Wanless and Whittam

Tuesday 21st July 2015 Written Statements

[The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mrs Theresa May)]

The House will recall that the Cabinet Office released a file containing information about Sir Peter Hayman to The National Archives in January this year. That file should have been submitted to Peter Wanless and Richard Whittam QC in their review of “An Independent Review of Two Home Office Commissioned Independent Reviews looking at Information Held In Connection with Child Abuse from 1979-1999” which was published on 11 November 2014. As a result of the discovery of the Sir Peter Hayman file, the Cabinet Office undertook further searches of the Cabinet Secretary’s private papers collection. Officials identified four additional relevant files. The then Minister for the Cabinet Office, Francis Maude, informed Members about these papers in a written ministerial statement to the House on 4 February, Official Report, column 275.

Peter Wanless and Richard Whittam QC have now reviewed this additional material and produced a supplementary report. They have found nothing in these additional files and papers which leads them to alter the conclusions drawn in their original report, which was published in November 2014. They found

“nothing to support a concern that files had been deliberately or systematically removed or destroyed to cover up organised child abuse”

and saw

“no evidence to suggest PIE was ever funded by the Home Office because of sympathy for its aims”.

Nor do they alter their previous recommendations made in their report published in November. The Home Office accepted all three of these recommendations last year and continues to ensure they are being implemented across the Department.

The supplementary report refers to a letter from the Home Office’s director of safeguarding informing Peter Wanless and Richard Whittam QC that, following a separate enquiry, the Home Office had also uncovered some unregistered papers. Wanless and Whittam chose not to examine this additional material because although these papers contained search terms relevant to their original review they were unregistered. As a result they did not appear on the Department’s record management system and were therefore outside the scope of the search process agreed at the time.

The supplementary report concludes that the discovery of these papers shows the need for all Departments to be able to search material both on and off record managements systems. This is particularly important given that the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse will be asking for Departments to produce relevant documents in the near future. I have been clear that it is vital that the whole of Government fully co-operate with the inquiry on its important work and ensure that Departments have the systems and processes in place in order to do so.

I will arrange for a copy of the supplementary report to be placed in the Libraries of both Houses and on the gov.uk website.

[HCWS171]