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Mr. Hogg: I should like to explore with the Minister the exact extent of the prohibition on the disclosure of information. I go back to the point on which I have already addressed the Committee--on eight or nine occasions, according to the Under-Secretary. He was exaggerating a trifle, but no matter.
If we are to have such a procedure, we must safeguard the right of the accused. In the early part of the debate, the Under-Secretary told my right hon. Friend the Member for North-West Cambridgeshire (Sir B. Mawhinney) that the commission would pass information on to the police, or to the prosecution authorities, who would communicate that information to the defence, if they believed that it was of value to the defence.
I want to be absolutely certain that nothing in clause 5 prohibits the process of communication between the commission, the prosecution and the police, and
subsequently to an accused person or to an accused person's lawyers. I am perfectly well aware that the phrase "relevant information" is narrowly defined in clause 1(3). On one interpretation of clause 5, there is nothing to prevent the commission from communicating information to the prosecution authorities--whether they be the police or the prosecution services--and thereafter to the defence, if that material is helpful to the defence.
If the Under-Secretary's assurance to my right hon. Friend the Member for North-West Cambridgeshire is to have any value, the commission must be able to communicate to the prosecution authorities, and then to the defence, material that may be helpful to the defence in asserting the defence. We must be sure that nothing in clause 5 prohibits that. I do not think that there is anything, but we need a specific assurance on that point.
Mr. Öpik:
I am surprised by the right hon. and learned Gentleman's concern, because the Bill is clear cut. I am not sure why he is concerned because, having read the Bill, I am not. I have tried to understand his concern, as he has expressed it repeatedly. The Bill seems pretty self-explanatory, but then I am not a lawyer.
I slightly take issue with the hon. Member for Greenock and Inverclyde (Dr. Godman). The important point is that, if I were in the position of the families of "The Disappeared", I would want to know that information had been disclosed which could lead to the discovery of a body, even if eventually that hope were dashed. I would feel robbed of that hope if I were not given that information. The hon. Gentleman made a fair point, and it is difficult to empathise with the families given the stress that they are under, but I think that in their position I would ask to be kept informed, even if it turned out that the information was wrong. To that extent, I think that this provision is reasonable.
Mr. William Ross:
The clause provides quite a lot of protection for the murderers, in that it prohibits the disclosure of the identity of the persons who are providing the information. I should be grateful if the Minister would confirm that that is so. It also protects those who may have killed, as evidence that may come forward by association with the informant will also not be available. It does not tell us who is to recover the body. It provides that members of the victim's family can be informed of the approximate site of the buried remains. Will the servants of the commission or the police carry out the recovery? We should be told.
Mr. Ingram:
We do not know the extent or the nature of the information that will be given to the commission; that is in the hands of others. We are not in receipt of that information; we have not seen its colour or shape, even at this stage. The commission will take receipt of the information, and its main function will be to facilitate the
The Garda Siochana may not have the necessary expertise. Specialist excavation equipment may be required, or the use of Army personnel or specialist technicians. We can only speculate on that. That is why the Bill refers to agents, and gives everyone protection. The commission will receive information and pass it to the appropriate authority. The RUC or the Garda Siochana will recover the remains if they have the resources. If they have to call in special expertise, they will do so because the objective is to recover the remains.
Running parallel with that is the need, as my hon. Friend the Member for Greenock and Inverclyde (Dr. Godman) said, to handle the matter sensitively. We have been closely involved with the families to try to understand what they want, which is early information. It would be wholly wrong if information were leaked and the media were ruthless--although I hesitate to use that word. Their interest is in the dissemination of news, not the sensitivities of the families. If they got hold of the information, they would make it headline news immediately, perhaps before the families received it. The commission must be quick to give the families the information that it has to hand, to tell them what has happened and to keep them up to speed with all the processes.
The people who will undertake the excavation will also have a responsibility. I can speak only for the RUC, but I know that the Garda Siochana will also operate sensitively and will be aware of the need to assist the families through the process.
Mr. Hogg:
I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman will come to the point that I made shortly, so I shall not trouble him with that, but I want to touch on the point that he is making now. For understandable reasons, there is a prohibition on the giving of information that may distress the families. I do not see in the Bill any method for enforcing that prohibition. Disclosure, which is not authorised, but is indeed prohibited, under clause 5, is not an offence. What would happen if it became apparent that a member of the commission or, more likely, a third party communicated to the press information that should not be communicated by reason of the prohibition? There is no means in the Bill to take action against that person.
Mr. Ingram:
That was referred to on Second Reading. I appreciate that the right hon. and learned Gentleman did not participate in our examination of that possibility. If it was an agent of the Crown--a police officer or a member of the Ministry of Defence--who revealed the information and we were aware of that, that person would be the subject of disciplinary proceedings. Right hon. and hon. Gentlemen often proudly tell us that they have received leaks from Government sources. That is stealing, and if they have received a leak from someone in the Northern Ireland Office or the RUC, that person is in breach of regulations. If the person's identity were made known to the Government, or to the Chief Constable if it was an RUC officer, we would be obliged to act under the disciplinary code.
We cannot prevent every eventuality. We hope that those who act in the name of the Governments understand the sensitive nature of the information. The prime purpose of the legislation is to protect the interests of the families, and to give then comfort and succour. If information given by the IRA is used to exploit the situation and to make the RUC or the Garda Siochana look foolish, that would come to light very quickly. What publicity benefit would the IRA gain from that?
We could spend a long time trying to think of various eventualities. I have not done so, because I do not know what information will be provided. We may not be given any more information than that the remains are at site X. The commission then has an obligation to disclose it. The minute the information is passed to the RUC, if it discovers that it is relevant to a case in which there is a defence interest, under existing legislation it is obliged to make it available to the Director of Public Prosecutions and to go through the process that we have discussed at length. That is the chain through which the information will be made available.
Dr. Godman:
My intervention is prompted by the thought that, ideally, it would be better for the authorities to tell a family that they had disinterred a body that they believed to be the remains of their son, father or brother and that they required some form of identification, such as dental records.
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