§ Mr. THOMAS RICHARDSONasked whether, in the explosion at the Wingate Grange Colliery, on the 14th October, 1906, when twenty-four men were killed, a special report from Mr. Bain, the inspector for the Durham district, and Mr. J. B. Atkinson, the inspector for the Newcastle district, was received and sent back with a request that it be altered in substance; whether the inspectors refused to make the alteration, and whether they were summoned to appear before him in consequence; whether the report, as published, was altered at the Home Office itself, and whether Mr. Atkinson thereupon wrote in protest; and whether he claims the right to suppress parts of such reports which express opinions contrary to those of the Home Office without the sanction of the inspectors whose names are appended?
§ Mr. CHURCHILLThe case occurred before I came to the Home Office. The reports submitted by the inspectors, in addition to dealing with the causes and circumstances of the disaster, introduced matter, chiefly of a general character, which it appeared to my predecessor was beyond the scope of the report and was undesirable to publish. In particular, opinions were expressed on matters which had been referred to the Royal Commission on Mines to investigate, and which they were then engaged in considering. In the circumstances, Lord Gladstone, after seeing the inspectors, decided that the passage should be omitted from the published report, and referred to the Royal Commission for their consideration. This was accordingly done. It is not the practice to interfere with the inspector's statements of the facts relating to the causes and circumstances of a disaster in these special reports, and greater latitude is perhaps allowed to them to state their views on matters of opinion than to officers of the public service generally; but it is obviously impossible to allow an inspector uncontrolled liberty to use these reports as a vehicle for the expression of his personal opinions, and the discretion in regard to the publication of an inspector's views must rest—where it is placed by the Act—with the Secretary of State.