§ 29. Mr. Dalyellasked the Attorney-General what increase in staff numbers he estimates will take place in his Department to deal with cases and alleged cases of breaking of sanctions against Iran.
§ Mr. DalyellDoes not that answer prove that Iranian sanctions are a most futile form of gesture politics that will achieve nothing other than insult? Does the right hon. and learned Gentleman look forward to a re-run, in even less satisfactory circumstances, of his Bingham debate?
§ The Attorney-GeneralThe reason why there is no need for any extra staff in my Department, in that of the Director of Public Prosecutions or in Customs and Excise is that we do not believe that there will be an unusually large number of breaches, and we expect to be able to deal with those that arise with our existing staffs.
§ Mr. James LamondIs one of the methods that the Attorney-General intends to use to deal with this matter similar to those that he used for Rhodesian sanctions, that is, that anyone who is approaching retirement age or who has retired can safely breach the sanctions against Iran provided he has sufficient documents in his keeping to prevent any case from being brought against him?
§ The Attorney-GeneralThat is a twisting of what I said in my statement. The principal reason for the decision by the Director of Public Prosecutions in 25 respect of the Bingham report was that it was considered by counsel, by the Director and by myself that the likelihood of conviction was not high enough to justify proceedings. We do not expect that in this case it will be too difficult for us, the Director or Customs and Excise to deal with these cases.