§ Captain Kerbyasked the Secretary of State for Air why his Department is authorising for publication, with reference to the Official Secrets Acts, the manuscript of a book published under the title of "The Hidden Catch," imposed as a condition the inclusion of a statement which, to the knowledge of his Department, was untrue and constituted a libel on the person referred to in that statement.
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§ Mr. BirchThe publisher referred the manuscript of the book to the Air Ministry. We advised that certain parts of the text contained classified information. The publisher accordingly had the book revised, eliminating passages to which there was objection on security grounds, and in the course of this revision introduced the statement to which my hon. Friend presumably refers. There was no objection to the revised text on security grounds, and it was with this aspect alone that the Air Ministry was concerned.