Security Services (Commission)

§ Mr. Speaker

We now move to the important debate on the motion in the names of the leaders of the alliance parties. I must announce to the House that I have selected the amendment in the name of the Prime Minister.

§ Mr. David Owen (Plymouth, Devonport)

I beg to move, That this House believes that it is desirable that a Joint Committee of both Houses, to be known as the Special Commission on the Security Services, be appointed, and that the Committee have power to send for persons, papers and records. We all know that debates on the security services involve issues that are not easy to handle. It might help the House if I try to spell out what may well be common ground on some of the issues. At a time when there is intense terrorist activity worldwide, let alone the problems of East-West relations, we need our security services, and they have to operate with a high degree of secrecy.

It has hitherto always been accepted in the House that it is an inappropriate mechanism to call the security services to account by a systematic question and answer exchange on the Floor of the House. I believe that that is still the position. However, there has been growing concern that it is no longer possible, in view of the revelations concerning the security services, for Parliament to remain the only forum in the nation that is not discussing some of these questions. It is bizarre when the newspapers, television and radio are frequently discussing these issues in considerable detail but there is no mechanism for parliamentary scrutiny.

I am sorry that the Prime Minister is not in her place, because I wish to raise certain issues. It is fair to say that it was the Prime Minister who, for understandable reasons, in 1979 broke with the precedent of not revealing information about the security services. The situation is exceptional. The Blunt case was, by any standard, an issue on which the nation would not have accepted that there should be no discussion in the House of Commons. The Prime Minister keeps quoting precedent and saying that she is abiding by it, but she must face the fact that she was the first Prime Minister to come to the Floor of the House of Commons to reveal so much information. The Prime and Bettaney cases followed and, again, more information was revealed than was previously the practice.

As in the United States and in most democratic countries, in this country more and more people have realised that the old system of totally trusting the Ministers concerned will not satisfy Parliament or the wider public. There is a strong case for us devising a mechanism whereby the House can feel confident that the security services are scrutinised and at the same time it can protect the essential confidentiality and secrecy of much of their activity. It is because of that that we have tabled this motion.

The motion is deliberately designed to involve Members of both Houses. Given the range of experience, there is positive merit in such a commission having its 939 membership drawn from this House as well as from the House of Lords. That would also allow this House, if we thought it prudent, to have a commission chairman who was not a party political figure, or perhaps to appoint somebody who was obviously no longer in the front line of party politics—a former Prime Minister, for example.

It is also a virtue to have the potential to involve senior service men from the House of Lords or senior civil servants. A similar thought must have passed through the mind of the Government when somewhat reluctantly they accepted during the Falklands crisis the principle of having an examination to see what had gone wrong. They did that by establishing the Franks committee. The membership of that committee was drawn from the House of Commons and the House of Lords and also contained somebody from outside who at the time of appointment was not a member of the Privy Council but was made a member. That committee had available to it all forms of intelligence, security reports and internal working documents of Government, and for that reason it was thought right that its members should be Privy Councillors.

We strongly believe that the members of the commission we propose should be Privy Councillors. That is because it has hitherto been accepted that Members of Parliament are not positively vetted and that membership of the Privy Council enables one to have access to confidential information. That has been accepted by our friends and allies. We do not specifically mention that in the motion because we think it sensible that the House should be able to appoint to such a body someone who is not a Privy Councillor but who, with the agreement of the Prime Minister, may become one on appointment to this commission. That would follow precedent. That may go some way towards avoiding the charge that people who would serve would only be former Ministers or people who, if you like, are "part of the club" or "in the know". If the Leader of the Opposition or the leader of any of the other parties wished to nominate somebody who had not served in government or was not a Privy Councillor, they would be free to do so, provided there was some understanding of the nominee's overall acceptability.

Such a structure would command a good deal of support in all parts of the House, although I do not expect that to be reflected in the Lobbies at the end of this debate. Such a commission will come; the only question is when. The sooner it comes, the less will some quite serious information be divulged that is damaging to the security services. That happens because of the way we presently conduct our proceedings. Under such a system, we will not abuse the Order Paper by naming individuals in the way that has been done in recent weeks. Judging from the amendment that has been tabled, the Home Secretary does not accept this motion, but I hope that he will ponder hard on the questions that I have posed.

§ Mr. Ray Whitney (Wycombe)

The right hon. Gentleman mentioned Bettaney. How would the mechanism that he proposes prevent the recruitment of someone like Bettaney?

§ Dr. Owen

It would not have prevented his recruitment; the mere fact of having a scrutinising committee will not prevent some people from indulging in treachery. The recruitment procedures to MI5 were seriously defective and successive Prime Ministers, including the right hon. 940 Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Mr. Callaghan), to his great credit, considerably tightened the procedures. MI5 and its recruitment has been causing worry for some time, but I believe that it is now substantially better. Although we hear all about the problems associated with the security services, it is worth reminding the House that it has had some outstanding successes, including not only Penkovsky but the recent defection of somebody very high up in the KGB who was in London for a long time. Those were considerable successes.

I would like to consider the reasons for the present anxiety, which of course prompts this pressure, although I have been advocating this course now for several years. I do not advocate the appointment of this commission purely and simply because of recent incidents. I do not believe that some of the questions that have been raised publicly would be answered by such a Select Committee. They will have to be answered in another forum.

It is common ground that Mr. Peter Wright has betrayed the trust of his employers and the trust of this country. I believe that any Government would have been extremely disturbed by Mr. Peter Wright briefing Mr. Chapman Pincher for his book in 1981 and should have been considerably concerned about the television programme broadcast by Granada in July 1984. That was a flagrant breach of Mr. Peter Wright's obligations and agreements and led him to write his own book. Nothing that I say or have said is meant in any way to underwrite the conduct of Mr. Peter Wright. His conduct has been utterly disgraceful.

The Government were under considerable pressure to take the court action they have taken in Sydney. Those of us who would support the action are entitled to ask the Government why they did not take action against Mr. Peter Wright when they knew that he was the prime source of Mr. Chapman Pincher's book in 1981. This is not an easy matter for the Home Secretary. However, I put this point to him directly, as allegations have now been made in many newspapers, and most recently and clearly in the Sunday Times.

It is claimed that MI5 gained possession of the book six weeks in advance of its publication by the use of illegal methods. That raises a number of questions. First, were illegal methods used? If the Home Secretary refuses to answer that, can he tell the House what ministerial approval has to take place before MI5 can act illegally? We have asked for assurances about ministerial control over telephone tapping and interceptions. We recognise that such action must be taken and that sometimes extraordinary actions are necessary to protect the state. However, we want to know, and are entitled to know, whether any such actions are given the specific authorisation, in this case, of the Home Secretary. We are entitled to know that procedure.

A Select Committee would, in my view, be a valuable scrutiniser of those issues to examine what is happening and exercise democratic control. Can the Home Secretary tell us why, in 1981, the Attorney-General was not involved in the decision whether to take action against Mr. Peter Wright and Mr. Chapman Pincher? Quite bluntly, the distinction between a civil and criminal offence does not stand up. Procedures for Ministers are quite clear on this matter and they have applied for successive Governments.

If an issue of law is involved which has considerable repercussions through the governmental machine—and 941 no one can doubt that the decision not to prosecute Mr. Chapman Pincher and Mr. Peter Wright has had very considerable repercussions—the Attorney-General should have been involved. Of course, the Attorney-General is right to make the distinction that in a criminal charge he, and he alone, is responsible for the decision. He is the principal Law Officer of the Government and as principal Law Officer he should have been involved in 1981. Was his exclusion deliberate? If so, did that happen because illegal action had taken place? It would not be the first time that the Attorney-General has heard of illegal action. I cannot really understand why that should be the reason. Or did the Government feel that he was likely to ask for prosecution and the then Prime Minister and the Home Secretary did not wish to face a conflict of advice from the Attorney-General. These are serious and legitimate points to raise.

