§ Mr. Gerald Kaufman (Manchester, Gorton) (by private notice)To ask the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary if he will make a statement about the diplomatic bags which have been lost in Wandsworth prison.
§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr. Mark Lennox-Boyd)We learned some days ago that bags containing Canadian diplomatic mail had been discovered by staff at Wandsworth prison. Diplomatic bags are routinely sent to Wandsworth prison for laundering. [Laughter.]
§ Mr. SpeakerOrder. I imagine that it is a Foreign Office brief. Come on.
§ Mr. Lennox-BoydI must get the answer right. On this occasion, the Canadian bags in question had been inadvertently included in such a consignment sent to Wandsworth. Steps were immediately taken to recover the diplomatic mail and to investigate the incident.
§ Mr. KaufmanI am sorry—I hoped that there would be more.
Will the hon. Gentleman explain why the question is not being answered by the Home Secretary? On Monday —[Interruption.]
§ Mr. SpeakerOrder. I remind the House that we have a busy day ahead of us. Interruptions will take up time.
§ Mr. KaufmanOn Monday, dealing with one case, the Home Secretary hid behind his predecessor. On another case, he hid behind his legal advisers and a junior Home Office Minister. Today, he is hiding behind the most junior available Minister in another Department.
Will the hon. Gentleman say what action has been taken to explain why the missing material was left in the bags sent to Wandsworth prison? Will he explain exactly when it was discovered that that material was in the bags sent to Wandsworth prison and when the search for it started? Is it true that an interval of several days elapsed between the discovery and the search? How much material is still missing? Is a search still going on for missing material? How much of that material, missing or retrieved, is sensitive material? [Interruption.]
§ Mr. SpeakerOrder. This is taking a long time. The right hon. Gentleman should be allowed to complete his question.
§ Mr. KaufmanWill the hon. Gentleman tell the House whether a watch was in the missing material and what guarantees—[Laughter.]
§ Mr. SpeakerOrder.
§ Mr. KaufmanWhat guarantees can the Minister provide that other metal objects cannot find their way into prison in the way in which that did and disappear as it did? When was the Home Secretary informed about this latest episode? Why have the Government not made it public? Would they have made it public if prison officers had not been aware of it? The hon. Gentleman says that the Government sent the material to be laundered—[Laughter.]
§ Mr. SpeakerOrder.
§ Mr. KaufmanAre the Government going to send other material that they want to launder to Wandsworth prison or are they now going to come clean about this episode? [Laughter.]
§ Mr. Lennox-Boydrose—
§ Mr. Lennox-BoydMay I take the right hon. Gentleman's question seriously? [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] Clearly, this is a matter for the Foreign Office—[Laughter.]
§ Mr. SpeakerOrder. I am beginning to wonder whether I should have granted this private notice question.
§ Mr. Lennox-Boydrose—
§ Mr. Joseph Ashton (Bassetlaw)On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. This is your responsibility. There are 3 million people on the dole and this country is in a deep economic crisis, yet all this is being shown on television and it is a disgrace.
§ Mr. SpeakerOrder. Let us get this over as quickly as we can.
§ Mr. Lennox-BoydThis is a private notice question tabled by the Opposition. The Government have a duty and I am here to answer it—[Interruption]—if the House will give me an opportunity. I think that this is important —[Interruption.] I am sure that the House will agree that this is important and that I should explain the background to the answer that I have previously given. I am sure that the House will bear with me for one or two minutes while I explain what has happened on this occasion. It is a serious matter.
The position is that the Canadian Government routinely send their diplomatic bags—[Laughter.] Should I go on?—to the Foreign Office for onward transmission [Laughter.]
§ Mr. SpeakerOrder. When I decided to grant this private notice question, I took it to be a serious matter and I should like it to be taken seriously.
§ Mr. Lennox-BoydOn this occasion, some of their bags were contained in the white diplomatic bag belonging to the Foreign Office, which they were using for convenience to contain their consignment—[Laughter.]—and, as I have explained to the House, that was the commencement of the error in question which, of course, we very much regret.
I have come to the House this afternoon from a meeting with a representative of the Canadian High Commission, with which we have been in constant touch from the outset of the incident. It is perfectly satisfied with the outcome of the preliminary investigation.
§ Mr. Robert MacLennan (Caithness and Sutherland)Is not the difficulty that the Home Secretary is incapable of keeping in prison those people who should be and keeping out of prison those things which should not be?
§ Mr. Lennox-BoydThat is as absurd a political point as was made by the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton, (Mr. Kaufman). Clearly, this is not a matter for the Home Secretary. It occurred in the Foreign Office and 399 the Foreign Office, and I personally take full responsibility for it this afternoon before the House. Cheap politics is no way to investigate the matter.
§ Sir Peter Tapsell (East Lindsey)Bearing in mind the fact that Prince Metternich eventually left Vienna disguised in a laundry basket—[Laughter.]—is not it clear that this incident is in the highest diplomatic tradition? Can my hon. and diplomatic Friend assure us that these important diplomatic communications were not ultimately put to any ignoble use?
§ Mr. Lennox-BoydAs we know, Prince Metternich was not the only person to be put into a diplomatic bag. It happened on other occasions, but not on this one. Our friends in the Canadian High Commission and the Canadian Government are conducting their own assessment of the case. It is obviously not proper for me to comment further on what it concludes, but it is satisfied with our preliminary conclusions.
§ Mr. Tom Cox (Tooting)As the Minister who represents the area containing Wandsworth prison, may I suggest to the Minister that if the exchanges of the past few minutes were conveyed to BBC television's "Yes Minister" they might indeed help to revive the Government's fortunes? But there is a serious point here. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] There is a serious point. Prison officers are repeatedly subject to abuses from the Government about their lack of commitment to the job that they do. If the diplomatic bags contained metal objects that got through the system, surely the Minister or his right hon. Friend the Home Secretary should take note of the seriousness of the problem. There have been enough prison escapes under this Government. Surely this should be an opportunity for giving serious consideration to and providing serious answers on this major issue.
§ Mr. Lennox-BoydThe allegation about a metal object being contained in one of the bags is new to me.