§ Mr. Stokesasked the Home Secretary how many British-born persons are detained on account of their knowledge of the telegrams which were sent by a British to an American subject in the United States of America through the American Embassy and shown by Mr. Tyler Kent to the hon. and gallant Member for Peebles and Southern (Captain Ramsey); and which of them have been tried under the Official Secrets Act?
§ Mr. H. MorrisonNo information can properly be given about confidential documents which were abstracted from the American Embassy. Moreover, without accepting his assumption that persons are in fact detained merely because of their knowledge of such documents, I must decline in the public interest to give any information which would indicate the precise nature of the activities which have led to the detention of any person under Defence Regulation 18B.
§ Mr. Stokesasked the Home Secretary in how many cases persons detained under Regulation 18B have been kept in prison as different from a concentration camp for more than one year; and what is the greatest length of time that any one person has been so detained?
§ Mr. MorrisonThe number of persons now detained under Regulation I8B who have been kept in prison for a continuous period of more than one year is 32 — 11 men and 21 women. One woman has been detained for two years in prison but her detention in prison rather than in a camp is at her own request.