§ Mr. Ian Gow (Eastbourne)

The right hon. Gentleman told the House that in his view action should have been taken against Mr. Wright five years ago in 1981. As Mr. Wright was then living outside this jurisdiction, how could any action have been taken to prevent publication of Mr. Chapman Pincher's book and how could a prosecution have been effective as Mr. Wright was living outside our jurisdiction?

§ Dr. Owen

I linked Mr. Chapman Pincher and Mr. Peter Wright. For the reasons that the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Mr. Gow) has described, it might have been difficult to take an immediate action against Peter Wright. However, Mr. Wright has been to this country since 1981. Indeed, in 1984 he appeared in a television programme which will be repeated by Granada tonight. Having read the transcript of that programme, I am amazed that it will be broadcast again—Granada states—without the Government making any formal challenge or representation against it.—[HON. MEMBERS: "What about Tebbit?"] What the chairman of the Conservative party should do is immaterial to the question.

Why did the then Home Secretary or the Prime Minister not take action? I consider that the Granada programme is more devastating because there is no doubt that Mr. Peter Wright was in this country.

I have already raised the specific points that I wished to raise about MI5. However, other allegations are in circulation about what may or may not emerge from the Sydney case. I shall not deal with the question of the former Prime Minister, Lord Wilson of Rievaulx. That will be dealt with by my right hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Hillhead (Mr. Jenkins)—if he catches your eye, Mr. Speaker—who was Home Secretary during some of the period to which these matters relate.

I would like to raise one or two points about the case in Sydney. A reporter asked me whether I would have taken action. I suspect that I would have taken action. I was responsible for acquiescing in the decision of the then Attorney-General over the ABC trial. In retrospect, that was a mistake. Far more information came out as a result of that litigation than any of us thought possible.

We must learn from those cases and from some of the problems that have resulted from legal action. We should still be learning. "Farce" is the word most often used to describe what is happening in Sydney. The case has already damaged the reputation of a very senior and hitherto well-respected civil servant, the Cabinet 942 Secretary. It has done a great deal of harm to the standing of the Attorney-General, although I think that many people admire the way in which he was determined that the truth should come out; when he discovered that his name had been called in aid over the original decision not to prosecute, he must have insisted that his name was cleared. All credit to him for that.

The case has not done the Government any good. However, to be honest, I do not believe that the great British public will take it out on the Government in party politics. I think that they are rather enjoying this running farce. The atmosphere is helped because we are doing well against the Australians in cricket. Indeed, the judge's florid turn of phrase may mean that the Government will have some legal redress on appeal.

How long will this rolling farce go on? How many more facts are likely to be revealed? One of the skills of politics is to know when to cut one's losses—[Interruption.] We are all sorry that the Leader of the Opposition is not with us today. We understand that he is heavily engaged with speaking engagements—that is, if people are prepared to turn up at them—on the other side of the Atlantic.

We also regret the absence of the Prime Minister, which is very revealing.

§ Mr. Willie W. Hamilton (Fife, Central)

Where is the Attorney-General?

§ Dr. Owen

The Prime Minister gave the impression yesterday that she intended to withdraw the normal rights of consultation with the Leader of the Opposition. Since then, there have been periodic briefings from No. 10 about the position. I find it bizarre that the Leader of the Opposition should have telephoned defence counsel in a case involving the Crown, but I take the view that he is more a fool than a knave. To pretend that that is a major issue which justifies breaking the conventions on security issues—[Interruption.] It is sad that the Leader of the Opposition is not present to justify his own actions and make a six-page personal statement. Nevertheless, I ask the Home Secretary to make it clear that the Government have no intention of acting in such a naive and juvenile way. It would be ludicrous to break the conventions on such scant grounds. It is for the Leader of the Opposition to justify his own actions, but it is in all our interests that security matters should not become an issue of party conflict and division—as, sadly, defence matters have become in recent times.

My final plea is to the Home Secretary and to all in the House who value the bipartisan tradition on security services. Let us all learn from what has happened in the greater openness and democracy of the past few years. It is not sustainable for the House of Commons to have no role in scrutinising the Executive on these matters. The Prime Minister must be told by the few members of the Conservative party—I suspect that they are very few—to whom she is prepared to listen that she must come off it and allow Parliament to exercise its proper function of scrutinising the security services. I believe that the form of inquiry that we have outlined, involving both Houses of Parliament and the maintenance of the bipartisan concept, is the right way forward, and the sooner it is achieved, the better.

§ The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Douglas Hurd)

I beg to move, to leave out from 'House' to the end of the Question and to add instead thereof: 'has full confidence in the present arrangements whereby the Security Service is responsible to Ministers.' The right hon. Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Dr. Owen) has called for a special commission to oversee what he has described as the security services. Although we do not accept his proposal, it is entirely reasonable that it should be made, as it has been in the past and no doubt will be in the future. Having listened to the right hon. Gentleman, I cannot say that I am much clearer as to what he envisages the proposed body doing and what it might actually achieve, but there may be other occasions on which that can be discussed in greater detail.

The right hon. Gentleman acknowledged that the timing of his motion had a lot to do with the present case in Australia. I wish to deal seriously with the underlying points that he made because they deserve to be taken seriously, but the House will appreciate that I cannot enter into argument about the progress of the case in Australia. Every Home Secretary, like every Prime Minister, works under the general constraint that we do not answer questions, however important, about the work of the Security Service. That is not new—it reflects the accepted practice of successive Governments. More particularly, we cannot answer questions currently being discussed in the court case in Australia.

You, Mr. Speaker, have ruled that these proceedings do not rate as sub judice in terms of the rules of the House, but it is absolutely clear that the Government are sub judice in that we are under the judge in Australia as plaintiff in his court. There can thus be no doubt that any answers or observations given in the House could be seen by the Australian court as an attempt to influence it or to interfere with the judicial process there.

My reply to the right hon. Gentleman's questions about that case, therefore, must be that so long as the case remains before the Australian court—despite the right hon. Gentleman's comments, it may be for some time yet—the Government must deny themselves the opportunity to deal faithfully with the extraordinary mass of stories to which the case has given rise. Faced with such a high proportion of nonsense, there are many comments that we should dearly like to make—comments which we may be free to make one day, but because of the continuing case in Australia that day is emphatically not today.

§ Mr. David Winnick (Walsall, North)

Even if I do not agree with the Home Secretary's comments about the case in Australia, the case in Ireland is certainly no longer sub judice. What purpose was served by trying to ban a book explaining events which took place during the last war, more than 40 years ago? Do not the Home Secretary and the Attorney-General realise how farcical it seemed to many people in Britain? Personally, I am very pleased at the decision reached by the Dublin court.

§ Mr. Hurd

My right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General has made clear the basis on which that injunction was sought, which was exactly the same basis—the principle of confidentiality—as led to the action in Australia.

§ Mr. Tony Benn (Chesterfield)

What national interest is served by concealing from Parliament and the public the 944 knowledge that the Prime Minister of the day, then Harold Wilson, had his offices and telephones intercepted and his homes burgled by the security services which were supposed to be accountable to him? What public interest makes it necessary to conceal that fact, which emerges in Mr. Wright's book and bears on the central question of whether the security services are under ministerial control?

§ Mr. Hurd

That was directly dealt with by the Prime Minister of the day, the right hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Mr. Callaghan), and I understand that further comments are to be made by the former Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Glasgow, Hillhead (Mr. Jenkins).

If my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House has anything to add he will be able to do so when he winds up. [HON. MEMBERS: "That is passing the buck."] The matter was thoroughly dealt with by those responsible at the time.

