Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether the decision to send Mark Jenner of the Special Demonstration Squad into a covert long-term surveillance operation in the 1990s was approved by (a) officials and (b) Ministers in her Department.

The Home Office does not hold this information. On 10 March 2014 the Permanent Secretary commissioned Stephen Taylor, a former Director of Audit at the Audit Commission, to carry out a forensic review to establish the full extent of the Home Office’s knowledge of the Special Demonstration Squad for the 40 year period from 1968 to 2008. This review will be published soon.