PRIVATE BLACK LISTS

HC Deb 05 February 1968 vol 758 cc51-85

4.5 p.m.

Mr. Tony Gardner (Rushcliffe)

I beg to move, That this House views with grave concern the growth of private agencies which collect and provide confidential information concerning individuals, a practice which can only be described as blacklisting and which violates the principle that no person is guilty until proved to be so in a court of law, that no person shall be indicted without full knowledge of the indictment and that justice is a public activity and not a private pursuit; and accordingly urges Her Majesty's Government to seek ways of dealing with this manifest threat to the privacy and liberty of the subject. Nobedy could have been more surprised than I when the No. 66 was drawn from the Ballot Box. Prizes in sweepstakes and even Christmas raffles have always eluded me, and I shall cherish the number 66 for evermore. I am deeply conscious of the privilege which Lady Luck has given me today, and I want to use my time wisely, especially since my hon. and right hon. Friends have already taken a fair slice out of Private Members' Time this afternoon.

There is no need to apologise to the House for raising the subject of black lists at a time when we are gravely concerned about finance, industry, foreign affairs and other great issues of State, because the House has always regarded as its first charge the liberties and freedom of the subject.

The attitude which led me to put down the Motion is, to say the least, slightly emotional. It dates from a long time ago, when a very pleasant half hour on a park bench was interrupted by a rather zealous police constable, who shone his torch upon us and asked for our identity cards. I do not know what happened to the young lady, but the policeman is always with us. The policeman does not always wear a uniform of public authority.

This is International Human Rights Year. Article 12 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights provides that: No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation and Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks. I am sure that these sentiments are readily accepted by the House. In May of last year the Nordic Conference of Jurists gave some detailed definitions of these rights. The Conference demanded, amongst other things, protection of the individual against the following Attacks on his honour or reputation—being placed in a false light—the disclosure of irrelevant, embarrassing facts relating to his private life—spying, prying, watching and besetting. Again, I believe that that is a point of view which is readily acceptable in the House.

Modern industrial society thrives on information, however, and, more and more, individuals in this country and many others are becoming identified, investigated, categorised, tabulated and indexed. Furthermore, science has given the faceless men new tools of investigation and new means of recording information which they get. At the press of a button, it is increasingly possible to obtain a great deal of private information both about individuals and about us all as members of groups of one kind or another. If we are not careful we may soon go about our private occasions under the beady eye of the computer.

On 1st December, last year, the hon. Member for Chelmsford (Mr. St. JohnStevas)—to whom the House was grateful—introduced a Motion on the liberties of the subject. Since it was his aim to attack my hon. and right hon. Friends, he did not offer much substantial evidence to justify his Motion, but he could have done, for the State is one of the worst offenders in infiltrating into the private life of the individual.

All of us in the House would condemn the methods used by the Communist countries—by State agencies in those countries—to obtain information, but we have also witnessed what happened in the home of liberty—the United States of America—during Senator McCarthy's heyday. The point is that this kind of activity continues. Perhaps it gets less publicity today, because we have all come to live with the snooper, and we ask fewer questions about him.

The modern State needs information for various purposes—for social security reasons in the case of my right hon. Friend the Minister of Social Security, in order to establish the appropriate welfare pattern and to make adjustments. In the case of my hon. Friend's Ministry, the Ministry of Labour, the task is to place men and women in the right jobs. This means that a Government do and must amass a great deal of personal information about millions of people which could be used to their disadvantage. I am sure that my hon. Friend and my other right hon. and hon. Friends are conscious of the responsibility placed on them by the amount of personal information which they have, but the mere existence of this information can be a threat.

The test must be, is it all necessary? Obviously, if one is appointing a research worker in an atomic weapons factory his background is important, but I wonder whether it is always necessary to have the kind of background detail which I am told must be obtained when appointing people in other directions in Government service where security is not involved.

The second test must be: is the information available used in a way which threatens the liberty of the individual? Generally in this country, with some remarkable exceptions which have been brought to the attention of the House, this is not the case. The Prime Minister set a good example last year when he announced that he would order the practice of tapping Members' phones discontinued, but the dangers of Government prying are always with us, and the evidence of how these dangers have grown in other countries can give us no cause for comfort or ease.

However, Government agencies are ultimately responsible to someone. At least the investigations of the Ministry of Defence are responsible to my right hon. Friend, who has to answer ultimately for his Department. Questions may be and are asked in the House about problems involving the liberty of the subject in his dealings with Government. It is sometimes difficult to control their activities even then, but how much more difficult it is to control private agencies. It is these that concern me most.

Since the last war, there has been a great growth of private snooping, information gathering and, much worse, information distributing. This is now big business. Hire purchase companies, credit firms and other trading organisations constantly seek information about present and prospective customers, often from the housing and health departments of local authorities. The man behind with his rent for some reason may be considered a poor credit risk, as may be the man who has had a recent illness. However, fortunately, most of these inquiries are met with a polite but very firm refusal.

But the credit rating system of the United States is rapidly being imported into this country on a scale which makes me shudder. The methods of agencies tracing debtors and assessing credit ratings, and therefore obtaining personal information, are sometimes deplorable. Hon. Members may have seen a report in yesterday'sSunday Mirrorregarding a certain tracing firm. This firm employs teams to trace people who are in debt and, by careful use of the telephone, they can dupe local authority officials and even those in Government Departments into providing personal information, perhaps by suggesting that they are from the Ministry of Social Security or the local hospital inquiring about an accident or a personal problem, and then using the information to identify someone in debt.

The general manager of this firm, when interviewed, said that he had no knowledge of this, and we must take him at his word, but he went on to say: But we like to keep our operations somewhat quiet. I used to be in this business on my own, and we have some very keen rivals who would like to know our secrets. So now we know. This gentleman is conscious of the growing competition to his firm from other inquiry and investigating agencies, which I suggest threatens us all.

However, prying in employment is the greatest danger, which should concern us all. I have here, for example, an application for employment form issued by one of the best-known and reputable retail organisations in Britain, employing thousands of people and with a considerable turnover. The application is for a job as a hire purchase debt collector. After all the usual requests for information like name and address, length of stay at that address, and whether one owns one's own house—all perfectly proper for someone handling money—it asks the most impertinent question: If married, are you living with your wife/ husband? If this form were given to me and I was not desperate for employment, my answer to that would be "mind your own business."

This kind of investigation by private companies is growing. I am concerned about the amount of information which employers now apparently need—not merely to employ a senior executive, who may, after all, have to entertain other executives or prospective customers at home, but sometimes down to the level of the lorry driver or engineering fitter.

