Official Secrets Act 1989 (Prescription) (Amendment) Order 2007

I thank the Minister for explaining the order. Perhaps I may say how pleased I and my colleagues are to see him still with his shoulder to the wheel. We understand and agree that both the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority and the Independent Police Complaints Commission regularly handle information, sensitive in its different ways, public disclosure of which would bear serious risks. The Minister will appreciate, though, that while we support the general thrust of the order, we are concerned to avoid an unnecessarily secretive approach. We ought to guard against a situation in which a blanket approach is taken towards a manageable risk. The order leaves open to doubt the exact nature of the information which is not to be disclosed. Will the Minister say precisely what information may not be disclosed? Paragraph 4.3 of the Explanatory Memorandum, to which the Minister referred, states in relation to the NDA: "““One of the categories of protected information is information relating to defence and security””." That is one of the categories. So what are the others? To what sort of defence information does it refer? I can see that there are security implications in respect of some information of which the NDA will come into possession, but of what information relating to defence that is not also information relating to security could it possibly come into possession? If that has not been fully explained already, I would be grateful for the Minister’s explanation. Paragraph 7.1 refers to disclosure of ““certain types of information””. Will the Minister explain exactly what that information is? Specifically, what rules will be applied in determining whether disclosure is permissible? Paragraph 7.6 refers to the risk that information gathered during the course of an investigation could impede a prosecution if disclosed without authority. We understand this. Equally, details of unfounded allegations against any person, such as a police officer, should not be allowed to be made public. Paragraph 7.7 states that any unauthorised disclosure could lead to prosecutions having to be abandoned. Did a particular case or cases cause the Government to decide that this order was necessary? It seems rather surprising that people in the position of members of the IPCC would even contemplate making information of this nature public and risking a case. Equally, it seems surprising that the perceived risk of leakage of sensitive information was not contemplated at the time of establishment of the IPCC. Will the Minister explain why this was?