Having listened to most of this debate, I want, at the outset, to dissociate myself from the almost unanimous opinion expressed by all preceding speakers. They have all joined, in greater or lesser degree, in paying a tribute to the work of the Select Committee. I find that I cannot join in that tribute because in my view the Select Committee did not conduct the necessary inquiries into these two cases with that care, with that detailed accuracy, which we, as Members of this honourable House, have a right to expect from any Select Committee appointed by the House.

First, I want to refer to one or two matters in which the Chairman of the Committee himself was involved, and in this connection I am sorry that the right hon. Member for Torquay (Mr. C. Williams) is not in his place. I want to draw attention to the first question in the minutes of evidence, when the Lord Advocate said: I am afraid that I am in complete ignorance, apart from what has appeared in the Press. That answer was given in reply to the following Question from the Chairman: How did this case arise and how did you find out about it? Notwithstanding the fact that the Lord Advocate confessed ignorance about the whole matter, we find the Chairman of the Committee putting another question to him later, Question 24. The Chairman wanted to know whether the Lord Advocate disagreed with the Attorney-General. He said: If he agrees he will say that there is no disagreement. The Lord Advocate replied "Yes."

Right at the very beginning of the Select Committee's deliberations, the Chairman had, I thought, established beyond any shadow of doubt that the Lord Advocate knew nothing at all about it. Yet a little later in the proceedings, knowing as he must have done that the Lord Advocate knew nothing at all about the case, he invited him to say whether or not he agreed or disagreed with the Attorney-General.

It strikes me as very odd that the Chairman of the Select Committee should conduct himself in that fashion. It does not seem to me to make a very useful contribution to the kind of investigation for which the Select Committee was appointed.