GAG ON NAMING MINISTER'S SON

THE Government is digging itself into a legal quagmire in a bid to
forestall public identification of the teenage son of the Cabinet minister
at the heart of the London pub cannabis affair.

Solicitors acting for the minister and his 17yearold son, who is said to
have admitted supplying less than two grams of the drug to a Daily Mirror
reporter, yesterday telephoned newspapers warning them not to print either
name.

Geoffrey Bindman, a leading London solicitor, said that officials in the
department of the Attorney General, John Morris, were monitoring events and
that naming the youth or his parent would constitute contempt.

Downing Street is determined to invoke the provisions of the 1933 Children
and Young Persons Act, which prohibits the publication of the names of
juveniles under 18, to ensure that the toplevel minister's name remains
secret. But there is unease in Labour's ranks that the minister's identity
is being kept from the public while it is known throughout the media,
Westminster and the "chattering classes" in the capital.

Some MPs are also unhappy that the "fast track" punishment policy promised
by Labour to bring persistent young offenders to book is now being used to
hush up a political embarrassment for a Cabinet minister.

Det Chief Insp Keith Gausden, who will tomorrow take a statement from a
Mirror reporter, Dawn Alford, about the alleged sale of cannabis to her by
the youth for £10, said yesterday the police were "under quite a degree of
pressure to get this to the Crown Prosecution Service" for a decision on
whether or not to prosecute the youth.

Paul Flynn, Labour MP for Newport West, said last night: "The minister's
son . must be treated in exactly the same way as anyone else." Putting him
on the fast track "could be interpreted as preferential treatment to
protect the minister", he said.

"Fast track law for juveniles was intended to get roublemakers off the
streets, not to avoid embarrassment to ministers . Certain Cabinet
ministers have been sanctimonious and censorious in denouncing those who
sell recreational drugs and have insisted that the parents must share the
blame. The minister concerned could be open to the accusation of saying one
thing and doing another."

The Home Secretary, Jack Straw, has turned down a formal approach for an
interview from the Independent on Sunday.

A Labour MP, Charles Clark, last night admitted he had taken drugs "a
couple of times in my late teens" but said he had never bought or traded in
them and was opposed to the legalisation of cannabis.