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officials (who need to avoid giving, or seeming to give, personal opinions on policy options); and in this case, it seems the Committee failed to press on Defence Ministers in oral session questions which MOD officials had reasonably declined to answer at an earlier stage.
I am not clear to what extent Defence Ministers could have been more forthcoming. They too would have wanted to observe the conventions on matters subject to collective discussion, and the other well accepted areas where it is recognised that Ministers will not normally provide answers (eg matters of national security, private affairs of individuals or companies, matters subject to sensitive international negotiation, and areas where Ministers have appelate or quasi-judicial functions). It is of course ultimately for Ministers to decide what should or should not be disclosed within these conventions, and to defend those decisions. In this connection, the line you prepared for media use on the day of publication of the Gurkha report seemed to me exactly right.
However, while Government cannot expect always to prevent Select Committees from examining issues in the run up to Ministerial decisions, and while some generalised discussion of the policy options may be possible with Committees in such cases, we do need in my view to rebut in the Government's reply the sense of paragraphs 14 and 15 of the Defence Committee's report, that Departments have an obligation to put Committees in the same position as Ministers in advance of decisions. This could be done by incorporating in the appropriate form the sense of the final sentence of the press line on publication of the report incorporated in Miss Ambler-Edwards' letter of 2 March to the Clerk.
I should be grateful if those reponsible for drafting the Government's reply could liaise with Jonathan Spencer in Machinery of Government Division here (270 6140) as the response is worked up.
I am sending copies of this to those who attend our Wednesday meetings.
Yours sincinely,
Trever Woolling
(Puiste Scenetary)
Butter and
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Appureused my Sin Bellin
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