TNAG-0722-FCO40-920-Capital-punishment-in-the-Dependent-Territories-1978 — Page 123

A

Sir A Duff

PS/Mr Rowlands

Private Secretary

22

CAPITAL PUNISHMENT IN THE DEPENDENT OVERSEAS TERRITORIES

1.

In my view the draft letter for Ms Jenny Little is too thin. The other day I signed a political letter on this subject which went into some detail about the constitutional position over capital punishment in the dependent territories what happened when the UK Parliament first suspended and subsequently abolished the death penalty. A letter setting out at some length the factual background to the present position and ending with a statement that, when Parliamentary time permits and if Parliament wishes, the Government would be prepared to look at the report of the UK Parliament in this field, would be preferable to a short, politically frank, statement. On reflection it would seem to me preferable to make a number of factual points and let their consequences speak for themselves rather than to be as explicit as Mr Quantrill's draft.

David Funk

David Stephen Political Adviser

19 April 1978

Copied to:

PS/Lord Goronwy-Roberts PS/PUS

Mr Cortazzi

WIAD

tka 386/1

RECEP*

28 APR 1978

V

Taken

No 1 (sts. I fe