Former defence secretary Grant Shapps has defended the decision to keep secret a data breach involving the details of thousands of Afghans and some British officials.

In his first interview since it became public, Shapps told the BBC erring on the side of caution was “entirely justified”, adding his focus had been “sorting out the mess and saving lives”.

Many people were judged to be at risk of serious harm or even death as the Taliban sought retribution against those who had worked with the British government during the conflict.

He said the injunction blocking reporting of the breach was “quite rightly” applied for by his predecessor and he believed at the time it should stay in place.

A “super-injunction” – a kind of gagging order that prevents the reporting of even the existence of the injunction – was lifted earlier this week.

Shapps told BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme that “faced with the choice of whether that list would get out and people would be pursued, murdered and executed as a result of it, or doing something to try and save those lives, I’d much rather now be in this interview explaining why a super-injunction was required, than being in this interview explaining why I failed to act and people were murdered”.

He added he was surprised the order lasted so long and that he had thought, as the risks started to lessen, it would have ended last year.

Shapps was also asked why Intelligence and Security Committee, which scrutinises the security services, wasn’t informed, to which he replied “even a hint of this getting around…meant the risks were incredibly high”.

“The ‘who was briefed’ was decided by conversations with the judges,” he said, adding: “You can argue that circle should be wider”.

The data of nearly 19,000 Afghans who had worked with the British during the 20-year war in Afghanistan and had applied to resettle in the UK were inadvertently leaked in February 2022.

The details of over 100 Britons were also released, including spies and special forces.

The discovery of the breach in 2023 forced the government to covertly set up the Afghanistan Response Route (ARR) – a resettlement scheme for those affected, who were not told about the breach despite the risk to their security.

The scheme has already allowed 4,500 Afghans and family members to move to the UK and a further 2,400 people are expected, at an estimated cost of £850m.

The accidental leak was the result of someone working at UK Special Forces headquarters in London inadvertently emailing more than 30,000 resettlement applications to an individual outside of government, thinking that he was sending data on just 150 people.

The Ministry of Defence has refused to say how many people in Afghanistan may have been harmed as a result of the data breach.

The Taliban government said on Thursday that it had not arrested or monitored Afghans affected by the leak.