asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will revise the administrative directions to the police, appended to the Judges' Rules, in order to ensure that a witness is in attendance when mentally handicapped suspects are questioned by the police.

Paragraph 4A of the administrative directions, which were re-issued in June 1978, states that as far as practicable, and where recognised as such by the police, a mentally handicapped person should be interviewed only in the presence of a parent or other person in whose care he is, or of some person who is not a police officer—for example a social worker. We have no plans to under-take any further revision of the administrative directions in advance of the recommendations of the Royal Commission on criminal procedure, within whose terms of reference they fall.