality and legitimate expectation. It is by reference to those principles that cases such as the present may be judged.’
‘What does fairness require in the present case? My Lords, I think it unnecessary to refer by name or to quote from, any of the often-cited authorities in which the courts have explained what is essentially an intuitive judgment. They are far too well known. From them, I derive that (1) where an Act of Parliament confers an administrative power there is a presumption that it will be exercised in a manner which is fair in all the circumstances. (2) The standards of fairness are not immutable. They may change with the passage of time, both in the general and in their application to decisions of a particular type. (3) The principles of fairness are not to be applied by rote identically in every situation. What fairness demands is dependent on the context of the decision, and this is to be taken into account in all respects. (4) An essential feature of the context is the statute which creates the discretion, as regards both its language and the shape of the legal and administrative system within which the decision is taken. (5) Fairness will very often require that a person who may be adversely affected by the decision will have an opportunity to make representations on his own behalf either before the decision is taken with a view to producing a favourable result; or after it is taken, with a view to preparing its modification; or both. (6) Since the person affected usually cannot make worthwhile representations without knowing what factors may weigh against his interests fairness will very often require that he is informed of the gist of the case which he has to answer.’
‘31. If the appellant’s argument were correct, the ramifications would be wide and undesirable: (1) As Mr Malik accepted, a further conscious decision would be required in respect of every invalid application. Adding an extra decision-making stage would negate the purpose for which the filter, with its accompanying fee waiver, was intended. Far from achieving fairness, that burden would work against fairness and good order in the system as a whole. (2) If a discretion existed, it would be impossible to exercise it without an investigation of suitability and eligibility that the filter is plainly designed to avoid. Anything less would be an empty and formalistic exercise. (3) Rule SW 17.1 provides that valid applications must be refused if the suitability and eligibility requirements are not met. It would be a perverse and unintended outcome if makers of invalid applications were in a better position to challenge decisions.’ (1) As Mr Malik accepted, a further conscious decision would be required in respect of every invalid application. Adding an extra decision-making stage would negate the purpose for which the filter, with its accompanying fee waiver, was intended. Far from achieving fairness, that burden would work against fairness and good order in the system as a whole. (2) If a discretion existed, it would be impossible to exercise it without an investigation of suitability and eligibility that the filter is plainly designed to avoid. Anything less would be an empty and formalistic exercise. (3) Rule SW 17.1 provides that valid applications must be refused if the suitability and eligibility requirements are not met. It would be a perverse and unintended outcome if makers of invalid applications were in a better position to challenge decisions.’