Select Committee on Foreign Affairs Written Evidence


Letter to the Clerk of the Committee from the Parliamentary Relations and Devolution Team, Foreign and Commonwealth Office

  Thank you for your 24 April letter. The Committee asked for copies of two documents from January 2003, following its 19 April oral evidence session with Philippe Sands QC.

  We have made a careful search of our records, based on your letter and the descriptions of these documents given by Mr Sands in his oral evidence to the Committee and in his book Lawless World.

  We do have a copy of the first document you refer to—a private note from the Foreign Secretary to the Prime Minister from January 2003. After careful consideration, the Foreign Secretary has decided that to release a document of this nature, which is highly classified, and refers both to intelligence matters and to confidential exchanges between her predecessor and the US Secretary of State, would be likely to be detrimental to the conduct of Government business and to the conduct of our international relations. I regret, therefore, that we are unable to release a copy.

  We have been unable to find anywhere in the FCO's records a copy of the second document you refer to— a record of the Prime Minister's 31 January 2003 meeting with President Bush.

Chris Stanton

Parliamentary Relations & Devolution TeamForeign and Commonwealth Office

12 June 2006





 
previous page contents next page

House of Commons home page Parliament home page House of Lords home page search page enquiries index

© Parliamentary copyright 2006
Prepared 2 July 2006