Black lists have always existed, of course. Throughout the history of the trade union movement, employers have tried to blacklist those who are a bit too active. Those who, like myself, have worked in the building industry, have known about this system and fought it. The names of active trade unionists were passed from firm to firm in the local employers' association, and it became impossible to get a job in that town. Many of my friends in the industry had to pack up, bag and baggage, and move home before the war to find employment, buy a new home, and keep their wives and families. This has always been going on.

However, perhaps we looked at it, as trade unionists, rather whimsically, because it was usually inefficient. The associations were localised and the information did not get around quickly, although some powerful employers were more efficient. What troubles us now is the growth and importation of American business methods, together with the science and technology which I mentioned, which has given the blacklister and the confidential industrial snooper new weapons. I do not suggest that many firms in this business are disreputable. I have come across a number, and the people who run them are honourable, operating under the impression that they are providing a perfectly honourable service.

In 1963, my noble Friend, now Lord Brockway, drew attention to the activities of a firm called Security Services, headed by a former Assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police. The firm had previously been involved in counter industrial espionage, but in 1963 entered a new field. In its publicity material it offered prospective clients the following services: Supplying of undercover agents—a man planted among your employees to provide you with complete appraisal of unauthorised happenings … The following of vehicles used by employees in the course of their work … Reporting on any person who may be suspected of causing dissension or inciting employees to disaffection … The screening of prospective employees—a search into their antecedents and background. As a result of the great deal of press publicity and the intervention of my noble Friend, this insolent circular was withdrawn. But in withdrawing the circular, the director of the company concerned made no apology whatever, believing, quite seriously that this kind of industrial service ought to be provided. How many similar activities are operating today?

These are difficult problems. It is true that dishonest people can move around from firm to firm and from job to job and can perhaps "con" one employer after another, and obviously an employer has to take action to protect himself against the industrial spy and against the dishonest person. But the question which we need to ask is, how far can we afford to let these agencies go in seeking information and providing it to potential customers?

The latest example of scientific blacklisting is offered under the "Name Records Research Index." In its publicity this agency claims: Use of the Records Research Index will therefore provide information faster than is provided by taking up references in the ordinary way—a practice which some companies have abandoned because of the poor value of the replies received, the expense of obtaining them and the frequent delay incurred in assessing the suitability of an applicant. The suggestion is that the normal personnel procedure is not adequate for the job, and that those employers who have no adequate personnel facilities need not establish them if they use this firm's service.

The firms which subscribe to this agency can, on the payment of a small fee, check prospective employees against the index. I emphasise that this firm is a thoroughly reputable firm, providing what it considers to be a useful service. The director had the courtesy to come to the House to meet me today and to discuss with me the problems of the kind of work which he is doing. He is an honourable man, trying to do an honourable business job, as he sees it. It is true that the information which is available to the prospective client includes only identification details—name, address, age, name of last employer, date of dismissal. That is all the information which is contained and, in theory at any rate, it does not seem too bad.

But perhaps I should explain how the service works. The firm which is a member of this agency and which dismisses an employee, say, for dishonesty, fills out a little card which is sent to the agency, and this becomes the basis of the information which will be fed back to another employer who may seek a reference on that person. The information is very limited indeed, and it is fair to say that some of the Press publicity which has been given is a little misguided. I think that this firm was unfairly criticised in that respect. But the definition of the kind of person on whom one ought to submit a card is: A person who has been dismissed or asked to leave for a criminal offence, for any wilful dishonest act, or for any wilful act prejudicial to the security of his or her employer. I should be grateful if any hon. Member could tell me precisely what the latter phrase means. It could be used to include almost anything under the sun.

In its editorial, on 11th January, theSunsummed up the whole situation very well indeed: Even if the information is completely accurate, a black list like this is deplorable. Once on the list you are a marked man, not fit to be employed. You may already have been punished for your offence but you are still on the list. How do you work your passage back to respectability? If a man cannot work his passage back, what is there left for him? A life of crime? But would the information always be accurate? Some employers can be vindictive. In any case, very many other issues arise. Let us take, for example, the question of a cashier who has been suspected of dipping into the till or a milk roundsman whose books may not be quite straight. In some cases it is kinder quietly to ask the man to resign or to dismiss him rather than to prosecute and to have a black mark against his name. But how does this man ever get the record straight? How does he ever show that the charge against him was untrue if no charge has ever been made in the open? I have always thought it a fundamental principle of English law that no man is guilty of an offence until he is proved to be so in a court of law.

Other issues arise. How does one get one's name off the list, or does it follow the unfortunate person around for the rest of his working life? I understand that this agency is considering setting a limit of three years or so, but the actual length of time has not yet been decided, and even three years is too long in which the unfortunate person is perhaps driven to distraction—three years during which he can be permanently penalised, if this kind of agency and this service grows and eventually covers the whole community. I do not necessarily criticise this firm, but I have visions of what might happen if this kind of service grows throughout the community.

Mr. David Winnick (Croydon, South)

Is there not a danger that this black list criticism could be extended to include Government Left-wing Members and trade unionists? I understand that Management Investigations Ltd. is run by a former Director of Military Intelligence. It could be used as a general witch-hunt against the Left.

Mr. Gardner

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I have no knowledge of the background of the gentleman in question, and, as I have no knowledge, I would not like to comment. I do not think that that is this firm's intention. In fact, in conversation today, he told me that that is not the case. But I agree with my hon. Friend that that is a threat which hangs over us all.

Mr. Winnick

Against the Left.

Mr. Gardner

There were problems in the building industry in London, problems involving some people who were thought to be particularly militant and who were suspected of going around from job to job, carrying their militancy with them. This is a very serious problem. How far ought we to go in combating something which we may not like? Should we go to the extent of condemning a man for ever more, perhaps for political reasons, but more likely for ordinary commercial reasons, simply because he has once committed an offence and we know of no other way of solving the problem?

I should like to ask my hon. Friend for two assurances. First—and this is particularly important—to the best of my information the police do not normally disclose confidential information available on their files, but I ask for a categorical assurance that neither the police nor any public body will be permitted to provide personal information about individuals to private agencies of this kind. Secondly—and this is equally important, and I am even more worried about it—may I have an assurance that neither my hon. Friend's Department nor any other Government Department, nor, indeed, any public body in which the Government have the power to advise and intervene, will be allowed to use the services provided by this kind of private agency.

Perhaps I ought to go further and to ask my hon. Friend to discuss with his hon. and right hon. Friends in Government whether it is not time to set very close limits to the amount of private snooping, collecting of information and supplying of information which goes on in Britain at the moment, because there is much too much of it. Perhaps that might be done by some system of licensing, backed by a code of conduct within which such firms should be asked to operate. Clearly something will have to be done if we are to defend our liberties.

