OFFICIAL SECRETS

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20097, 17 November 1939, Page 7

OFFICIAL SECRETS

BILL BEFORE COMMONS INTERROGATION POWER RESTRICTION PROPOSED (British Official Wireless.) Reed. 9 a.m. RUGBY, Nov. 15. In the House of Commons to-day, the Home Secretary, Sir John Anderson, moved the second reading of the Official Secrets Bill, which, he said, contained one operative clause the object of which was to abolish the power in the 1920 Act whereby His Majesty’s forces could require, under penalty, any person to give information in his power relating to an offence or suspected offence under the Official Secrets Act.

Describing the power so given as “drastic,” Sir John Anderson said there had been only six occasions since 1920 when it had been used and, after certain events in 1937, the previous Home Secretary had given an undertaking that the powers would not in future be used except under the authority of the Attorney-General. Espionage Cases In December the Government had announced its intention to consider the effects of the section and, as a result, the present bill provided that the powers of interrogation shall'only be exercised in espionage cases, and only then with the consent of the Secretary of Stale, except in extremely urgent cases.

The bill also made it an offence to give false information in such circumstances.

Captain Wedgwood Benn (Lab., Gorton) approved of the bill on behalf of the Labour Opposition and Mr. D. M. Foot (Lib., Dundee), who was responsible for the consideration of the Official Secrets Act by the House on previous occasions, welcomed the bill for the Liberal Opposition and remarked that he hoped the Government would at a future time reconsider the whole operation of the Official Secrets Act.