Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, how many people and their families were approved as special cases by (a) her Department, (b) the Home Office and (c) the Ministry of Defence to leave Afghanistan under ministerial directions in the run up to the UK's departure from Kabul.

'Special cases' can refer either to Category 4 of the Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy (ARAP), or to an arrangement by which, during the evacuation, FCDO Ministers, in consultation with Home Office and MoD Ministers, decided which cohorts of other especially vulnerable Afghans should be prioritised for military evacuation as and when flight capacity permitted under 'Leave Outside the Rules' (LOTR). The LOTR provision enabled the Government to offer evacuation to almost 1200 people who would otherwise have been unable to leave Afghanistan. In addition, some special cases were part of the ARAP cohort. However, as the ARAP application process does not enable distinction between categories of application, it is not possible to provide a definitive figure.