We ought to make it quite clear that these services, though possibly thought desirable on the margin, are not necessary and that we need not sacrifice our liberty for the sake of industrial efficiency. Competent personnel departments ought to be quite capable of assessing the employment capabilities of an individual and assessing his background. In recent years the provisions for recruiting and training personnel staff have greatly improved. My own friends in the personnel service, who have acquired a genuine professional status, tell me that they would be chary of passing on personal records to anyone within their own organisation, much less to anyone outside it. We can, therefore, feel confident that professional departments, manned by experienced personnel officers, are well run and that the information collected remains secret.

Hon. Members can make a great deal of noise, both in the House and elsewhere, about this and other subjects and bodies like the National Council for Civil Liberties can expose the snooper and blacklister in defending our right to have what I would call anonymity—the right to walk down the street incognito.

In our last debate, an hon. Member reminded the House that we were only 17 years short of 1984. Today, we are a little over two months nearer that date. I fear that the matters to which I have drawn attention in my Motion may be but the portent of much worse to come, if we are not careful. It is said that the price of liberty is eternal vigilance. I hope that the House will agree that liberty at that price is still very cheap indeed.

4.32 p.m.

Mr. John Page (Harrow, West)

Hon. Members will be grateful to the hon. Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Gardner) for giving us an opportunity to debate this subject. The longer I am in the House the more I feel that the prime duty of every hon. Member is to defend the personal freedom of the members of his constituency and that that is, above all, his first and most important task. We in this House are the trustees of freedom, and therefore, when there appear to be abuses of freedom, it is important that we should have the opportunity of discussing them.

On the other hand, in view of the flowery words of the Motion, I was expecting the hon. Gentleman to give more examples of what he had in mind. He produced only three, two of which recently appeared in the Press and one of which was raised in the debate we had on this subject four or five years ago. Despite this, perhaps the hon. Gentleman has been pointing to a trend.

As presented by the hon. Gentleman, the discussion appears to be divided into two categories; the status reports provided by private organisations and others in connection with credit-worthiness and trade and the question of service and employment records in connection with employment. The hon. Gentleman did not mention those black lists and records which are kept locked in the two offices just outside the Lobby, the keys to which are held by only the Chief Whips. Those documents might make extremely interesting reading, but would not be in order in this debate.

Hire purchase and other industrial credit business is now running at about;£1,000 million at any one time, a high figure in any calculation. If we agree with credit trading, which I do, it is obvious that traders must be allowed to defend themselves against defaulters. Otherwise it would be difficult for people who wish to obtain credit to get it. The Consumer Council has recently commented on the subject of credit status and has said that it is the duty of a trader to satisfy himself about the creditworthiness of a potential customer before entering into a transaction. The Council even holds that it is the duty of a trader not to allow a potential customer to obtain more credit than he can reasonably be expected to have. I believe that, in the latter view, the Council goes rather further than I would normally expect to go.

Easily the largest credit rating organisation is that operated by the United Association for the Protection of Trade, a non profit-making organisation formed 125 years ago. It has about 14 million names on its books. It is, therefore, truly a national register. It supplies information on credit to only its members. In addition to supplying that information confidentially, it also supplies confidential information about individuals and companies who have defaulted or have had judgments made against them. On no occasion does the Association issue a black list, although occasionally, I believe rightly, it notifies its members in certain districts if a new trick is being used—for example, a new trick to buy cars on hire purchase—or if a stolen cheque book or some other means is being used to obtain credit. This is, I suggest, a fair means of giving warning. There are a few other quite large private credit rating companies, which seem to operate satisfactorily, particularly those which are based on districts.

The hon. Member for Rushcliffe referred to a report which appeared in yesterday's Sunday Mirrorabout strong arm tactics and other sinister practices being adopted to discover information by a debt collecting company. I believe that there are one or two small companies—the hon. Gentleman referred to them being spurred on by competition—which perhaps use practices such as calling to collect debts with an alsatian dog, or leaving outside the house a van loudly painted as belonging to a debt collecting firm. These practices are surely undesirable, and I suggest that it is up to national and local chambers of commerce and trade to keep an active eye on the types of agencies which may be used by their members.

I come to the more complicated and controversial question on individual employment records and references. As the hon. Gentleman said, when considering national security, it must be generally accepted that deep positive vetting is necessary in the national interest. However, I wish to mention a more difficult sphere and one in which I had a constituency case three or four years ago. This concerns those who have a special responsibility in the community for looking after—and this arose in my constituency case—particularly young people.

In the instance to which I refer, a man was arrested in my constituency for indecently assaulting a boy. It was later found that, at the time, he was holding the position of house father in a reception centre for delinquent boys. This is so wrong that it is obviously very much in the national interest that double and triple checking of references of people being employed to take up posts of great personal responsibility for individuals, particularly for young people, should be carried out. We must be prepared to submit personal freedoms to investigation in such circumstances.

Mr. Gardner

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. I accept that in the kind of case he has mentioned this kind of confidential searching must go on, but could he distinguish between that procedure and putting this chap on some kind of list which says, "Do not employ him"'?

Mr. Page

The hon. Gentleman has pinpointed a great difficulty. We want that man on the kind of list which says, "This man must not be appointed to any position where he has the care of young people." That is the great difficulty, and that is where the risk comes. I was only pointing it out as a problem area. It is a case where the responsibility lies with the Home Office. The Home Office has to take great care and, if necessary, ask for police records to be checked.

It is in the general category of all those who work in business and industry and who are looking for jobs that the kind of black list which the hon. Gentleman described to us is most likely to be used, and would be unjust and very often disgraceful in its impact. The idea of there being a secretdossierwhich the individual concerned has no opportunity of seeing. and from which there is no appeal, is offensive, repugnant and objectionable. Except in the kind of cases I have mentioned, I would disapprove of its use.

If by a mistake in a credit rating in the commercial world a man is unable to buy a television set, it is not the end of the world. but if by a mistake which might well happen, or by a subjective report coming from a previous employer, a man is unable, possibly for most of his working life, to get a job, or the job of his choice, we are in a very dangerous position. I am told by people experienced in the employment agency sphere that employers can make mistakes of from 10 per cent. to 15 per cent. in the records which they send in. Mistakes can, therefore, easily take place.

As the hon. Gentleman said, the only satisfactory way for an employer to examine the suitability of a prospective new employee of any status for the job he has in mind is for him to take up the man's references himself. This is quite easy for an employer who is employing two or three people, but it becomes more difficult if, for some reason, he has to take on 30 or 40 more employees.

If an employer were opening a new factory in a development area he might have to employ 500 or 600 completely new employees at one time. If the company did not have sufficient backing in its personnel department, it would be sensible and justifiable for it to put the whole problem in the hands of a personnel consultant, or an employment agency, who would then interview potential employees and take up their references on behalf of the client.

I hope—and this is the opening that the hon. Gentleman has created by rais ing this subject this afternoon—that after this amount of publicity a sensible and good employer will insist that individual references are taken up in each case and that there is not merely an exchange of black lists by one agency with another, supposing those to be run. A point to be observed by potential users is that 8 million people change their jobs every year, and a register unless it were on some kind of a national basis, would be completely worthless.

