§ Mr. ArcherTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when the decision was taken by the police liaison unit in the prison department and by officials in the directorate of custody not to pass on information about the February Brixton escape plan to(a) the Metropolitan police and (b) the anti-terrorist squad.
§ Mr. Kenneth BakerThe information about the prisoners' intention to escape was passed to the police 395W adviser attached to the directorate of custody by the Metropolitan police, of which the anti-terrorist branch is part.
§ Mr. ArcherTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what information he was given about the involvement of the Staffordshire police in the 7 July Brixton escape on(a) the day of the escape and (b) the following day.
§ Mr. Kenneth BakerAs I made clear in my statement on 5 August at the time of the report on the Brixton escape by Her Majesty's chief inspector of prisons, information became available from the police in February 1991 that the prisoners Pearse McAuley and Nessan Quinlivan were seeking to escape, and that in particular they had identified the Sunday chapel service as an opportunity and were seeking to acquire a firearm. That information was reported to Prison Service headquarters and to the governor of Her Majesty's prison Brixton in February, but, as I have already made clear, it was not reported to Ministers until after the escape. I was given no information on the day of the escape, Sunday 7 July, about the alleged involvement of the Staffordshire police. On the morning of Monday 8 July I was given an oral report by the Director General of the Prison Service that information had come to light from a prison officer, said to have been collaborating with the Staffordshire police some months before, that the prisoners had at that point been interested in acquiring a firearm. The information given to me in this report was incomplete and unconfirmed. Serious questions remained about the way in which this information had been processed and why no action had been taken at that time to make it more difficult for the prisoners to escape. These questions fell to be considered as part of the inquiry by Her Majesty's chief inspector of prisons.
On the afternoon of Monday 8 July I reported to the House the established facts relating to the escape and announced Judge Tumim's inquiry into the circumstances. It would have been wrong to speculate in my statement about unconfirmed information that was itself one of the matters for the inquiry to look into. Her Majesty's chief inspector of prisons had access to all the available information in the context of this inquiry. On Thursday 1 August I received Judge Tumim's report setting out the circumstances of the escape and the events prior to it. He found that the information known to the police was made available to Prison Service headquarters and the governor of HM prison Brixton in February 1991, five months before the escape. This information was not reported to Ministers at any time prior to the escape. Judge Tumim advised me that for reasons of security he believed that much of his report could not be published, and that to publish it as it stood would endanger the remaining security at Brixton and the safety of individuals. I accepted that advice, and the information which could be published was made publicly available on Monday 5 August.
§ Mr. ArcherTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he will publish the report compiled by the Governor of Brixton prison during February 1991 which dealt with the involvement of the Staffordshire police with that prison.
§ Mr. Kenneth BakerNo.