OFFICIAL SECRETS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 17 November 1939, Page 5

OFFICIAL SECRETS

MODIFICATION OF BRITISH ACT ANNOUNCED BY THE HOME SECRETARY. POWERS OF INTERROGATION LIMITED. (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, November 15. In the House of Commons today, 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 all information in his power relating to an offence or a 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 has been used, and after certain events in 1937 the previous Home Secretary (Sir Samuel Hoare) had given aii undertaking that the powers would not in future be used except under the authority of the Attorney-Gen-eral. In December the Government announced its intention of considering the effects of the section, and as a result the present Bill provides that the powers of interrogation shall be exercised only in espionage eases, and only then with the consent of the Secretary of State except in extremely urgent cases. The Bill also makes it an offence to give false information in such circumstances. Captain Wedgewood Benn approved lhe Bill on behalf of the Labour Opposition, and Mr D. M. Foot, who was responsible for consideration of Official Secrets Acts 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 Acts.