Mr. Winnick

Can the hon. Member state quite clearly that he dissociates himself and his party from that form of black list against people who happen to be politically active on the Left—active or formerly active trade unionists? There is a black list operating now in certain quarters. Does he dissociate himself from such blacklisting?

Mr. Page

If the hon. Gentleman catches your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker, perhaps he can tell us about these black lists that he says operate in certain quarters, though they were not mentioned by his hon. Friend the Member for Rushcliffe.

The hon. Gentleman's intervention comes very appropriately, because I was about to bring up the question of the taking up of references for those who have been described by both the Prime Minister and the Minister of Labour as being out to make trouble in industry. I have here the report of a speech made by the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Labour at Gillingham on 18th October last, in which he said: There is now little doubt that the Communist Party are plotting to make this a winter of disruption … They now, unhappily for the well-being of the nation, have entered into an unholy alliance with elements of the Trotskyist Party. Their aim, to destroy our hopes of economic recovery… A little later, the right hon. Gentleman said: Unofficial, or totally irresponsible, action in key industries threatens the livelihood of many other trade unionists, not only in those industries, but in many others. In view of that statement, and as the Prime Minister and the Minister of Labour have been pressed in the House to say who these troublemakers are, can we be told how it is considered that companies, particularly those taking on large new work forces in a development area or elsewhere, can avoid employing these men whom both right hon. Gentlemen have underlined as troublemakers? We object to the secret blacklist, and I believe that this is the kind of information that employment exchanges would not be able to give.

Again, one finds difficulty when the ordinary reference system of personnel manager to personnel manager breaks down. It can happen that one personnel manager rings up another who is at present employing one of these troublemakers and asks: "You have a chap working for you named so-and-so who wants to work for me. What is he like?" In that case, the currently employing personnel manager will say, "He is a splendid chap. I shall be desperately sorry to lose him but, if he has to go, he has to go"—and then with great glee waits to hear that the man is no longer working for his firm. I should like the Parliamentary Secretary to bend his mind to the thought that the employment of the troublemakers who are out to disrupt industry should be largely in the hands of the trade union officers in the particular neighbourhood. It would be they who would be able to advise a potential employer whether or not a certain man should be taken on.

Mr. Gardner

I am sympathetic to the point of view the hon. Gentleman is putting, but will he accept that some of us on this side of the House do not necessarily agree with either my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister or my right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour about this large group of so-called troublemakers in industry? On at least one occasion I was dismissed from my employment on the ground that I was a troublemaker. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman would venture his definition of the words.

Mr. Page

Many of us who have worked in industry can understand when men are out to make trouble in order to disrupt an organisation as opposed to men who are rightly, or possibly even wrongly, but in their own minds conscientiously and justifiably, fighting an attitude on the part of an employer with which they do not agree. I also feel that perhaps it is not really for me, in my humble position. to give this definition, considering that, on a number of occasions, the Prime Minister, I believe, and certainly the Minister of Labour, have refused to give their own definition of what is a trouble maker.

Mr. Winnick rose—

Mr. Page

No. I have given way to the hon. Gentleman enough. I ask the Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour to give us an answer on this definition and, since we on this side of the House are so often criticised for asking questions without giving answers, on this occasion I am, with some comfort, able to give exactly what our answer would be to this problem. It is that we should stop the cause of it at the base.

I believe that, when the new Conservative industrial policy is enacted and working, there will be fewer unofficial strikes, that official trade unions and their officers will have more respect and more power, and that trouble makers—and people may have different views as to what troublemakers are—will be less powerful and have less of an audience. A fresh wind will be blown through our industrial relations system by the new industrial courts, which will allow appeal against unfair dismissal or against bad treatment of an employee by his employer or trade union. All these things will so greatly improve the atmosphere in industry that the private agencies and private black lists, however strongly they may exist, will not in future have to exist at all.

4.53 p.m.

Mr. Alexander W. Lyon (York)

My heart bled for the hon. Member for Harrow, West (Mr. John Page) when he was skewered on the question by my hon. Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Gardner), because he was obviously in the gravest difficulty in trying to define whom he would regard as a troublemaker. That difficulty, of course, is at the basis of the difficulty about a black list. If there is a black list for the purpose of passing on information about who is or is not a desirable employee, someone has to assemble it. If that person is putting into his black list clearly ascertainable information, such as whether a man has had a previous conviction for dishonesty, he can note that as a fact. But if he is to put into the black list men who have not been clearly identified as being dishonest in this way but are merely suspected of being dishonest by a previous employer, he is in the gravest difficulty because he is taking away a man's character and, indeed, if the black list is widespread, he is taking away any hope of further employment without giving to that individual the right of appeal to any independent, impartial tribunal or observer who can decide whether or not there is any justice in this character assassination.

Mr. John Page

The hon. Gentleman refers to skewers, to troublemakers and people who are dishonest. What would be his view of a man who had, so to speak, led 10 unofficial strikes in defiance of agreements and trade union rules over a certain period? Would that man be considered a troublemaker or not? I suspect that he would be by his trade union leaders and organisers in the neighbourhood.

Mr. Lyon

I have sometimes wondered whether Mr. Jack Dash is a troublemaker in that definition. He certainly causes real difficulty both for the managements and for the unions in the docks, but he is a representative of thinking among some of the men and the plain fact is that he would have no rôle to play if the management-labour relations in the docks were such as to eliminate the necessity for a Jack Dash. He is a symptom of something much more deep and as a result he may be a necessary reflection of the opinions of the men. In that sense, so far from being a troublemaker, he is a kind of valve which allows steam to get out in the open and tell the employers what is going on.

Obviously, therefore, there could be a difference of opinion about a man as notorious as Mr. Dash, whom most people would generally accept and regard as a troublemaker. One cannot lay down clearly definite classifications for individuals unless one is to pinpoint the known facts which are clearly ascertainable, such as a previous conviction. For this reason, black lists are extremely dangerous.

But what is wrong with a black list—and this is where we enter a subject in which I have taken a great deal of interest—is that it is an invasion of the privacy of the individual. It is not simply that it is assembly of known facts about a man which can be culled by any future employer from Press reports or other easily accessible sources of information; it is an investigation into the background of an individual—into his friends, his marriage and his associates—in order that he can be determined as a likely or unlikely prospect for employment by another firm.

If that is true, it seems to me that this is yet another instance to support the case for some kind of law against intrusion into privacy. This is the third occasion in the last 12 months in which I have spoken in this House on a Motion of this kind and have urged that we should have such a law. It shows the infinite variety of abuses against which such a law would protect us. We should write into the English common law a right of privacy, a recognition of the individual's need to preserve some part of his life from the intrusion of other human beings. Privacy should be protected just as property is protected in the English common law.

