asked the Attorney-General how many persons have been prosecuted under the Official Secrets Act in the past ten years; and how many of these prosecutions were in respect of espionage on behalf of foreign powers.
During the last ten years seventeen persons have been prosecuted for offences against the Official Secrets Acts and eleven for conspiring to commit such offences. The Acts do not refer in terms to espionage. Section 1 (1) (c) of the Official Secrets Act, 1911, provides that an offence is committed by any person who obtains, collects, records, or publishes, or communicates to any other person any secret official code word, or pass word, or any sketch, plan, model, article, or note, or other document or information which is calculated to be or might be or is intended to be directly or indirectly useful to an enemy. Ten persons, including five of those prosecuted for conspiracy, were charged with offences involving this provision. It was part of the case for the prosecution in all these cases that the accused had acted on behalf of, or had been in contact with the agents of, a foreign power.