SECURITY (MISS KEENAN) (Hansard, 24 October 1967)

§ The Prime Minister (Mr. Harold Wilson)
With permission, Mr. Speaker, I wish to make a statement.
In accordance with the statement on references to the Security Commission which I made to the House on 10th May, 1965, and after informing the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition, I asked the Security Commission on 10th June to investigate and report upon the circumstances in which Miss Helen Mary Keenan had been charged with an offence under the Official Secrets Act and upon any related failure of departmental security arrangements or neglect of duty; and in the light of their investigation to advise whether any change in the security arrangements is necessary or desirable.
On 25th July Miss Keenan was convicted at the Central Criminal Court of offences under Section 2 of the Official Secrets Act.
On 23rd June, the Security Commission reported to me that there had been no failure of departmental security procedures or neglect of duty. This Report has not been published earlier because there was a possibility of appeal proceedings. Copies of the Report, from which certain details have been omitted in the interest of national security with the agreement of the Security Commission, will be available in the Vote Office this afternoon.
1505 In accordance with the normal practice, the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition has seen the full Report and has agreed with the deletions made in the published version.
The Security Commission has made certain suggestions on matters of detail which the Government accept and are putting into effect. But it concludes that only search measures offer any real prospect of providing a better safeguard for documents. A similar suggestion was made by the Security Commission in its Report of June, 1965, and it was then decided not to introduce such searches for the reasons which I explained in my statement of 25th January, 1966.
We have re-examined this matter and have concluded that the decision not to introduce searches should be maintained.

§ Mr. Heath
I am grateful to the Prime Minister for making that statement in the usual way. As the Security Commission has now come to the conclusion, after considering the Government's views, that a search in some form or other ought to be instituted, does this not now give very great weight to the views which the Security Commission held and, knowing the disadvantages that it has pointed out, ought not the Government to reconsider the whole question?

§ The Prime Minister
As I have just said, we reconsidered the matter in the light of this second recommendation about searches. As always—and I remember a predecessor of mine making the point several times—one has to hold the balance somewhere in a democracy between security and reasonable personal freedom in these matters. I think that a compulsory search of staffs leaving offices will be regarded by many of us as an excessive intrusion, particularly since there is good reason to think, in the rare case of the individual who was prepared to try and get away with it, that it would not be completely effective.

§ Dr. Summerskill
Miss Keenan is my constituent and known to me personally. Would not the Prime Minister agree, with the benefit of hindsight, that a young, impressionable and inexperienced girl, new to London, should not have been given access to this information in the first place?

§ The Prime Minister
With the wisdom of hindsight I think that there are one or two further lessons to be drawn from this case. I do not think that it is a question of newness to London which is the issue here, though the loneliness of some office staffs who come to London from the provinces creates special social problems which this case has highlighted.
Regarding her employment in the Cabinet Office, which automatically means access to secret information, at this time we are looking into the whole question of recruitment for that kind of employment.

§ Mr. Marten
Was Miss Keenan positively vetted?

§ The Prime Minister
I would like to check on that. I did have the answer in July, but I have not checked since. As far as I recall, she had gone through most of the stages, but it had not been completed. I think that that was the position. On the evidence available to me, I feel that what went wrong here was not any security clearance, because I do not think that any security vetting could have shown the vulnerability which resulted from the association with the individual concerned.

§ Mr. Thorpe
I have two questions. First, is it not a fact that when Miss Keenan resigned eight months after taking up her employment the vetting procedures had not been completed and the Commission held that this was normal? If that is so, is not this some case for speeding up the vetting procedures and not having them spread over eight months?
Secondly, since Miss Keenan was only 20 years of age, can we assume that she had not had any previous experience of working in Government Department? In any event, should not somebody who goes into the Cabinet Office have given loyal service first in slightly less vulnerable branches of the Service?

§ The Prime Minister
The right hon. Gentleman has made a very sound point. The need to speed up procedures has been emphasised and it is one of the lessons of this case.
Recruitment now to the sensitive branches at No. 10 is on the basis of 1507 inviting applications from other Departments where something is known and where there has been experience in sensitive work and we are considering how far that can be applied to other areas where there is this sensitive kind of work rather than by direct recruitment.

§ Captain W. Elliot
Will the Prime Minister give further thought to this question of search? There are certain areas where searches are carried out on all individuals—for example, at the Customs—but this is a much more important place. If there was a threat of search—andit need not be carried out often—surely it would have a deterrent effect.

§ The Prime Minister
This is an extremely difficult issue to decide. It was carefully considered on the first occasion when the Security Commission made the recommendation and again on the second occasion. It is very difficult and I feel that not to accept the recommendation probably holds the right balance between personal freedom and the right to some degree of privacy and the security considerations.
I am rather moved towards that view by the fact that search, or threat of search, would not be a complete deterrent or completely effective in the kind of circumstances one might expect on very rare occasions.