The right hon. Member for Devonport accepts, as all serious people must accept, the need for a Security Service to help protect Britain. I sometimes become a little weary of those worldly-wise but ignorant people who argue that Britain no longer has any secrets to protect and therefore no longer needs a Security Service. There remains a considerable risk of espionage. Moreover—this must always be in the mind of any Home Secretary—the threat of domestic and international terrorism is greater than ever before. The Security Service is an essential part of the means whereby we seek to protect the British people from terrorism. Through force of circumstances, far from declining, that role has substantially increased.

Still following the right hon. Gentleman's argument, the Security Service must be secretive to be effective. We shall not prevent arms going to the IRA or identify terrorists in this country, and, crucially, our friends and allies around the world will not give us secret information of their own which may be necessary for our protection, if the Security Service is not properly and effectively secretive about operational matters. The Security Service is not an ornament—it is a crucial means of protecting and defending our citizens and their freedom.

If it is necessary, legitimate and, indeed, fundamental for the Security Service to preserve a proper secrecy about its methods of operation or about the procedures and people from whom it obtains information, something else that is important follows from that. There must be a binding obligation on members of the Security Service—not just for the period when they are in the service but for the rest of their lives—not to disclose what was entrusted to them on a confidential basis. We are talking here not about some narrow concept of the employer's interest but about something wider—the interests of the nation as a whole, which may be damaged if a person breaks the confidentiality by which he knew that the was bound for ever when he took up the employment.

This principle, of course, as the Prime Minister and my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General made clear, lies at the heart of our proceedings against Mr. Wright. That is the only comment I can make today about the case. In real life and in common sense, there is a distinction between books written entirely by outsiders and books written by members or former members of the Security Service who, by overtly providing their own information, give it an appearance of authenticity that no 945 outsider can pretend to do. Thus, the secrecy of operations and, in particular, the requirement of confidentiality from members of the service, are crucial to its effectiveness.

§ Mr. D. N. Campbell-Savours (Workington)

As it is clear that, over the years, Mr. Pincher has been fed classified information on the Security Service by a series of MI5 officers, will the Home Secretary tell us whether he believes the relationship that exists between Mr. Pincher and officers in the security services is defendable in every possible way?

§ Mr. Hurd

The hon. Gentleman says, from information given by his contacts, things that he believes are clear. I cannot go beyond what I have said—[HON. MEMBERS: "Why not?"] Of course I cannot go beyond what I have already said about the Australian case and the proceedings in it.

§ Mr. Tony Banks (Newham, North-West)

rose——

§ Mr. Campbell-Savours

Is it a healthy relationship?

§ Mr. Hurd

I must get on to the thesis of the right hon. Member for Devonport.

As I said, the secrecy of operations, and in particular the requirement of confidentiality, are thus crucial to the effectiveness of the Security Service. Yet we live in a democratic society where Parliament is sovereign. It would not be accepted—and it is not my argument—that secrecy should mean the total isolation of the Security Service from all our democratic institutions. There must be some means of ensuring oversight and responsibility. There must be some way of ensuring that the resources and opportunities provided for the Security Service are used for the national good. That is why the responsibility for those matters mainly lies with the Home Secretary of the day, and there are several of my predecessors in the Chamber at the moment. I know something about how they and others have approached that responsibility, and I want to explain what it means to me, in 1986.

Of course, I cannot always respond with evidence about the discharge of this responsibility for the Security Service, and some regard that as blunting that responsibility. But, in practice—as my predecessors would confirm—the Home Secretary must take that responsibility very seriously as it involves the highest trust for the protection and safety of our country.

The Security Service operates under the published directive issued in 1952 to the director general by the then Home Secretary, Sir David Maxwell Fyfe. That can be found in Lord Denning's report and it still applies today. The directive makes the director general personally responsible to the Home Secretary for the proper and efficient implementation of the tasks set out in the directive. It is mainly through that relationship that ministerial control is exercised. The director-general is expected to seek direction and guidance from the Home Secretary as to the way the service goes about its business.

There is one particular area in which the Home Secretary exercises detailed control. That is when an interception warrant is sought, when of course the Home Secretary must be given sufficient supporting information for him to judge whether the application comes within the statutory criteria. But in general, the Home Secretary is not concerned with particular cases, as paragraph 6 of the directive makes clear: Ministers do not concern themselves with detailed information which may be obtained by the Security Service 946 in particular cases, but are furnished with such information only as may be necessary for the determination of any issue on which guidance is sought. There are good reasons for that policy. The Security Service is not—contrary to what is sometimes alleged—in the business of obtaining information on behalf of the Government. It is there to protect the state against external and internal dangers, and must, as the directive makes clear, do that in a way that avoids any suggestion that it is concerned with any matter other than the defence of the realm as a whole. There must be no political bias or influence in its work. That is why the detailed control of Security Service work must be for the director general. If his judgment is wrong, he must answer to the Home Secretary.

I believe that it is right that the Home Secretary should have no role in that detailed control of the service, but it is part of his job to be well informed about what that service is doing, its priorities, how it is deploying its resources and the overall effectiveness and efficiency of its operations. It is part of the responsibility of the Home Secretary—here again, I think that I shall carry my predecessors with me—to receive reports, ask questions, meet the director-general, visit the Security Service and meet members of its staff. My regard for the dedicated and skilful work of that service. I am glad that the right hon. Member for Devonport referred to its successes—and my confidence in the care with which its members respect the terms of the published directive are thus based on personal knowledge and scrutiny.

§ Mr. Tam Dalyell (Linlithgow)

If it is part of the Home Secretary's business to ask questions, does he think it is his business to ask why Lord Rothschild should send an air fare to someone to come from Australia to see him? Is that the kind of question that the Home Secretary would think it proper to ask?

§ Mr. Hurd

It is a question that would occur to the Home Secretary of the day to ask, but it is certanly not a question that can be answered in the House this afternoon.

§ Mr. Campbell-Savours

The right hon. Gentleman never answers.

§ Mr. Hurd

It is also well established that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister signally concerns herself, as have her predecessors, with major security service matters. The Maxwell Fyfe directive provides that the director-general may approach the Prime Minister on matters of supreme importance and delicacy. My right hon. Friend spelt out that role, in her statement on the Blunt case on 21 November 1979, by stressing the Home Secretary's responsibility to inform the Prime Minister, or make sure that the Prime Minister is informed, in that type of case. She added that, in practice, both the Home Secretary and she make a point of keeping in close touch with the director-general.

It is inevitable that in restless times those arrangements should be questioned. The Prime Minister, the Home Secretary and the director-general of the Security Service sit inside the barrier of secrecy that is essential for the work of that service.

§ Mr. Campbell-Savours

Along with Mr. Pincher.

§ Mr. Hurd

The hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours) is out of his depth when the argument reaches the kind of level to which the right hon. Member for Devonport has moved it.

947 The Prime Minister, the Home Secretary—I must repeat this to avoid losing the train of the argument—and the director-general sit inside the necessary barrier of secrecy. Of course, there are some who want to destroy the barrier and the Security Service with it, and no concessions will satisfy them. But there are others, like the right hon. Member for Plymouth, Devonport, who accept the need for the barrier, as he specifically did today, but want in some way to send their own representatives, or the representatives of Parliament, to take up positions inside the barrier alongside the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary. That is the dilemma. I think that we must be a little wary of supposing that foreign models will automatically provide a satisfactory way of doing that.

For example, our system would simply not be feasible in the United States because there is no way in the United States in which a member of the Administration could be responsible to Congress in the same way as the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary are responsible to this House, as this debate shows. The Americans have devised their own system to suit their own constitutional circumstances and we should not suppose that those can be successfully transplanted. So it is with each of the democracies that are in a comparable position. I have to say that there are at present particular difficulties here with our political system, to which I must return before I sit down.

