Official Secrets

Part of Prayers – in the House of Commons at 2:10 pm on 22 July 1988.

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Photo of Mr John Patten Mr John Patten , Oxford West and Abingdon 2:10, 22 July 1988

Indeed, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

The right hon. Member or Sparkbrook was concerned about designation. He was worried about paragraph 47 in the White Paper where he spotted the words "groups" and "list". He thought that that would mean that there would be universal classification of people according to their category of job. However, he did not read on through paragraph 48. I will quote less selectively than the right hon. Gentleman from paragraph 48 which states: But the persons concerned would be notified individually; and criminal liability would attach only after the individual officer concerned had received notification of his liability. Each individual will be designated individually.

I suppose that from time to time there are expressions for a group of people. I suggest that a group of principal private secretaries might be called a discretion of principal private secretaries. Perhaps we may refer to them as a group, but each of them acts as a conduit of information from the services to their Secretaries of State and they will be designated individually if that is the decision of the Minister as set out in the White Paper.

The right hon. Member for Sparkbrook was also concerned about certain earlier cases. I do not remember them all as I did not write them down, but they will be on the record. He asked whether the revelations would be authorised in the different cases to which he referred. I cannot give a clear answer to that because I cannot speculate on exactly what legislation the White Paper will lead to because the Bill is not drafted. Therefore, I cannot speculate on the decisions that will be taken by the responsible Ministers. However, I can speculate to the extent that I suspect that bits would have been authorised, but other bits would not. [Interruption.] The interesting bits.