We understand the concept of the protection of property. We talk about an Englishman's home being his castle and are very proud of that part of our English common law. It is part of our common law because, in the Middle Ages, that was all people understood about privacy. If one had a home, one could retreat into it, close the door and keep out intruders. That was all one required, because there was a little part of one's life which could be one's own and from which one could keep other people if one wished.

People can now overcome the boundaries of property in order to intrude into one's private life either by an investigation like this for a black list, or by use of mechanical and electronic devices, so that they can now investigate what is going on inside a house even though actually standing outside the property, or by sending newspaper reporters to find out what is going on and publish it in the Press. All these intrusions into privacy mean that the individual's area of life where he can keep himself to himself is being constantly invaded.

We shall never establish a real defence to a person's privacy until there is a general law. In the last 12 months, there has been some movement on this front.

The Nordic Conference of the International Commission of Jurists has produced a report recommending that in every civilised country there should be a right of privacy and spelling out in great detail what that right should cover and saying that it should cover this kind of abuse. The Law Commission in England has already held a seminar at Oxford where a number of jurists and people from the Press, television and radio and others interested in the problem produced a working paper, and it is hoped that the Law Commission will shortly be able to produce a report.

Justice, the British Section of the International Commission of Jurists, has had a committee considering the matter and I hope that it will be reporting some time this year. I understand that its committee on civil liberties is also to produce a report on this very problem in the near future. There is, therefore, a mass of information coming together from which it should be possible to evolve a sensible law which considers those who have legitimate purposes for intruding into the privacy of others, but nevertheless establishes the general principle.

I understand from the Press that a Select Committee was to have considered this whole problem this very Session. It was said that the Leader of the House was to establish a pre-legislation committee whose first step would be to consider invasion of privacy covering topics such as today's. I have been waiting eagerly and expectantly for the announcement of the setting-up of that committee and its terms of reference, but we have heard nothing yet.

I know that the reply to the debate is to come from the Ministry of Labour—I wish that it were coming from the Leader of the House—but if we can hear that this pre-legislation committee is likely to be appointed shortly and to begin to take evidence upon all aspects of the invasion of privacy so as to produce draft legislation which may be acceptable to the majority of hon. Members, we shall be getting a move on. It is about time that we did, because the organisation about which my hon. Friend the Member for Rushcliffe is concerned is already beginning to build a large apparatus for its type of invasion of privacy. In the other aspects of its work, the countering of industrial espionage, it claims to safeguard privacy and for that reason regularly sends me information about its activities, but some of its activities, particularly this, horrify me, because they extend invasions of privacy and do not protect the individual.

This kind of organisation is building up its operations as a commercial proposition week in and week out and until we have a workable law on privacy, this kind of operation will go on unchecked.

Equally, other invasions of privacy are proceeding apace and it is vitally important that the House should decide in the near future whether English law should be amended in this respect. I therefore hope that we shall have an affirmative answer from the Front Bench indicating that such an amendment is in prospect.

5.5 p.m.

Mr. Ray Mawby (Totnes)

I agree with the later remarks of the hon. Member for York (Mr. Alexander W. Lyon). This subject is tremendously important. As my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, West (Mr. John Page) pointed out, as Members of Parliament our main duty is to look after the right to privacy and the independence of our constituents. We have many duties, but that is surely our major task. The growth of these organisations denies any cause for joy. They are seeking to provide a service which by their lights they regard as a good service, but if we were to have a Select Committee concerned with the right to privacy and the invasion of privacy, even to the point of being able to consider in advance legislation which might detrimentally affect that right for certain people, there might be many Measures which we would have seriously to reconsider. Some Measures, while helping the majority of people, do some damage to individuals, but if that damage is very small, it can be set on one side. Every day we have to balance the rights of the majority against any damage which may be done to a small minority.

The difficulty with all these organisations, however well they work, is not the definition of who is a trouble maker, but whether mistakes are made and perpetuated. There is no court or tribunal to rectify any damage. We all know, the laws of slander and libel, but this sort of system is like a whispering campaign in which it is impossible to pinpoint where the damage is first caused and by whom. Even if that is discovered, it is impossible to prove that the person causing the damage did so maliciously, and the laws of slander and libel are therefore inoperative for a person affected by a record which is kept secretly and given only to the customer of the agency. Where there is no State investigation into the method of payment for getting information and there is no way of knowing how the information is obtained, there is great danger that the information will be wrong and will damage a person of the same name from another part of the country. As a result, the wrong man may be denied employment, or forced to live elsewhere.

That is why I believe that the growth of these concerns is to be deplored. There are people who will say that in certain respects these agencies do a first-class job, particularly with industrial espionage. A lot of industrial espionage is brought to an end as a result of the activities of these organisations, it is said. I still believe that the only secret organisations which should exist should be those employed by the Government and those under the very strict supervision of the Prime Minister of the day. It is obvious that any nation needs these services. Even they have to be under very close supervision. These are the sorts of things that we accept with reluctance, because we believe them to be essential evils.

I do not believe that these organisations are an essential evil. There are other methods by which an employer can ascertain the antecedents of a prospective employee. Because of that I deplore the existence of these organisations. How do we deal with them? How does one enact legislation to make certain that if they remain in existence the damage that they can do to individuals is reduced to an absolute minimum? The question of the invasion of privacy has been discussed at an international level by jurists, and I hope that we shall have something to bring forward to deal with this in a form of legislation which will protect the individual and his right to privacy without, as so often happens with the Acts of Parliament which we pass here, doing exactly the opposite.

5.10 p.m.

Mr. Raymond Fletcher (Ilkeston)

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Gardner) for raising this question today. This House is always at its best when discussing the rights and liberties of the individual. If infringements of those rights and liberties affect only two individuals, the House is all the more magnificent in that it finds time to discuss those infringements. It is quite clear, as we gathered from his speech, that my hon. Friend has put his finger on a growing practice which I find not only unpalatable but positively dangerous.

I have no experience whatever of industry, but I do have some slight experience of the art of investigation. To remove certain doubts which might arise in the minds of my hon. Friends, I should say that the type of investigations with which I was once marginally associated, for a very brief period of my life, were entirely legitimate and were concerned with the kind of business activities mentioned by the hon. Member for Harrow, West (Mr. John Page).

I see nothing wrong whatever in the practice in industry of industrialists investigating the credit-worthiness of their clients, or investigating certain other aspects of a business activity which may affect them. As the hon. Member for Totnes (Mr. Mawby) has pointed out, industrial espionage is now a much more serious problem than the James Bond variety of espionage. There are very old-established businesses engaged in this kind of activity, and I regard it as an entirely legitimate and necessary form of activity.

