Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how many eligible principals under the Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy has his Department lost contact with; and how many of these people are in Afghanistan.

The number of ARAP eligible principals who have failed to respond to contact is currently 70. Of these, our records show that 37 were in Afghanistan at the time of their last contact with the Ministry of Defence.

Applicants may fall out of contact with us for a variety of reasons: they may have changed their contact details and not informed us or have decided to relocate elsewhere. We continue to use a range of means to re-establish contact with these applicants in order to continue their relocation to the UK, should they wish to proceed.