§ Mr. Adleyasked the Secretary of State for Defence what is the approximate total cost involved in answering parliamentary questions, preparing material for other Departments so to do and in preparing material for debates, surrounding all the allegations made about the sinking of the General Belgrano.
§ Mr. HeseltineParliamentary business concerning the sinking of the Belgrano and surrounding issues has, since the event, occupied a large amount of the time of Ministers and senior officials. No record has been kept of all of this effort and it is not therefore possible readily to provide an accurate estimate of the total cost. As an example of some of the work involved, Defence Ministers and the Prime Minister have answered more than 200 parliamentary questions on "Belgrano matters". The effect of all these inquiries has been to show that the Government took the appropriate measures to counter the threats to the task force, on the basis of military and other advice which no responsible Government could have ignored.
§ Mr. Foulkesasked the Secretary of State for Defence if he will place in the Library copies of (a) the minute dated 9 April 1984 to Mr. Ponting requesting a reply to the letter from the hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell), (b) the minute dated 12 April 1984 from Mr. Ponting to the Secretary of State for Defence together with the proposed draft reply to the hon. Member for Linlithgow, (c) the minute dated 2 May 1984 to Mr. Ponting requesting a draft reply to the hon. Member for Linlithgow's letter of 1 May 1984, (d) the minute dated 9 May from the Minister of State for the Armed Forces to Mr. Ponting, (e) the minute dated 9 May 1984 from Mr. Ponting to the Secretary of State for Defence, together with the draft reply to the hon. Member for Linlithgow and Mr. Ponting's minute to the Prime Minister, (f) the minute dated 10 May 1984 from the Minister of State for the Armed Forces to the Secretary of State for Defence, (g) the minute dated 11 May 1984 from the Secretary of State for Defence to the Minister of State for the Armed Forces, (h) the minute dated 3 July 1984 from DS11 to DS5 relating to Mr. Ponting, (i) the minute dated 4 July 1984 from DS5 to DS11 relating to Mr. Ponting, (j) the minute dated 6 July 1984 from the head of DS11 to the Minister of State for the Armed Forces relating to Mr. Ponting and (k) the minute from the Minister of State for the Armed Forces to the Secretary of State referred to on 18 February, Official Report, columns 745–46.
§ Mr. HeseltineNo.
I have already placed in the Library a copy of the request from my private secretary, dated 22 March 1984, to Mr. Ponting to provide a draft reply to the letter of the hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) of 19 March 1984. I have also provided a copy of the draft reply which Mr. Ponting recommended to me on 29 March 1984. These documents are relevant to the decision I took at the time on the handling of the hon. Member for Linlithgow's letter and, as I had to quote from them in the House in order to deal with assertions made by Mr. Ponting, I thought it right to make them available. As I made clear in the House, the essence of Mr. Ponting's subsequent minutes of 12 April 1984 and 9 May 1984 was that the information requested by the hon. Member for Linlithgow about the Belgrano's course and related matters was not 299W classified and that, if it were sought in parliamentary questions, in Mr. Ponting's view, there would be no reason to withhold it. I also explained that that was not his original advice. I explained in the debate in the House on 18 February why I, as the Minister accountable to Parliament in this matter, replied as I did to the hon. Member for Linlithgow on 18 April 1984. In that reply, I did not follow Mr. Ponting's revised advice adopted in his second recommended draft on 12 April. The Government had already decided to proceed on lines consistent with his earlier advice.
I have already placed in the House of Commons Library a copy of head of DS1l's minute of 6 July 1984 since it was necessary for me to quote from it during the debate in order to dispose of the unfounded allegation that it showed that Ministers had sought to mislead Parliament. The other documents requested concerning the Foreign Affairs Committee memorandum were internal Ministry of Defence correspondence between officials.