I was once marginally associated with it, and I know very well how a slight error arising from one conversation can creep into a whole set of reports which eventually produce a memorandum and the original error can be magnified in the final memorandum. Where there is no check, no kind of public activity that can be checked, where there is no kind of responsibility to a public authority, this sort of thing can occur. Many an organisation and many an individual can be damned for ever on the basis of something which, had it been made open and obvious in the beginning, would have been corrected. This is the real danger. Private concerns, and I do not use the term "private" in any pejorative sense, are engaged in this kind of activity, supplying information to employers about potential or actual employees.

All sorts of errors can creep into those confidential reports, and in many cases do. To illustrate how a slight error can grow into a mountain of misrepresentation—I had better do it humorously, because we are all feeling slighty tired at this time of the afternoon—Mr. Malcolm Muggeridge, whom I sometimes think of as one of my own friends until he writes articles in the Sunday Press, and I change the appellation, once pointed out that he was once writing for theNew Statesmanone of those series of profiles which used to enliven that journal.

He was rather stuck for a phrase, and so he just drew out of the top of his head an observation that this particular gentleman, a well-known public figure, was rather fond of music. This crept into the cuttings. Newspapers keep cuttings files and each cutting represents previous cuttings. This gentleman, he may be on the opposite Front Bench for all I know, this gentleman's love for music, invented by Mr. Muggeridge, became an essential part of his public characteristic.

So far did this develop that finally no profile of this distinguished figure could appear without a reference to the number of times that he went to the Royal Festival Hall and studied the more abstruse forms of music, such as written by Schoenburg and so on. All this arose because Mr. Muggeridge had to fill in a sentence, and what started off as a tiny little observation assumed mountainous proportions, in this case to the obvious advantage of the public gentleman concerned, because it is always an asset to he known to be a lover of music.

When we consider that the profiles, or character studies, or essays, as we used to call them, essays about individuals, are built up in pretty much the same way—not by the same sort of people—far be it from me to suggest that Malcolm, or "St. Muggeridge" has he is now called, should do this kind of thing—one sees the danger. Two or three chance remarks can actually enter into a character study and an assessment of an individual. This I suggest is when an initially slight error can accumulate over the months and years and produce a monstrous wrong at the end of them.

This is why I insist, and I hope that I always shall, that where any person's character comes into question the questioning should be done, as far as is humanly possible, in public, where allegations can be countered, where indictments can be met and where statements and misrepresentations can be corrected. It is no new thing for any Member of this House to feel that he is under a constant process of what I can only call "positive vetting". We are under the eyes of the newspapermen at all times; we are being assessed daily, our characters are being measured and un-measured sometimes in the Lobby; as we speak here or as we do not speak here. This is going on and it is sometimes embarrassing to us, because we are all sterling characters, to find that our own assessment of ourselves is not shared by our friends the Lobby correspondents. But we have the means to correct these mistaken impressions. It is a public activity and we have public methods of correcting misrepresentation.

But it is vastly different for someone in industry who might have made some rather wild remarks at a certain time in his life. Although I am a responsible, semi-public figure, I have made more wild remarks in my life than any Member of the House. Unfortunately, most of them are in print, and, equally unfortunately for me, many of them are frequently resurrected by my hon. Friends. I cannot help that. But imagine somebody who does not have my opportunities to correct the misrepresentations which arise from what was obviously, in my case, a very grievously misspent youth.

I come to my final point. This House spends most of its time considering legislation. I hold the rather archaic view that from time to time it has to discuss another matter of equal importance. There are some things which are simply not done—and I am afraid that I brand myself as a somewhat eighteenth century character when I use that phrase. The branding of people in secret by private organisations which affects their lives and the lives of their families is one of those things which we should say is simply not done. It is not consistent with the codes and practices of a civilised democratic society. If we do no more than define the limits of what is permissive and say that certain things simply are not done, we render a service which the country has a right to expect from hon. Members.

As to legislation, my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour has an impossible task. But every job which he has had to do since he took his job at the Ministry has been totally impossible; he knows that as well as I do. No member of the Government has or deserves more sympathy from me than the junior occupant of that large bed of nails, because in the nature of things the problems which he has to deal with defy solution by legislative processes in 99 per cent. of the cases. But I hope that we can have an authoritative statement from the Minister of Labour and his Parliamentary Secretary that certain practices are growing up in industry which are inimical to the rights and liberties of the subject and they should not be allowed. I hope that we shall get the full force of the Government Front Bench behind the assertion which is implicit in the Motion.

5.24 p.m.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Labour (Mr. Roy Hattersley)

My hon. Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Gardner) was courteous enough last week to tell me that, although he would deal principally in his Motion with blacklists in employment, he would also wish to deal in passing, or perhaps a little more than in passing, with other related practices which might be described as blacklisting. His courtesy gave me the opportunity of consulting my right hon. Friends the President of the Board of Trade and the Home Secretary on their views about the subjects which more properly fall within their responsibility than mine.

I begin by dealing with the points raised by my hon. Friend about local credit reference bureaux. This is a matter principally for the President of the Board of Trade and I have taken advice from him on it. As the House knows well, credit bureaux exist in many parts of the country. Their incidence and work are growing and spreading, for two reasons. Firstly, because, as hire pur chase increases, local traders are increasingly in need of some sort of protection. Secondly, because, as hire purchase increases, local traders are increasingly in need of some simple and easy method by which that protection can be given.

My information is that such agencies may supply information of two sorts. First, there is the positive sort which tells a trader that a potential hire purchase customer has a satisfactory or, indeed, excellent credit record. Previous debts have been discharged on time and, therefore, he is in every sense the sort of customer who should be encouraged to take out a hire purchase agreement. Secondly, and I suspect more common is the information requested as a result of some doubt in the mind of the trader. When confirmed the information leads him to believe that the potential customer has a low credit rating.

I agree entirely with hon. Members on both sides of the House who have said or implied that a crucial factor in making a judgment about such services is the places from which and the ways in which the information is obtained. I am advised that in the case of credit agencies information is obtained in a variety of ways, not all of which are known to the Board of Trade. But certainly two sources are known. The first is the public records of county court judgments and bankruptcy cases; the second is trading records of existing or discharged hire purchase debts. I am advised that, while it would certainly be illegal for details of income or family or other personal matters, which may appear on hire purchase agreements, to be passed from hand to hand, there is no illegality involved in the simple reporting of a satisfactory or unsatisfactory completion of a hire purchase arrangement.

I take the view that an application for credit in any form—hire purchase, mortgage, bank loan or anything else—carries with it the overt or implicit assumption that some judgment must be made about the creditworthiness of the applicant. As long as such records are kept up to date and obtained only from appropriate sources and used wisely and prudently I believe, and so does my right hon. Friend, the President of the Board of Trade, that they have two advantages. The first is that they give some much needed security to credit traders. The second, and, in my view, perhaps more important, advantage is that they prevent families which are already in financial difficulties from taking on additional hire purchase commitments and, therefore, finding themselves in even deeper water.