§ Mr. Simon Hughes (Southwark and Bermondsey)

rose——

§ Mr. Hurd

I must get on, as I have given way quite freely and this is a short debate.

Different models have been suggested for some form of external review body and the right hon. Member for Devonport skated quickly over several of them. No doubt other right hon. and hon. Members will also make such suggestions.

It is not easy to discuss these matters in a sensible way under the shadow of a particular case, and it may well be that the House will want to return to the same subject in a calmer atmosphere. Sometimes it is suggested that there should be a Select Committee of senior Privy Councillors who would form this body. Sometimes it is suggested that a judicial body is needed, perhaps on the lines that we have already established under the Interception of Communications Act 1985, for that aspect of security work. Sometimes it is suggested that the role of the existing Security Commission should be expanded.

The Security Commission has been in existence for more than 20 years. Under its terms of reference, it can investigate and report upon any failures of security arrangements and advise whether any changes in those arrangements are necessary or desirable. But the Security Commission is a panel of people who are called upon ad hoc to report. They do not attempt to provide a continuous monitoring of the Security Service, nor does their role touch upon the central issue in today's debate—the relationship between Ministers and Parliament on Security Service matters. Any change in their role in that direction would be fairly fundamental and would call into question the present membership and procedures of the Security Commission.

It seems to me that, before agreeing to any such external review body, the Government and the House would need 948 to satisfy themselves that the body would pass three tests. First, it would need to preserve effectively the necessary secrecy—and confidence among our allies in that secrecy—of the operations of the Security Service. Secondly, it would need to increase the confidence felt by this House and by the public in the Security Service; Otherwise there would be no point in making the change. Thirdly, I would need to avoid blunting or diminishing the personal and clear responsibilities of the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary to this House.

It is perhaps natural that I should feel it necessary to stress this last point. The difficulties of running a Security Service in a democratic society are sufficiently great without installing at the heart of that service a constitutional contradiction. I have spoken about the way in which the Home Secretary has to approach this question of the detailed control of the Security Service. It is not easy to see how an external review boy could become involved in that detailed control. But if it did not, its credibility among its strongest partisans would quickly weaken.

The main problem is that there is bound to be a barrier of secrecy between the Security Service and the general public. That is inevitable if the Security Service is to be any good at all. A review body has to be on one side of that barrier or the other. If it is inside the barrier, it can certainly probe and monitor, although there remains the difficulty of clashes between its responsibility and that of the Home Secretary. But if it is inside the barrier, it cannot communicate its findings convincingly to those who remain outside.

If, on the other hand, the review body is outside the barrier looking in, it will of course have great difficulty in satisfying itself that it is able to carry out its task, because it will not have access to the material that most people would judge to be necessary if it was to carry out that task successfully.

§ Dr. Owen

The right hon. Gentleman has used the phrase "constitutional contradiction", and I have great difficulty following that aspect of his argument. However, the House of Commons has already gone across one of the barriers in relation to defence, when it was fiercely held that there could not be a Defence Select Committee. I know that is not such a sensitive issue, but we have gone across that barrier very well and that Select Committee has been given classified information. We have also gone across the barrier in relation to the Foreign Office and diplomacy, even though it was argued that that barrier could not be crossed. Surely those two precedents establish the momentum to cross this rather more difficult barrier in a specifically devised way.

§ Mr. Hurd

It is a much more difficult barrier. I also believe that the kind of role that the right hon. Gentleman is advocating is different from that of the other bodies that he mentioned. That is the crucial question to which, because of time, he has been unable to address himself, and the House would need to address itself very clearly to it before it made any change.

From what I have said, I hope that the House will recognise that I do not see the present arrangements as static. Indeed, there has been greater movement on this matter and greater openness under this Government than probably at any time ever before. On 21 November 1979, as has already been pointed out, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister made a statement about the Blunt case 949 —a fact of which previous Governments had been aware but had not informed Parliament. During the debate, the Prime Minister spelt out more clearly the arrangements under which the Director General of the security service reported to and consulted the Home Secretary and the Prime Minister.

Again, on 26 March 1981, during the debate on the security implications of the Chapman Pincher book "Their Trade is Treachery", my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister commented on the positive vetting arrangements and indicated that she had asked the Security Commission to review the security procedures and practices followed in the public service and to consider what, if any, changes were required.

§ Mr. Tony Banks

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

§ Mr. Hurd

No, I must get on.

In 1983 the Security Commission, in connection with this and other inquiries—particularly the case of Geoffrey Prime—made a number of suggestions for improving the positive vetting procedures. The Government came to Parliament and secured approval for the Interception of Communications Act 1985. For the first time this provided a statutory and public framework for authorising practices of interception of communications carried out under the authority of Ministers of successive Governments for many years. That Act made unauthorised interception a criminal offence and for the first time gave people a statutory remedy by appeal to a tribunal.

My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister then reported to Parliament on the results of the inquiry by the Security Commission into Bettaney, and in her statement gave an account of the Security Commission's criticisms and recommendations on management of the security service. She announced acceptance of the Security Commission's recommendations for changes in the positive vetting procedures in the service. She said that she and the Home Secretary were determined to see that action was taken to remedy management weaknesses within the Security Service. The present director-general has, with my encouragement, devoted a major part of his time to that management task, especially the personnel arrangements.

As a result, the director-general earlier this year put forward to me and the Prime Minister a report on changes in the organisation and management of the Security Service. The Prime Minister made that report available to the Security Commission. All concerned have been impressed with the considerable amount of thought and effort which the Security Service has devoted to dealing with the problems identified by the Security Commission during its inquiry into the Bettaney case. The Security Commission has informed my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister of its approval of the more open style of management which the director-general has introduced throughout the service and the changes in procedure affecting the appraisal, posting and promotion of staff. That is an important point in which several hon. Members have been interested.

The Security Commission also noted with approval that the vetting procedures were being improved following the recruitment of more investigating officers and that the division of responsibility between line management and the specialist personnel managers had been tackled and 950 clarified. The Security Commission considers that the director-general is to be congratulated on the way that he has tackled the problems identified in its report following its inquiry into the case of Mr. Bettaney.

§ Mr. A. J. Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed)

In the statement to which the right hon. Gentleman referred, the Prime Minister indicated that, along with the director-general, she would be looking into ways in which internal outlets could be found for the expression of grievances and anxieties by individual members of the service. As that was the source of some of the problems, will the Home Secretary say whether he believes that that problem has been dealt with?

§ Mr. Hurd

The hon. Gentleman is entirely accurate in what he says. Discussions on that important point are still going on.

§ Mr. Paddy Ashdown (Yeovil)

rose——

§ Mr. Hurd

I have been quite generous in giving way, and I am coming to a close.

I hope that I have said enough to show that the principle of ministerial responsibility, which under this Government has been adapting itself to particular events and situations, continues to provide a sound model—the best model—for the Security Service. We are not at present persuaded that any of the alternative models on offer would provide marked advantages.

There is a particular reason for that which I must mention. In most of the countries which face a similar problem there is a wide consensus across the political spectrum about the essentials of national defence and national security. This is, of course, true in the United States. It is absolutely compatible with periods such as the present when there is very sharp criticism of the Administration on particular issues, as we see in Washington at the moment. But there is no questioning of the fundamentals of United States defence and security policy any more than there is questioning among the parties of the fundamentals in Canada, Australia or the principal countries in Europe. Unfortunately, that is not the position in the United Kingdom today.

As the right hon. Member for Devonport said, the Leader of the Opposition is at present in the United States, and he is there in the middle of a parliamentary Session because he feels the need to explain to Republicans and Democrats alike why he has led the Labour party outside the consensus. He is finding it hard going, just as everyone would expect, because most people can see the overwhelming advantage of preserving a common understanding among all the principal political figures in a country about the fundamentals—not the details—of defence and security.

