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18 Mar 26. Report by the Comptroller and Auditor General.
Improvements needed to ensure successful completion of Afghan resettlement programme
- 37,950 people arrived in the UK under Afghan resettlement schemes between April 2021 and December 2025.
- Government expects to spend a total of £5.7 billion on Afghan resettlement up to 2032-33, of which £2.6 billion has yet to be incurred.
- The resettlement programme needs to urgently complete the key elements of effective programme management, including having better cross-government management information.
- Download the embargoed report (PDF)
- Download the embargoed press notice (PDF)
- Download the embargoed statement from the Chair of the Public Accounts Committee (PDF)
The government must overcome ongoing challenges including a lack of available housing and poor data to ensure its programme to resettle thousands of Afghan citizens in the UK is successfully completed, according to a new National Audit Office (NAO) report.1
Since 2010, the government has offered resettlement in the UK to certain groups of Afghan citizens,2 including people who worked with the UK government in some capacity during its military presence in Afghanistan. This work sometimes came with significant risk to those Afghan citizens and their families, who feared reprisals from the Taliban.
Although the schemes closed to new applicants in July 2025, thousands of Afghans are still being processed for resettlement.3 As at November 2025, 29,655 people were waiting to hear the results of their eligibility assessments.
Between April 2021 and December 2025, 37,950 people arrived in the UK under the schemes and, as at February 2025, the government estimated it would ultimately resettle around 9,000 more. Of those resettled, as at December 2025, 80% were living in settled accommodation.4
The government anticipates that its work to resettle and integrate people will continue until 2032-33, costing a total of £5.7 billion. It spent £3.1 billion on the schemes between April 2021 and December 2025, meaning a significant proportion of the costs have not yet been incurred.5
Several government departments worked at pace under complex and demanding circumstances when establishing the schemes,6 especially after the Taliban takeover resulted in a far greater number of people applying and becoming eligible for resettlement than had originally been envisaged.7
The need to respond quickly, coupled with departments being responsible for different groups of people and resettlement stages, meant that the schemes became complex and inefficient. This is likely to have led to higher costs and worse outcomes for resettled people.8
To address these challenges, in December 2024 the government merged the resettlement schemes into a combined Afghan Resettlement Programme (ARP), which aims to bring all eligible Afghan citizens to the UK by March 2029 and to have moved those citizens out of transitional accommodation by December 2029.
Although the creation of the ARP has led to some improvements,9 significant risks remain. These include poor data on the people to be resettled and their needs, and a lack of available housing, resulting in greater than anticipated levels of resettled people becoming homeless.
To ensure the successful completion of the ARP, the NAO recommends that the government:
- urgently completes the outstanding elements of effective programme management
- undertakes scenario analysis to understand the potential barriers to completing the resettlement of all eligible people to the UK, and how these can be overcome
- monitors the effect of the changes under the ARP, particularly the introduction of a nine-month limit for transitional accommodation
- uses the results of pilot programmes involving local authorities and community organisations to identify innovative approaches and spread good practice
- identifies measures of successful integration for Afghan resettled people and uses these to assess outcomes
Gareth Davies, head of the NAO, said:
“Government departments have worked together in challenging conditions to resettle thousands of Afghan citizens who were at risk of reprisals from the Taliban.
“Although progress has been made under the new Afghan Resettlement Programme, the government has more to do to successfully resettle the affected people in the UK.”
24 Mar 26. Shipbuilding unions have backed a call for the Government to bring forward defence spending, changing the fiscal rules if necessary to do so.
The Confederation of Shipbuilding and Engineering Unions (CSEU – made up of GMB, Community, Prospect and Unite – has thrown its weight behind a report by the Alex Ferry Foundation ‘Defending the Nation, Growing the Economy’ [see notes for link to the report].
The report calls on Ministers to tweak the Government’s fiscal rules in order to bring forward the proposed increase in defence spending.
A Defence Commission, made up of defence companies, unions, and other experts, must also be established to ensure money spent defends the nation while growing the sector, the paper argues.
Matt Roberts, GMB National Officer and Confederation of Shipbuilding and Engineering Unions (CSEU) President, said:
“Defence spending is at its best when it delivers good-quality union jobs across the country.
“This report sets out a vital blueprint on how to create this long-term security for our defence manufacturing sector.
“Having a clear sighted Defence Commission – linking together trade unions, skills policy, employers and government procurement – would help us to meet the Government’s ambition of strengthening the economy while defending the nation.
“But, vitally, the Government must bring forward the planned increase to the defence budget, before it’s too late for the sector.
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