§ Mr. WrayTo ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (1) pursuant to his answer of 21 June 2002,Official Report, column 633W, on Malcolm Rennie and Brian Peters, when the families of Brian Peters and Malcolm Rennie were informed of the report by HM Vice-Consul in Jakarta on the men's funeral service; [73422]
(2) pursuant to his answer of 21 June, 2002, Official Report, column 633W, on Malcolm Rennie and Brian Peters, whether information from interviews conducted by James Dunn in 1977 regarding the deaths of Malcolm Rennie and Brian Peters has been passed to the families. [73421]
§ Mike O'BrienForeign Office consular files are handled differently to other FCO records. Because of the transient nature of consular cases, papers on them are usually only kept for 7 years. Unlike most other Foreign Office papers, they are not part of the public record, and so are then destroyed.
We therefore cannot confirm whether the information from the interviews conducted by James Dunn was passed to the families at the time. Nor are we able to confirm when the families were first informed of the report by the Vice Consul in Jakarta on the men's funeral service. Copies of the 1975 and 1976 political files on this subject hove now been passed to the families. The 1977 political files will be released under normal terms of the thirty year rule in 2008.