For our part we have tried to preserve that understanding. I refer again, as has been done several times, to the support that we gave in Opposition to the right hon. Member for Morley and Leeds, South (Mr. Rees) when he decided to deport Mr. Agee and Mr. Hosenball.

§ Mr. Merlyn Rees (Morley and Leeds, South)

The Home Secretary is right. On that occasion those two men left the country under the requirement of Immigration Act 1971, not the Official Secrets Act. My 37 colleagues who expressed anxiety about the matter were concerned about the procedures that I used, not about the details of the matter.

§ Mr. Hurd

The right hon. Gentleman became involved in a major row. As Home Secretary, he pleaded national security as the reason for his action. The Opposition supported him because of that but several of his own supporters failed to support him. That is in vivid contrast to the Opposition's handling of the Wright case.

I do not wish to discuss the matter further. I have read carefully the long statement issued, to my surprise, by the Leader of the Opposition on Friday. I have also read what Mr. Turnbull is reported to have said about their exchanges. For two years, I was in charge of the Leader of the Opposition's office when the right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Mr. Heath) led the Conservative party. It is inconceivable that my right hon. Friend would have authorised or allowed me to enter into that sort of alliance or liaison with a lawyer in an overseas court in a case involving national security where the British Government was the plaintiff. It would have been, and it should be, inconceivable. There is an amazing mixture of inexperience and irresponsibility in the Leader of the Opposition's conduct in this matter.

§ Mr. Campbell-Savours

rose——

§ Mr. Hurd

No, I shall not give way. I have already given way to the hon. Gentleman.

No doubt there will be opportunities—I certainly hope so—when the case is over to look back at this and other aspects of it. The case provides the latest of a long line of regrettable examples of the breakdown of the consensus which would be necessary if any of the models which I described earlier were to be acceptable in this country.

The record shows that, compared with their predecessors, including the Government in which the right hon. Member for Morley and Leeds, South (Mr. Rees) served—although he may have had ideas of his own at that time—this Government have been open and receptive to fresh ideas in security. The discussion will continue, as it is bound to do. I am glad to have the opportunity to set out for the first time my view on how those arrangements work. We shall listen carefully to the debate and to suggestions which may be made when the Australian case is over. The public has a clear view of these matters. The public understands and—the right hon. Member for Devonport acknowledged this—they are not taken in by all this scavenging. They understand the need for a Security Service. They are becoming somewhat impatient with those who wish to undermine that service by removing the confidentiality which must lie at its core.

This is an area in which fair-sounding compromises must be carefully examined because they can be especially dangerous. The Prime Minister and I, as the points of contact between the Security Service and the House, will maintain to the full our responsibilities. In a dangerous world we shall continue to do all that we can to preserve the integrity and necessary confidentiality of that service.

§ Mr. Gerald Kaufman (Manchester, Gorton)

The Home Secretary has just enunciated to the House an extraordinary doctrine, whereby a national consensus on security matters is available from the Government provided that the House accepts that consensus as being that laid down by the Government's defence policy. As the latest opinion polls show that 13 per cent. of the electorate 952 support the Government's defence policy, that seems extraordinary arrogance, even by the Government's standards.

This debate arises from the Government's action in the New South Wales High Court to prevent the publication of Mr. Peter Wright's book "Spycatcher." The Home Secretary said that he would dearly like to make a comment on the Australian case, but that he cannot. Instead, those comments are being made by Mr. Bernard Ingham and Mr. James Coe outside the House. They are paid by the taxpayer but they are not responsible to the House.

The mystery at the heart of the affair is why the Government decided to bring their action in Sydney. The confused and conflicting explanations have led to the miserable predicament of the Secretary to the Cabinet wriggling in the witness box as the Government chief witness and to the controversy in which the matter is now engulfed. One explanation is that the book contains material so secret that our national security would be endangered if it were to be published and become widely available. If national security was to be endangered by the book's propagation, no one could argue with the Government's action in seeking to prevent its circulation.

Reports show that the book deals principally with two matters. The first is the allegation that elements in MI5 were engaged in a conspiracy against the 1974–1976 Government of Lord Wilson. Those suspicions have been aired before. Secondly, in case by any chance they are true, it is surely right that they should be confirmed or disposed of. I would have thought that anyone, regardless of party, would have wished someone seeking to undermine a legitimately elected Government to be exposed and brought to book.

After all, such people would be involved in subversion, and the function of MI5 is to combat subversion, not to indulge in it. Any such possibility sustains demands for some form of parliamentary accountability for the security services. My right hon. Friend the Member for Blaenau Gwent (Mr. Foot), when he was leader of the Labour party, advocated such accountability at the time of the Prime affair, as did my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition at the time of the Bettaney affair. In 1983, the Labour party manifesto advocated a statutory basis for the security services founded upon a security Act and involving a Select Committee.

It is said that Mr. Peter Wright goes into detail about the possibility that Sir Roger Hollis, the former head of MI5, was a Soviet agent. Those two issues have been frequently aired, first in Mr. Chapman Pincher's book "Their Trade is Treachery" and since then almost ad nauseam. The latest example is Mr. Phillip Knightley's book "The Second Oldest Profession". That was published only last month and, as far as I can tell, without objection or interference from the Government.

In any case, if security requires sensitive matters to be kept secret from a potential adversary, it is difficult to understand how the suspicions about Hollis fall into that category. It is certain that the only people who know for certain whether Hollis was a Russian agent are the Russians. It appears that the Government wish to conceal from the British people what is already known to the KGB. Perhaps that is what the Prime Minister defines as national security, but an alternative explanation has been 953 offered in connection with the book "One Girl's War", which the Government were unsuccessful in trying to suppress yesterday in the court in Dublin.

A statement from the Attorney-General's chambers said that the Government's action was based on the general principle that any publication of memoirs by a former member of the secret service, drawing on information acquired in that capacity, impaired the effective functioning of the service, unless it had been authorised. The claim is not based on any allegation that publication of material contained in the book will cause further and specific damage to national security. On Monday this week, the Attorney-General said at Question Time: The principle concerning the book of the late Mrs. Miller is exactly the same principle in which we have started the proceedings in the Australian courts… The idea that we can allow officers or ex-officers of the security services to write books would probably end with us not having any important secrets which should be preserved."—[Official Report, 1 December 1986; Vol. 106, c. 620.] Speaking in Sydney, Mr. Theo Simos QC, for the Crown, said that disclosure by an insider, irrespective of content, could be detrimental to the Crown. Questioned by Mr. Justice Powell, Mr. Simos said that this would be so even if it concerned a cookbook in Whitehall.

It would appear that the Government are concerned only with direct publication by someone who is serving or who has served in the security services. That point was made by the Home Secretary today. It is a curious approach. It shows that MI5 men and women are perfectly free to reveal secrets provided that they do not do so in their own names. That would open a lucrative market for members or ex-members of the security services to sell their secrets, perhaps at a high price, for others to publish. For them to do so would be a flagrant breach of the Official Secrets Act, but the attitudes of the Attorney-General and the Prime Minister to the Official Secrets Act are curiously selective.

If this approach is the one adopted by the Government, it would explain why Mr. Arthur Martin, who has been an MI5 and an MI6 officer, was not prosecuted for providing secret information for publication by Mr. Nigel West, alias Mr. Rupert Allason, who is the prospective Conservative candidate for Torbay. In the witness box in Sydney, Sir Robert Armstrong said this about Mr. Martin providing that information to Mr. West: He has not observed his obligation. That approach would also explain why Mr. Peter Wright was not prosecuted for selling secrets to Mr. Chapman Pincher. It might also explain why Mr. West, alias Allason, and Mr. Pincher have not been prosecuted. They are certainly liable for prosecution for breach of the Official Secrets Act by receiving information from ex-members of the security services.

