A minister has been urged to correct the record on the number of Afghans seeking safety in the UK after he incorrectly claimed "hundreds of thousands" of applications had been made.
Defence minister James Heappey refused to give a lifeline to an Afghan air force veteran who served alongside British forces and is facing deportation to Rwanda when grilled by MPs on the "scandal" raised by The Independent.
Mr Heappey said in the Commons that the "vast majority" of those who had applied to the Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy (Arap) refugee scheme would not be eligible because they did not work in "direct support" of British military.
"We have had hundreds of thousands of applications - the vast majority of which have come from people who either served in the Afghan national forces, who, whilst their effort was heroic, was never who Arap was aimed at," the armed forces minister said.
However, rather than "hundreds of thousands" of applications, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) told The Independent that 138,000 applications to the Arap scheme had been received to date - well below the figure stated by the minister.
Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesperson Layla Moran MP urged Mr Heappey to correct the record. "The Conservatives handling of the Afghanistan crisis has been catastrophic from the very start," she said.
"Now ministers can't even seem to get the figures right. It's important that James Heappey corrects the record as soon as possible," said Ms Moran.
The senior MP added: "Getting the facts right is surely the very least that we owe to those brave Afghans who supported our efforts in Afghanistan - and have been so badly let down by the Conservative government."
The Independent understands that the MoD have judged that Mr Heappey does not need to correct the record in parliament - despite the mistake being discussed by his officials.
The ministry revealed the latest figures showing that only 15,420 Afghans - the applicants and their family members - have been identified as eligible for help under the Arap. Some 12,200 of them have already been relocated to the UK so far.
Guidance on the government's website says that Arap is for "Afghan citizens who worked for or with the UK government in Afghanistan in exposed or meaningful roles". However, The Independent understands that its remit is in fact far more narrow than this suggests.
The scheme is only accepting those who were directly employed by the British forces, or those who held a role that materially contributed to a specific British effort in Afghanistan.
The Afghan pilot threatened with removal to Rwanda after arriving in the UK by small boat - who flew dozens of missions against the Taliban - has said he feels "forgotten" by the government.
Dozens of military chiefs, politicians and celebrities - including Sting, Guy Ritchie and Piers Morgan - have backed The Independent's campaign demanding a rethink and consideration for the pilot under the Arap scheme.
Asked about the pilot's case on Monday, Mr Heappey said his department was looking at "whether or not there are any special circumstances under which the application could be approved".
But he added that, "in principle, as a member of the Afghan national security forces, rather than somebody who worked alongside the British armed forces, [the pilot] would not automatically be in scope".
A MoD spokesperson said: "We owe a debt of gratitude to those interpreters and other staff eligible under the Arap scheme who worked for, or with, UK forces in Afghanistan. That's why we have committed to relocating all eligible Afghans and their families to the UK under the ARAP scheme - a commitment we will honour."
"Our absolute priority is supporting the movement of eligible people out of Afghanistan and to date, we have relocated over 12,200 individuals to the UK under Arap."
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