Chris Huhne says home affairs committee report confirms that the police should never have been called in to investigate leaks
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/apr/16/damian-green-arrest-report-chris-huhneA senior MP today accused Whitehall officials of "wasting police time" ahead of the announcement about whether the Tory frontbencher Damian Green would be prosecuted in relation to a Home Office leaks inquiry.
Chris Huhne, the Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman, was commenting on the findings of a Commons select committee which concluded that senior civil servants had exaggerated the damage done by the leaks that led to the arrest of Green, and a police raid on his office in the House of Commons, last year.
The report, by the all-party home affairs committee of MPs, also criticised the police operation, which was headed by Bob Quick, the Metropolitan police assistant commissioner who resigned last week after causing a security lapse that led to a counterterrorism operation having to be brought forward.
Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today programme this morning, Huhne said he expected that the Crown Prosecution Service would decide not to prosecute Green.
The CPS will formally announce its decision at around 11am.
"It's a very significant report because it confirms what I think a lot of us suspected at the time of the arrest of Damian Green which was, frankly, that the police should never have been brought into this matter in the first place," he said.
"They were brought in order to cover official embarrassment rather than to investigate a matter of national security.
"What [the report] does is raise the question of whether or not Home Office officials, and particularly the Cabinet Office, which appears to have triggered the police inquiry with a letter, appear to have been over-egging things to such an extent that effectively they've been wasting police time."
Green, a shadow immigration minister, and Christopher Galley, a Home Office official, were arrested last year in connection with the leak inquiry.
It provoked fierce controversy at Westminster last year because the decision to arrest Green and raid his Commons office was seen by many MPs as an assault on parliamentary privilege.
Green strongly denies wrongdoing, and Galley has issued a statement saying he acted in the public interest.
The police were asked to investigate after an internal Home Office inquiry into more than 20 leaks in 2007 and 2008 failed to make any progress.
Sir David Normington, the permanent secretary at the Home Office, consulted the Cabinet Office – where officials were worried about other government leaks – and the Cabinet Office formally invited the police to intervene.
The Cabinet Office letter to the police said: "We are in no doubt that there has been considerable damage to national security already as a result of some of these leaks, and we are concerned that the potential for future damage is significant."
However, the committee concluded that there was a "clear mismatch" between the impression given by the letter and the evidence given by Normington, who told the MPs most of the Home Office leaks had not raised issues of national security.
"We are concerned that growing frustration in both the Home Office and the Cabinet Office may have led officials to give an exaggerated impression of the damage done by the leaks that could reasonably be presumed to have emanated from the Home Office," the committee said.
Since the Official Secrets Act was revised in 1989, leaking from Whitehall has only been a criminal offence if it involves the release of certain categories of information, such as material relating to national security.
But current Cabinet Office guidelines say officials can ask the police to get involved in a leak inquiry in cases that involve "a serious and damaging impact on the functioning of a department".
The committee said: "It is easy to imagine circumstances in which a leak of sensitive information could lead to a damaging impact on the functioning of a department without falling within the categories laid down [in the Official Secret Act].
"The Cabinet Office's guidance therefore seems to leave open the possibility of involving the police in an investigation without any suspicion – let alone evidence – that a criminal offence under the act has taken place.
"We recommend that the Cabinet Office revise its guidance to preclude this possibility."
The report also criticised the police handling of Green's arrest, which "owed more to the Keystone Cops than Softly Softly", Keith Vaz, the chairman of the committee, said yesterday.
"Although we understand that the police were anxious to operate discreetly, some of their efforts may actually have complicated the situation," he said.
"Twenty-four police officers, and a number of strategy groups, including some of the most senior police officers, were involved in the investigation, strategy, arrest of Mr Green and searching of his office."
In their report, the MPs identified more than 20 conversations that took place on the day of the arrest between police officers and the Home Office, David Cameron's office and the mayor of London, Boris Johnson, all of whom were being kept informed.
As a result, "all decisions made – who was informed, when, and of precisely what – [have been] subject to question and interpretation as interested parties probe to see whether anyone could have influenced or hindered the police operation", the MPs said.
To avoid this happening again, the committee recommended "the adoption by the police of a protocol setting out the exceptional circumstances in which a politician would be informed of any police operation while it is under way"
