Responses to the Clerk of the Committee's
letter of 10 December 2007
I am writing in reply to your letter of 10 December
regarding the leak of the Chairman's draft report on the Government's
Counter-Terrorism proposals.
I can confirm that I have no knowledge as to
how any sections of the report became available to the media.
As I mentioned in our meetings previously I am strongly disappointed
that this has occurred as I believe such leaks are extremely detrimental
to the work of the Committee.
I hope that the forthcoming inquiry into this
leak will provide answers as to what has occurred and who was
responsible.
Rt Hon Keith Vaz MP
11 December 2007
I am writing in reply to your letter of the
10 December regarding the leak of the Chairman's draft report
on the Government's counter-terrorism proposals.
I can confirm that I received an electronic
version of the report on the 4th December and that no individual
except the Chairman had access to this copy.
Vernon Hunte
Office of Rt Hon Keith Vaz MP
11 December 2007
In response to your letter regarding the lead
of the draft Counter Terrorism report, I cannot shed further light
on how the breach came about.
I in fact must confess to having been rather
ill-prepared for the meeting to discuss and consider the draft
report and by the time the leak appeared in the Financial times
I had not actually read, or printed, a copy of the report at all,
and did not myself have a hard copy.
I do of course have access to the Committee's
shared drive and would be very happy to have my computer forensically
investigated to indicate the timing of my access and use of the
report.
Jessica Bridges Palmer
Select Committee Media Officer
4 January 2008
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