HC Deb 16 February 1967 vol 741 cc774-5
19. Mr. Kenneth Lewis

asked the Postmaster-General what action he proposes to take to prevent tape recording of conversations on party telephones by one party recording the conversations of the other.

Mr. Short

The Telephone Regulations forbid the attachment of any device to a telephone installation without my approval. Authority to connect a recording machine to a shared line is given only when the Post Office has the written consent of the partner.

Mr. Lewis

Is the Postmaster-General aware, first, that I am very happy that he got my Question right? I thought, on rereading it, that he might have thought that I was referring to either the Parliamentary Labour Party or to the 1922 Committee.

Mr. Speaker

Order. Question Time is Question Time.

Mr. Lewis

The Postmaster-General must agree that there is a great deal of misuse in this connection and that it has been obvious from various cases reported in the Press that party-line systems can be misused. Does he not think that it would be better if we got rid of party lines altogether and gave everybody separate: telephones?

Mr. Short

That is the ultimate objective, but I regret to say that it is still some way off. I share the hon. Gentleman's fears about this. I think that the recent divorce case gave rise to many fears. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary answered a Question on this. It is not by any means a straightforward matter. We are certainly aware of the problem and are studying it.

Sir J. Langford-Holt

The right hon. Gentleman said that it is illegal to attach anything to a telephone. Is he not aware that it is quite possible to take a recording of a telephone conversation without attaching anything to a telephone? Is that illegal?

Mr. Short

I did not say that it was illegal. I said that it was forbidden by the Telephone Regulations. The weakness of this—let me say this clearly—is that there is no real penalty. The only penalty is for the Post Office to take the phone out, which we tried to do in the recent case—but the gentleman had moved, I understand. That is the weakness of the present situation, but we are looking at this. We are well aware of the other problem mentioned by the hon. Gentleman. I am sure that this is probably becoming an even greater danger in this age of miniaturisation, when it is possible to bug a phone and to bug many other things as well.