I have said, and I happily reiterate, that one of the crucial facts by which we must judge any of these schemes is the way in which the information is obtained. This is as important in employment as it is in hire purchase. Several of my hon. Friends have expressed or implied disquiet about the possibility of Government sources being used to provide information for such registers. Let me make two points absolutely clear. There is not, and there never can be, any possibility of the Government's supplying information for such purposes. The second point, which is of equal or perhaps greater importance, relates to the relationship of the police forces with such registers. I know that my hon. Friend is to question my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary about this on the 8th of this month, but, while he will receive more authoritative answers from my right hon. Friend, I think that the debate can be put in perspective only if the rôle of the police force in these arrangements is made very clear now.

As this matter is outside the responsibilities of my Department, I have received advice from my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, and what he tells me is this. The provision of information from police records is essentially at the discretion of the chief officer of individual forces and it is not a subject on which Ministers are able to give directions. But there are some generally accepted rules and limits. For instance, details of traffic accidents are regularly given to parties in subsequent civil actions. But certainly other information required by other private bodies for other private purposes is not and cannot possibly be divulged by police forces corporately or by individual officers of any force. The Information which a policeman, of any rank, obtains within the course of his duties comes within the scope of the Official Secrets Act. The Act binds serving officers and officers who have retired from the force inasmuch as they are still carrying with them—in a mental rather than a physical sense—information obtained during their service. That binding is total and irrevocable.

While. an officer is a member of the force, his obligations are norm ally enforced by local police orders. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary was kind enough to supply me with an extract from the local orders of the Metropolitan Police, the force for which it is the police authority. Those orders point out obligations which all members of the force have under the Official Secrets Act not to divulge to any person or agency information which they have obtained during their duties. By ignoring the orders and the Official Secrets Act police officers would be liable to the most serious penalties and I am assured that no chief officer would hesitate to institute proceedings.

The source from which information is obtained is, in my view, crucial throughout, and crucial in employment also. Before I deal with this, however, I should make it clear that I accept, as does my right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour, that a potential employer has the right to make sure that a potential employee is in all ways suitable for the job which he is about to do.

We certainly take the view that a potential employer has the right to take specific precautions in some specific fields—where, for instance, employment provides special opportunities for criminal activity, where there is access to large sums of money and where there is individual transport of or sole care over large packages or valuable consignments of goods.

The hon. Member for Harrow, West (Mr. John Page) drew our attention to offences against the person about which special precautions would have to be taken. Certainly, I believe that where there is a chance that an individual is peculiarly susceptible to one sort of temptation or another, all reasonable steps should be taken to make sure that he is not constantly presented with that temptation. That seems to be no more than reasonable and no less than just.

It seems to me to be essential, therefore, that examination should be made of character and trustworthiness as far as an examination of previous industrial record can point those things out.

Mr. Winnick

Does not my hon. Friend consider that in many cases there is a great danger that a person who is known to be a non-manual worker and keen to attract other employees into a union would be regarded by a prospective employer as a troublemaker, because many employers are still not keen to have their employees, especially clerical staff people, organised into a union?

Mr. Hattersley

Having heard my hon. Friend's three previous interventions on the point, I have been warned that that is a point on which he requires an answer from me. I will give it to him before I finish.

The examination of individual suitability for a job is the purpose of references. That is what they are for. One of the agencies to which reference has been made claims that it does no more than make the reference system more efficient, that it speeds it up and makes the referee more forthcoming—providing a referee in a more satisfactory way.

Certainly, irrespective of that agency, there are a good many organisations which operate formally or, more likely, informally, which are certainly not controllable by the Government but which operate in some sort of locality and within a certain framework, passing informal information from personnel manager to personnel manager and from works director to works director, about the suitability of individual employees. Clearly, that is not a field in which the Government could intervene were they to choose to do so.

If an individual chamber of commerce discovers at its occasional meetings that names are passed of people who have performed a disservice to their company or who have been responsible for industrial misdemeanour, that is not something which the Government can legitimately talk about and certainly not something about which the Government can take practical action. When, however, the system becomes less informal, when it becomes at best sophisticated and when it becomes organised by private individuals offering the service wholesale andcarte blanche,it is entirely appropriate that this House should consider it and that the Minister of Labour should have a view about it.

It was inevitable that my hon. Friend the Member for Rushcliffe—indeed, many of those who have spoken in the debate—should draw our attention to the Records Research Index of Management Investigation Ltd., whose activities have been so widely reported in the newspapers during the last three or four days.

The intention of that service—and I have no doubt that this was its original intention—was to collect information about individuals and to supply it to employers. Their plans were changed by the discovery that if that simple purpose was carried out they would almost certainly be in legal difficulties and that to supply from one employer to another an account of why a man was discharged might result in the most serious legal penalties. It was for that reason that they limited their activities to a simple list of people. I quote from a report inThe Guardianwhich said that all they aimed to do was to provide "a list of people dismissed in suspicious circumstances". They did not ask the original employer to specify the offence, nor for any details of whether it resulted in criminal prosecution, nor about previous records, but simply the fact that a person was dismissed in specific circumstances. The need to avoid a general description of the reasons for dismissal may well be a legal necessity but, clearly, it opens the possibility of the service being used for a variety of purposes which, I believe, all hon. Members, on both sides, would heartily deplore.

In the hope that I can give all the credit which is genuinely due to the organisation, I ought to say that the organisation is anxious that this should not happen and certainly believes that the cost of the service will prevent malicious notification. The cost of the service is £20 for 10 notifications. It is not my experience—and, I suspect, not the experience of some of my hon. Friends—that at £2 a time, malicious notifications will always appear to be too expensive.

Having said that, however, let me reiterate that certainly such notifications are not the intention of the service and are not in the minds of those who are running it. Indeed, in the notes for guidance which they circulate among participating employers, they ask specifically that the service should not be used for frivolous or malicious purposes but should be limited for use against successful petty criminals … and should not result in a reference of a man who is a bad time-keeper, incompetent, … or in any other way not appropriate for this list. I reiterate, however, as did my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon, South (Mr. Winnick), that the mere width of definition makes it possible for the service to be misused. It might be misused to include both the militant and the active trade unionist. In my view, the second category is always desirable and the first category is not invariably undesirable. It would be a tragedy were a service of this sort to be seen by unions as a possible threat against enthusiastic participating members. I emphasise it as a possible threat.

Some of the great industrial relations problems which it might cause would not only be caused when the service was used to prevent the employment of a practising trade union militant. Some problems might arise when it was thought that such services might be used to prevent the employment of a practising trade union militant. For those reasons, it produces severe problems in terms of industrial relations—and not only in terms of industrial relations.

