TNAG-0525-FCO40-620-Visit-of-UK-Members-of-Parliament-(Defence-and-External-Affa-1975 — Page 214

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concerned should be asked to consider inviting the department to express its view also to the Committee as soon as possible.

Closed Sessions

in

24. As pointed out in para 9, a number of Committees often admit the public and Press. If it appears likely that topics to be discussed at a particular session are such that the departmental witnesses would only be able to give substantive answers provided they were not published, the department should write to the chairman of the Committee or the Clerk telling him of their difficulties: most cases, it would be appropriate for the department to move their

Minister to write to the chairman. If an official is asked a question in open session which he cannot answer on security or similar grounds, he should simply tell the Committee that this is the situation: he should not himself suggest that the Committee should go into closed session. In certain technical fields (eg defence research) it may be practicable and helpful for a department to hold off-the-record 'presentations for members of the Committee.

25. If a Committee meets in closed session, the treatment of evidence which the department does not wish to be published will

be on the same basis as for the PAC. The full evidence will be

set out in the record, to which members of the Committee have access. Departments will be shown a transcript of the evidence and will have an opportunity to sideline that evidence which they do not wish to be published, and to explain their reasons for this to the Committee. The decision whether to publish or not rests with the Committee and not with the department. Oral and written evidence given in closed

session should not be disclosed by departments before it has been

published by the Committee.

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