Mr. Justice Powell said of Mr. West-Allason's book that he had read it and it is replete with instances of agents, informers and defectors being named, and operations being disclosed. When questioned in court, Sir Robert Armstrong said: I can't say as a matter of fact whether the book contains such information but I believe it to be likely. If it does contain that information, then it was obtained by a breach of confidentiality by those concerned. So it was a breach of confidentiality, and therefore a breach of the Official Secrets Act.

Mr. West has stated frankly that he was provided by sources within MI5 with what he calls "relevant extracts" of two reports written by a senior MI5 officer, Mr. Ronnie 954 Symonds. The report identified five possible Soviet spies in MI5. Mr. West says that those documents are in his solicitor's safe because his sources in MI5 forgot to ask for them back. Still there was no prosecution. No wonder that Sir Robert Armstrong said in Sydney: The policy is consistent. Only its practice varies. That goes in spades for the Government's approach to Mr. Chapman Pincher's book, "Their Trade is Treachery". Let me make it clear that I have no criticism of Mr. West-Allason or Mr. Pincher. They did no deals with anyone to get their books published. If those books were in breach of the law, it is not their fault that no action was taken against them. It is the fault of the Government. That is why it is completely bogus for the Government to claim that the issues here are of national security. The issues relate to corrupt decision-making in government. That is why the charges that we make are charges against the Government and especially against the Prime Minister.

What do we know about Mr. Pincher's book? Mr. Pincher said that he had given up any intentions of writing more about security until he was approached by Mr. Wright. That approach is said to have come through Lord Rothschild. Questions must be asked about Lord Rothschild's role as claimed by Mr. Wright. Is it true that Lord Rothschild initiated Mr. Wright's connection with the book? Did Lord Rothschild send Mr. Wright a first-class ticket for him to fly from Tasmania to Britain? Did Lord Rothschild suggest to Mr. Wright that he should collaborate with Mr. Pincher on a book about Sir Roger Hollis? Did Lord Rothschild bring Mr. Wright and Mr. Pincher together? Did Lord Rothschild arrange for Mr. Wright's substantial pay-off to be laundered through a Swiss bank account? Was Lord Rothschild acting on his own initiative or was he acting as agent for someone else? If so, for whom? Mr. Wright says that, before sending for him, Lord Rothschild had been discussing intelligence matters with the Prime Minister. Is that true? Until those questions are answered, the issue will not go away.

§ Mr. Dalyell

In view of the Home Secretary's answer to an earlier intervention, are we not justified in asking that, at least in the reply to the debate, there should be an explanation of the Prime Minister's meeting with Lord Rothschild in his flat? Prime Ministers do not normally go to the flats of citizens, however distinguished, without a purpose. May we know what that purpose was?

§ Mr. Kaufman

I have put several questions to the Home Secretary and the Leader of the House, and before I sit down I shall put a good many more. We must ask why no action was taken to stop publication of Mr. Chapman Pincher's book. There are different versions of how the book came into the possession of Government officials. One is that the manuscript or the proofs of the book were in the Government's hands by February 1981—about six weeks before its publication. Some suggest that MI6 got hold of a copy of the book even earlier than that. In any case, it is alleged that, by February 1981, the book had been obtained illicitly—stolen—on behalf of the Government. If that is so, did the Ministers and officials who considered it know it to have been stolen?

As Sir Robert Armstrong said in the witness box in Sydney, a meeting was held involving the Prime Minister, the former Home Secretary, Lord Whitelaw, the director-general of MI5, Sir Howard Smith, and possibly Sir Robert Armstrong. Sir Robert was not clear on that point. One claim is that MI5 argued that an injunction to stop 955 the book should not be sought since a court action would involve the admission that the book was obtained illicitly. Another version is that the Prime Minister was told that it was too late to stop the book. That is a curious argument, because the Government were perfectly ready to have Joan Miller's book withdrawn from circulation in Dublin, even after it was published and put on sale in London.

Sir Robert Armstrong says that the Prime Minister was not at all in favour of publishing Mr. Pincher's book. Mr. Pincher provides a different account. In a letter to Mr. Wright, which was read in open court in Sydney and accepted as accurate by Mr. Pincher in an article which he wrote in the Sunday Express, Mr. Pincher wrote as follows on 27 January 1983: On New Year's Day I was shooting with Havers, the Attorney-General, who is very friendly and told me about West's book. It is an extraordinary story and I urge you to have nothing whatever to do with West or with anything associated with him. For reasons I do not understand Martin"— that is Mr. Arthur Martin, a former MI5 and MI6 agent— agreed to see West. Havers told me that they met six times and on each occasion Martin told West secret information. In addition he showed him secret documents which should not have been in his possession. West then wrote his book and in it not only quoted Martin by name but quoted from the documents saying that they were secret! West is so stupid and naive"— that is the gentleman who is seeking entry to the House of Commons on the Conservative side, and there are other words about him in this letter which you would not permit me to quote, Mr. Deputy Speaker— that he then sent Martin a copy of the script for his comments. Martin was terrified and immediately took the book to the office in an effort to get himself out of the mess. The office informed Havers who then issued an injunction to have the offending parts removed for had the book been published, the Government would have had no option but to prosecute both Martin and West…Havers told me that he is still considering whether to prosecute Martin but says he cannot do that without prosecuting West, who has been adopted as a Tory candidate. Mrs. T is furious with him (West).… I can assure you that there is no intention whatever of taking action against me"— that is, Mr. Chapman Pincher— which means you too"— that is, Mr. Peter Wright. I lunched with Dickie Franks"— that is, Sir Arthur Franks, the former head of MI6— recently and he told me that they had my book weeks in advance and came to the conclusion that they would rather I did it than anyone else. They had heard that West, Duncan Campell Penrose etc. were on the trail and preferred my authorship". Therefore, Mr. Pincher's book was welcomed by the authorities. Does that mean that its publication was authorised? That argument has been put forward by Mr. Justice Powell in Sydney and explains why no action was taken against it.

In a curious episode, Sir Robert Armstrong made the Government's attitude explicit. On 23 March 1981, when the Daily Mail began serialising Mr. Pincher's book, Sir Robert Armstrong telephoned Mr. William Armstrong, the managing director of the publishers Sidgwick and Jackson, asking for copies of the book, which Sidgwick and Jackson were to publish on the 26th of that month, in case the Prime Minister wished to make a statement about it.

956 Mr. William Armstrong refused to provide the book without a guarantee that the Government would not take action against it. Sir Robert Armstrong agreed to that and a letter was negotiated in a telephone conversation. Sir Robert went to the publishers, collected two copies of the book and left the letter there. Its key paragraph stated: The request (for copies of the book) is not made with a view to seeking to prevent or delay publication and I can assure you that we shall not do so. That commitment was confirmed on the telephone to me today by Mr. William Armstrong of Sidgwick and Jackson. He read to me the full letter agreed between himself and the Secretary to the Cabinet. Mr. Jackson told me of the full circumstances surrounding that extraordinary guarantee not to proceed against "Their Trade is Treachery".

The House requires clear answers to certain important questions. I would have put my first question directly to the Attorney-General, and it is deplorable that he has not come to the House today—but no doubt my questions will be conveyed to him. First, did the Attorney-General go shooting with Mr. Pincher on new year's day 1983 and tell him that it was impossible to prosecute Mr. Arthur Martin without also prosecuting Mr. Nigel West, and that Mr. West was a Conservative candidate? Is that why the Attorney-General prosecuted neither Mr. Martin nor Mr. West?