It produces problems in terms of the re-employment of ex-prisoners. It is inappropriate for me tonight to go into the merits, demerits, problems and complications of resettlement of prisoners. But, clearly, there may be occasions when a man does not wish his prison record to be known and the knowledge of his prison record might militate against his successful rehabilitation. I feel that I ought to make it absolutely clear that in the experience of my Ministry successful rehabilitation often comes when an employer knows all the facts. But I must also make it clear that my Ministry certainly never divulges that fact without the agreement of the man in question. Certainly we would support the right of a man who has served a prison sentence to seek employment without necessarily having to notify the employer that that was the position.

As for the militant trade unionists, I suspect, as I imagine so does the House, that the rejection of a man as a result of a blacklist is in no small way asso ciated with fears about the nature of the dismissal in the first place. Blacklisting may well often begin with what a trade unionist, or, for that matter, anybody else, regards as an unjust or inappropriate dismissal. It is our view that if the dismissal procedures in British industry were improved much of the fear of blacklisting would evaporate.

The House will know very well that my Minister's National Joint Advisory Council considered last year the whole question of dismissal procedure. It outlined the features of its ideal procedures, and it expressed the hope that voluntary schemes (some of which already operate) should be extended without statutory provision. It also noted that the Royal Commission on Trade Unions is about to report. It is in fact likely to report some time in the spring. That Commission has taken specific evidence on dismissal procedures. The N.J.A.C., like my right hon. Friend, hopes that, when that report is forthcoming, adequate dismissal procedures will become more general and more accepted, because of the encouragement of its reports. Then many of the fears we have heard outlined today will evaporate.

But even before the Royal Commission's report the Advisory Council felt able to lay down four indispensable features which any scheme should include. They are these: workers and management must know and understand what the dismissal procedures are; in appropriate cases the worker's trade union representatives should be consulted. Wherever possible decision should be taken above the level of the immediate supervisor. There should always be the right of appeal to impartial and senior sources, and that it should be built into the arrangements.

I say again that if the average British worker felt he could not be unjustly or unwisely dismissed most of his fear of blacklisting, which could be a consequence of unjust dismissal, would evaporate, and I hope that with the support of the Royal Commission and others we shall be able to extend that provision.

The hon. Member for Harrow, West (Mr. John Page) must certainly be thinking it is about time I turned to the specific question he asked me at the end of his speech. He asked me what my right hon. Friend and Ministry of Labour or, for that matter, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, really advise industry to do about what he described as known trouble makers. I have to tell him that I think our answer is a long-term answer—not quite as long-term an answer as that one described in the industrial Utopia he quoted, but a long-term answer, nevertheless.

Let me say first of all what we think certainly should not be the answer—that as a matter of civil liberties, as a matter of individual freedom, we should not assume that all members of, let us say, a single political party or a single organisation are automatically, ipso factoindustrial trouble makers. That seems to me to be an illogical and indefensible assumption and in terms of civil liberties absolutely intolerable. Certainly if a trouble maker took action which amounted to an industrial misdemeanour of a form which was criminal, or very nearly so, everyone would expect industry to take stern and appropriate action.

But I believe that the long-term answer is, the encouragement in union members of faith and confidence in, and support for, their official leadership.

Mr. E. S. Bishop (Newark) rose—

Mr. Hattersley

I will give way in a moment. Secondly, the creation of an industrial organisation that makes that faith in, and that respect for their elected leaders more possible. Before giving way to my hon. Friend, let me give an example of what I mean. When I commended to the House an Order concerned with the decasualisation in the docks I agreed with many of my hon. Friends that one of the great virtues of that Order was that by creating permanent employment we made it possible for the London clocker to be employed in such a way that his shop stewards' organisation was a genuine link between him, the actual working docker, and his legitimate, elected, responsible trade union leadership. By this sort of industrial reorganisation we hoped to create in many industries enhanced status for the official union leadership which, in our view, will certainly result in avoiding the sort of trouble that there has been in recent years.

Mr. Bishop

Will my hon. Friend not agree that a so-called "troublemaker" might want and be able to make improvements resulting in great economic benefits? Looking back to the Tolpuddle Martyrs and William Wilberforce and others, we might have said that they were known troublemakers, but nevertheless, they were responsible for progress, which is sometimes obtained by their means and not obtained by official leaders?

Mr. Hattersley

I agree entirely with my hon. Friend that such a term as "troublemaker" does tempt us towards many pitfalls. But I am sure that he will agree, and I am sure the House will agree, that the use of the term on the occasion he specifies and in relation to the persons about whom my right hon. Friend spoke had a clear and precise meaning. Certainly in that sort of case our long-term answer is to erode the troublemaker's power by making sure that the legitimate and much more responsible trade union leadership has a chance to lead and has a chance to lead reasonably and responsibly.

Mr. John Page

I do not want to press the hon. Gentleman unduly because I do not think it is fair to hang round his neck what the Minister said and the Prime Minister said, but I think we can take it that really he has no suggestion to put to the House how the potential employer, taking on a large group of new employees, could avoid employing a man whom he and his right hon. Friend say they could recognise as a troublemaker.

Mr. Hattersley

I certainly do not have any answer which involves one of two things, first of all his obtaining information about that man from sources which I regard as improper. Secondly, making judgments about that man which might be a reflection on his political opinion but not necessarily a reflection on his industrial responsibility.

I repeat that where there is a friction of misdemeanour, and difficulty, the employer must work with my right hon. Friend and the Ministry in creating the sort of industrial climate which minimises that sort of friction, minimises that sort of difficulty.

Finally, let me say what I think the Government's attitude should be, in relation to this new body, a body which has clearly brought this matter to the attention of the House and the enthusiasm with which it has been received by British industry. It may well be that this will not be so serious or widespread as my hon. Friend has feared. British Industry Week published by the Confederation of British Industry was, to say the least, unenthusiastic. It reported that as a result of earlier Press comment some firms taking part in the scheme were reluctant to give their names as they knew how unpopular the service had proved

It may well be, therefore, that my hon. Friend is being slightly overzealous. But it is our view that to be overzealous in the cause of civil liberty is no bad thing. If one is to err on these occasions, certainly one should err in that direction. This is not a Resolution which we would urge the House of Commons to reject. It is the sort of Resolution on which the House must properly make up its mind, and one on which the Government is neutral, but benevolently neutral.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved, That this House views with grave concern the growth of private agencies which collect and provide confidential information concerning individuals, a practice which can only be described as blacklisting and which violates the principle that no person is guilty until proved to be so in a court of law, that no person shall be indicted without full knowledge of the indictment and that justice is a public activity and not a private pursuit; and accordingly urges Her Majesty's Government to seek ways of dealing with this manifest threat to the privacy and liberty of the subject.