India: 1984 Operation in Sri Harmandir Sahib

Lord Richard Excerpts

Tuesday 4th February 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Warsi]

I alluded to that in my repeating of the Statement. I said that we were determined to look at the wider issues presented by these events about the management and release of information by government, and, of course, the management of how documentation is held and how it is destroyed. I will certainly make sure that the views of my noble friend are fed into that.

[Lord Richard (Lab)]

Will the noble Baroness help me? Has the advice given by the British military to the Indian Government been unearthed? Is that one of the documents that has been discovered fortuitously? If so, has it been published? Presumably the Indian Government might still have a copy of that advice. It might have been copied inside Whitehall to heaven knows how many departments. If the document exists, does she not think that perhaps it would be a good idea to publish it?

[Baroness Warsi]

As the noble Lord was speaking, I was going through the documentation that had been published. There was a note of the advice that was given. I am not sure whether that is part of the documentation that is published. I will certainly check that again. I suggest the noble Lord goes back, reads the report and looks at the documentation. It may well be that the information is in there. I have seen so much documentation in relation to this matter over the past three weeks that I am starting to lose track of exactly which bits of it I have seen where.