Was the Attorney-General consulted about the letter to Mr. William Armstrong, promising not to prevent publication of Mr. Pincher's book? If so, did he assent to the guarantee? If so, why? If not, was the Attorney-General overridden? If so, did he know that he was being overridden, or was he just ignored as he had been six weeks before when the group of Ministers, under the Prime Minister, decided to take no action against Mr. Pincher?

The Attorney-General must also answer questions about his attitude to other unauthorised revelations by ex-MI5 officers. The Attorney-General has prosecuted people under the Official Secrets Act before now. He prosecuted Miss Sarah Tisdall and Mr. Clive Ponting, although neither of those civil servants had been a member of the security services. Therefore, the Attorney-General knows how to use the Act.

However, he did not prosecute Miss Cathy Massiter, although she looked tailormade for prosecution. She was a relatively recent ex-MI5 officer who had served in M15 for about 14 years. Last year, she provided a good deal of information, on camera, in a programme on Channel 4. It was very sensitive information, and included details of warrants signed by the then Home Secretary for telephone taps. She also provided information about other covert activities. Mr. Justice Taylor confirmed the accuracy of that information in the High Court only three months ago.

§ Mr. Tony Marlow (Northampton, North)

The right hon. Gentleman was discussing the subject of telephones. I wonder whether he could tell the House whether there have been any further calls between the office of the Leader of the Opposition and Mr. Turnbull in Australia since the 26th of last month? Is that liaison still continuing?

§ Mr. Kaufman

The hon. Gentleman's last intervention on this matter to come to my attention was when he referred to Miss Patricia Hewitt as a lickspittle. When I heard him use that epithet, I decided that it takes one to know one. As usual, the hon. Gentleman's interventions are beneath contempt.

957 We are discussing the failure to prosecute an ex-MI5 agent who has clearly given information away, outwith the Official Secrets Act. When Miss Massiter did that, the Independent Broadcasting Authority was so scared that it might be prosecuted under the Official Secrets Act that, at first, it banned the programme. However, on 18 March last year, the Attorney-General told the House that he would not prosecute. Why? After all, Miss Massiter met in full the criteria that the Attorney-General stated in this House two days ago in relation to the need to prevent officers and ex-officers of the security services from revealing secrets. Why is Mr. Wright not allowed to publish secrets, when Miss Massiter was allowed to do so?

The question goes farther than that. In 1984, Granada Television screened a "World in Action" programme called "The Spy Who Never Was", in which a former MI5 officer spilled the beans. Secrets simply tumbled from his lips in a programme specifically built around his revelations. He talked about Mr. Symonds' investigation into Russian infiltration of our security services, the fluency exercise, the existence of the mole code-named Elli, the GRU agent code-named Sonia, a man named Watson who was alleged to have passed naval secrets to the Russians, and much more.

No action whatever was taken against that programme, or against that ex-MI5 officer, although the Government had had advance knowledge of the disclosures in the programme. Why was that programme, which was damaging to national security according to the Government's own definition of it, permitted to go out without any interference, especially when that ex-MI5 officer was none other than Mr. Peter Wright? Why is Mr. Wright not allowed to publish secrets to thousands of Australian book buyers, when he was allowed to publish secrets to millions of British television viewers? There must be some reason for that manipulation of the law, and the Attorney-General is bound to give it.

The Prime Minister has questions to answer, too. In her maiden speech, she said that the public had the right, in the first instance, to know what its elected representatives were doing. Under this Government, the only way in which we find out what our elected representatives are doing is through paid civil servants who are briefed by the Prime Minister to smear the Leader of the Opposition while he is away from the Floor of the House.

§ Mr. Nicholas Soames (Crawley)

rose——

§ Mr. Kaufman

During the past days, the Prime Minister has made much of the traditional bipartisanship on security matters. Her campaign has been aided by hon. Members who have either obtained their knighthoods, or who are hoping to do so in the reasonably near future. If the Prime Minister is so committed to bipartisanship on security matters, why did she not take the initiative and brief my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition on the background to the action against Mr. Wright, before that action was brought? Is the Prime Minister's definition of bipartisanship one-sided, to be observed by the Opposition, but not by the Government?

Why did the Prime Minister not make available to my right hon. Friend details of the proceedings in court in Sydney, so that he and the House in general could be properly informed? [Interruption.] Previous security briefings, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Mr. Callaghan), a former Prime 958 Minister—I only wish that he were Prime Minister now—will know, have always been made on the initiative of the Prime Minister of the day. Why did the Prime Minister not provide such a briefing for my right hon. Friend the Member for Islwyn (Mr. Kinnock)? I hope that Conservative Members, whether or not their party is in government, will accept that my right hon. Friend and other hon. Members in all parties have the right to full information about an action which the taxpayers whom we represent are financing to the tune of £1 million or more.

In those circumstances, if the Government were not proffering the information, how else was my right hon. Friend to obtain the information? Was he to rely on a leak from MI5? After all, we know that the Prime Minister authorises those leaks on a selective basis only, so he could not be sure of having access to one. Or did the Prime Minister not brief my right hon. Friend on these matters because there were matters which, even under a bipartisan policy, she did not want him to know? The House has the right to know.

The House expects the Prime Minister to tell us why she sent poor Sir Robert Armstrong to make a fool of himself in the witness box in Sydney and to leave in public tatters the previously prestigious and important office of Secretary to the Cabinet.

§ Mr. Michael Brown (Brigg and Cleethorpes)

rose——

§ Mr. Kaufman

No.

Will the Prime Minister say why, after Sir Robert Armstrong failed to tell the truth about the Attorney-General's role in relation to "Their Trade is Treachery", she allowed that untruth to remain on the record for 11 days, although she knew that it was an untruth? She knew it was an untruth because she was present at the meeting that decided not to proceed against Mr. Pincher's book and the Attorney-General was not. Therefore, she knew that Sir Robert had not told the truth when he said that the Attorney-General was involved in that decision. Why did the Prime Minister not take the tiniest step to put that untruth right? Would she ever have put it right, if the Attorney-General had not gone to her and told her that he had had enough? Would she have allowed that untruth to remain on the record?

Why did the Prime Minister exclude the Attorney-General from the meeting that made the decision not to proceed against Mr. Pincher? On Monday, the Attorney-General told the House: When I am wearing my hat as Attorney-General and prosecutor, nobody can influence me and I would not accept any attempt to influence me from anybody."—[Official Report, 1 December 1986; Vol. 106, c. 619.] Is that why the Prime Minister excluded him? Was she afraid that he would not give her the advice she wanted? Did she remember the Westland affair in which the Attorney-General warned that he would bring the police into No. 10 unless there was an inquiry? Was she afraid of her own Attorney-General?

That brings us to the key question. Why did that meeting, at which the Prime Minister was present and at which, as Prime Minister, she presumably presided, decide not to proceed against Mr. Pincher's book? Was the Prime Minister a party to Sir Robert Armstrong's guarantee to Sidgwick and Jackson not to prevent the book's publication? If neither the Prime Minister nor the Attorney-General were a party to that guarantee, what 959 authority did Sir Robert Armstrong have to make that guarantee? If he had the Prime Minister's authority, why did she give him that authority? We have the right to know the answers to all those questions.

The security services also want to know the answers to those questions. Far from safeguarding them, the Prime Minister has exposed the country's security services to international ridicule by the court action in Sydney. When she took action against trade unionists at GCHQ, she focused more attention on the activities at GCHQ than ever before in its history. Now this court action, purporting to safeguard state secrets and the integrity of our security services, has exposed to the gaze of the world more state secrets of the British security services than ever before in its history.

The nation has the right to ask why the Prime Minister has done that, and the nation is waiting for the answers.

