TNAG-1842-FCO40-2617-House-of-Commons-Select-Committee-on-Foreign-Affairs-enquiry-1989 — Page 124

MANAGEMENT IN CONFIDENCE

PERMANENT UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE

SIR MICHAEL QUINLAN K C B

PUS/M89/246 cc

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MINISTRY OF DEFENCE

MAIN BUILDING WHITEHALL LONDON SW1A 2HB

Telephone 01-218 2193 (Direct Dialling)

01-218 9000 (Switchboard)

In Yarnold Defence Dept

HRB 011/3th March 1989

Mr. Gillmore HRB 011/3

Mr. Bay K.. Keheren Kn Goulden

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DEPARTMENTAL SELECT COMMITTEES

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I write to bring you and colleagues up-to-date on the latest developments in those aspects of general relationships with Commons Select Committees on which my Department has found itself the reluctant occupant of the front-line trenches.

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2. On 1 March the Select Committee on Defence published a long

I do (It incorporated report on the future of the Gurkhas.

illustrations, in the not know whether this was a "first" form of four pages of Nepal snapshots attributed by name to various Committee members and their Clerk.) The Report included five paragraphs - copy attached at Annex A, plus relevant Appendix - sharply critical of the Department's dealings with the Committee. My Secretary of State (though his general preference in this campaign remains for suaviter in modo ) felt that we must be ready to give some initial reaction, and later on the day of publication our Liaison Officer sent to the Clerk

As it turned a letter of which I attach a copy to Annex B. out, we did not need to deploy the media line there set out. Mr Younger mentioned the matter briefly at Cabinet the following day.

strengthen the

3. These paragraphs of the Report further impression (for which there is clear though non-quotable collateral in general remarks made by the Clerk when he kindly joined in a training seminar here) that the Committee may well be engaged upon a conscious attempt to adjust the boundaries between Whitehall and Westminster.

4. I am sending copies of this letter and its attachments to our Wednesday morning colleagues.

Sir Robin Butler KCB CVO

Cabinet Office

70 Whitehall

London

MANAGEMENT IN CONFIDENCE

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