§ Mr. Dalyell

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. When the late Sir Reginald Manningham-Buller and the late Sir John Hobson were Law Officers in difficult circumstances, they sat on the Government Front Bench. Could——

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Ernest Armstrong)

Order. This is a short debate and many right hon. and hon. Members are waiting to catch my eye——

§ Mr. Dalyell

We ask for better things——

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker

Order. The hon. Gentleman knows that the presence of individual hon. Members in the House is not a matter for me.

§ Mr. Julian Amery (Brighton, Pavilion)

These are deep waters and the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman) has prudently chosen only to paddle in them. The right hon. Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Dr. Owen) raised a serious issue—whether there should be a parliamentary Committee to supervise the secret services, but the right hon. Member for Gorton did not address himself for one minute to that. He raised only two questions about possible mistakes made by the secret services. First, was Sir Roger Hollis a Soviet agent and, secondly, was the Prime Minister of the day bugged by the secret services? He did not tell us whether he thought a Committee would assist in finding that out. He merely paraded his rather journalistic opinions about a trial that is going on in Australia and provided a second-rate supplementary brief to that of Mr. Turnbull, who is a cleverer lawyer than the right hon. Gentleman.

I have never served in either the counter-espionage or the secret services. For 45 years I have had close associations with both of them—during the war, later when I was in office, and otherwise. I have been tremendously impressed by their development over the years. At first they comprised venturesome amateurs who were recruited during the war from universities, businesses and elsewhere. They have grown into highly professional organisations. Indeed, they have had to, because they have had to face both the most professional secret services that the world has ever seen and the threat of terrorism.

Public opinion tends to focus on the arms race. People tend to forget the escalation in the competition of espionage and counter-espionage forced on the West by 960 the fantastic effort which the Soviet Union and its satellites have put into this type of war. The weapons have piled up—thank God they have not been used—but underground warfare has been continuous for the past 45 years.

It is difficult to assess whether the secret services are working successfully. So long as they do their job, nothing becomes news. Their work should remain secret. When a Colonel Penkovsky is caught and shot in Moscow it may seem to be a triumph for the secret services, but it is a disaster, because it is a line of information that has been cut. Mr. Gordievsky had to take refuge with us, and that is another line of information cut. When my right hon. and learned Friend the Foreign Secretary—or, in bygone days Lord Home—repatriates Soviet diplomats or near-diplomats, that, too, is a disaster, because we are probably watching them to note their contacts, and so on. The successes that we know about are rare, and we must hope that there are not too many that become obvious.

If the head of the Security Service goes to see the Prime Minister and, rubbing his hands, says, "Oh, is it not marvellous, we have caught a spy, one of our men, in one of our high Government offices," the Prime Minister's heart must sink.

He or she must say, "Do you know what you have done? There will be a charge, a trial and an appeal, and it will be all over the press. It is a disaster." I think that it was Harold Macmillan who used the analogy that when his gamekeeper shot a fox he buried it and did not hang it up for the hunt to see. Unfortunately, our democratic institutions do not allow us to bury the people whom we catch in the same way. I sometimes wish that they did.

The right hon. Member for Devonport proposed a Committee of both Houses. The question is who is to serve on it, and who is to appoint its members? There are some difficulties in that regard. The right hon. Gentleman suggested that it should be made up of Privy Councillors. I am a great admirer of Privy Councillors; they are a very fine body of men. If the right hon. Member for Devonport and I were the only members of that Committee it might do very well, but I amused myself in my bath this morning thinking of Privy Councillors who might be selected from this House and the other place. Some of them are rather old, and some have dubious pasts. The shadow Foreign Secretary, the right hon. Member for Leeds, East (Mr. Healey) would qualify because of his experience as Secretary of State for Defence and because, as a young man, he was watched by the security services. We could find other Privy Councillors with interesting backgrounds. Some would obviously be no good at all. Consequently, I wonder whether such a Committee would be a good idea.

When I was younger, I often hoped to see the revival of the Committee of Imperial Defence. That was a great organisation. The leaders of the political parties met to receive information on defence policy. They were briefed on it, and it gave them an opportunity to exchange opinions. What would this proposed Committee do? Would it send for people and so identify the principal figures in our counter-intelligence and intelligence services? Would it send for papers? I hope to goodness that there are not too many papers about, as it might be very dangerous if they were distributed.

What would be the object of the exercise? How to cope with defectors? I do not think that the Committee would be likely to pinpoint weaknesses in the service. Would it consider how to advise on co-operation with the CIA or 961 the French and German intelligence services, or how to advise on the telephone tapping and surveillance of potential enemies? I cannot see a Committee of Privy Councillors—let alone a Committee diluted by others who are not Privy Councillors—doing that. Could the Committee avoid blunders? Could it settle the problem of whether Hollis was a Russian agent? Could it have avoided, if there was such a thing, the bugging of the Prime Minister's room? I have been able to identify only one major blunder, and that involved Commander Crabbe. Mr. Gough Whitlam has told us that Anthony Eden wanted to have Nasser and Grivas assassinated. Good thing too if he had done it; but I cannot see a Committee of Privy Councillors endorsing such an operation.

The most that it could do would be to carry out a postmortem on what had happened, but that is dangerous, and that is why we have the 30-year rule. I remember—if I may be anecdotal in my old age—that when I was in Albania during the war, an Albanian chief told me that he had a friend in a particular area who could help us. He said that he would send a message to him. I asked who he was and where his house was. He said, "I won't tell you as I might need him again, and he helped me 30 years ago."

I have some doubt about whether any committee, however distinguished, could be leakproof. Along with my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House, I have had the advantage of serving on the Committee of Privileges. In the short time that we worked together I was astonished to discover how many leaks there had been from different Committees.

The right hon. Member for Devonport may say that the Americans have a committee that invigilates the CIA. However, I wonder whether it works well. It is certainly time-consuming. When the committee is sitting, 40 members of the CIA sit on Capitol Hill all day, the next day, and the day after, tendering advice. We could hardly afford that, given the shoestring on which our secret services operate. As far as I know, the CIA regard that committee as being castrating.

Let us look at what has been happening. This morning's edition of the Herald Tribune tells us that Mr. Casey, the head of the CIA, admitted in cross-examination that the CIA gave some marginal help in the operation with Iran that led to funds being paid to the Contras in Nicaragua. If the CIA had not been subject to congressional control, I wonder whether Mr. McFarlane and Colonel North would have gone off on their own. If the secret services are muzzled too much, Governments may well be pushed into less reputable means of proceeding.

In every aspect of political life there is, of course, a strong case to be made for democratic control, but there is also a strong case to be made against it. There is certainly a strong case to be made for democratic control in internal affairs. The tendency is to delay, to call for public inquiries, and so on. It does not matter much. Even if the Government make a mistake they can amend it later. However, if mistakes are made abroad one does not always get the chance to rectify them. If I have any criticism of our secret services, it is that they are too cautious and restrained. That may be a fault on the right side, but we do not want to make them even more cautious then they already are.

We would do well to stick to our present methods of control. The Home Secretary supervises the Security Service, and the Foreign Secretary supervises the intelligence service. They have their links to the Cabinet 962 Office and No. 10 Downing street. Political control should be strengthened only informally, so that it does not become the subject of yet more questioning in the House. It is for the Secretaries of State of those Departments to delegate a little more to their Ministers of State and to ask them to concentrate more on those services. Lord Home did that to me when I was at the Foreign Office, but it was an entirely informal arrangement. It would be a great mistake to make such an arrangement formal. That would only weaken services which, by their very nature, have to be secret if they are to fulfil their duties and functions.

§ Mr. Roy Jenkins (Glasgow, Hillhead)

In my experience, most security eruptions have been short-term affairs, convulsing the House and dominating the headlines for a short time, and then going away as quickly as they came, but I have a strong and growing feeling that this one is rather different. About 15 days ago, when I used the phrase "this foolish mission" about the e