SECURITY COMMISSION'S REPORT (Hansard, 12 July 1973)

§ The Prime Minister (Mr. Edward Heath)
With permission, Mr. Speaker, I wish to make a statement.
I told the House on 14th June that the Security Commission had been invited to verify that security was not endangered as a result of the incidents referred to in my statement on 24th May 1973 or by the actions of the persons involved.—[Vol. 857, c. 666–8.]
The Commission has now submitted its report to me. It is being published in full this afternoon. Copies are available in the Vote Office.
As a result of its inquiries the commission concludes categorically that no classified information was in fact communicated directly or indirectly to the intelligence service of any potentially 1783 hostile power as a result of the incidents in question. It concludes that, in the case of the right hon. and noble Lord, Lord Jellicoe, there was no potential danger to security that would have justified denying him further access to highly classified information, had he continued in office. In the case of the former hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed, the commission would have felt compelled to recommend that he should be denied access to classified information.
The commission has come across no evidence worthy of credence that any Minister other than the former hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed was involved with Norma Levy or other members of that ring.
The commission has found no related failure of security arrangements as they existed at the time in the Civil Service Department, the Ministry of Defence or elsewhere. It does, however, make a number of suggestions for ways in which the existing security procedures could be improved.
The commission concludes that the practical difficulties involved in trying to apply the process of positive vetting for Ministers are insuperable, but it does make the following recommendations:

(i) Any Minister appointed to a post in which he will handle more sensitive information than he has been used to handling in his previous appointment should be given a supplementary briefing by the Security Service additional to that which he receives on his first appointment.

(ii) Security containers are already provided in the homes of those Ministers who request them because they take secret documents home more than occasionally. In future security containers should be provided in the homes of all Cabinet Ministers. They should also be provided in the homes of other Ministers who handle any substantial volume of sensitive material. There should be a careful reexamination of the need for this precaution in the homes of all Ministers not in the Cabinet.

(iii) Permanent Secretaries should ensure that the attention of Ministers who do not have such containers should be drawn to any significant increase in the number of secret papers that they take home, and that all Ministers should receive all possible help in fulfilling their personal security responsibilities.

(iv) For Ministers in some appointments, Security Service briefing on arrangements for personnel and physical security should be expanded or supplemented.

(v) Whenever a new Minister joins a Department, the Permanent Secretary should ensure that that Minister is appropriately briefed on 1784 departmental security arrangements, and is content with the adequacy of the security briefings provided.

(vi) When a Minister is first appointed he is already briefed by the Security Service on the basic threat to our security and the system of protective security, and his attention is drawn to the standing instructions on precautions against unauthorised disclosures of information. The Prime Minister should additionally issue guidance for Ministers on the potential security implications of scandalous behaviour and of other circumstances which might expose them to pressure by hostile intelligence agents; and Ministers should be required to refer to such guidance on appointment and from time to time subsequently.

The commission also suggests that any Prime Minister contemplating the appointment as a Minister of someone who was not until recently a Member of either House, and who may not therefore be well known to him or his senior political colleagues, should bear in mind the desirability of satisfying himself that there is no character defect or other circumstance which would mean that the appointment of that person would endanger security.
I have accepted all these recommendations and suggestions. I am also arranging for the attention of all Ministers to be recalled regularly to the standing instructions and guidance on security matters.

§ Mr. Harold Wilson
The right hon. Gentleman was good enough to give me a copy of his statement, as is the usual practice in these matters. When the House has had time to study the report, which raises important questions, I suggest that there should be a debate on the report and on its implications for security. The House may feel, after studying the report, that some of the announcements made by the right hon. Gentleman about containers and other factual security arrangements cover very sensitive matters.
Is it a fact that Ministers were not given the same degree of specific briefing on security that was instituted in 1964 and 1965? Despite what the right hon. Gentleman said in his statement, it appears from a brief public statement by one of the ex-Ministers concerned that he seemed not to have much recollection of the briefing and was not clear whether he had been positively vetted. We all know that Ministers are not positively vetted.
1785 The statement refers to the ring of call girls. Was the commission able to secure direct evidence from the prostitutes concerned, or was that precluded by their absence abroad and by the police threat of charges were they to come to this country?
On the question of departmental procedures—which were discussed in exchanges between the right hon. Gentleman and myself and to which reference is made in the statement and in the report—is the right hon. Gentleman satisfied that the departmental procedures are working as thoroughly as hitherto, for example, in relation to the duties of Private Office as opposed to Permanent Secretaries' special responsibilities and the control of the use of official cars for extramural activities?

§ The Prime Minister
I think that the House will wish to study the report carefully, as the right hon. Gentleman suggested. Then, no doubt soundings can be taken on whether the House wishes to debate the matter further.
There has been no weakening in the security procedures which were introduced in 1964 by the right hon. Gentleman. Briefing of all Ministers on security continues as before and is as full as possible. I was asked about instructions to Ministers, given out by every Prime Minister when he takes office and revised from time to time. In many ways they have been strengthened, quite naturally, with recent developments, and in the course of years, from the instructions which were sent out by the right hon. Gentleman. This process normally takes place from administration to administration.
On the right hon. Gentleman's question about call girls, he will recall from his time as Prime Minister that the Prime Minister of the day has no information from the Security Commission other than that which is presented in the report. The report does not state the names of those who were interviewed by the Security Commission, but it is known that Norma Levy, who is referred to in the report, has been abroad and that a warrant has been out for her arrest. I think this means that it must not have been possible for the Security Commission to 1786 see her. I have no knowledge of those who were interviewed by the Security Commision. That is the Commission's responsibility.
As for the private office, there is no mention of that matter in the Security Commission's report. There was one allegation in the Press of an official car having been seen outside the block of flats which was used by the former hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed, but it is also mentioned in the course of the Security Commission's report that this block of flats was only a few yards from his home and there is no mention in the records of the car driver of a particular journey to that place. As the right hon. Gentleman probably knows, there are certain specific regulations covering the use of official cars at the Ministry of Defence.
On the question of official briefing, it is true that in a television interview the former Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed gave the impression that he had been positively vetted. He was obviously confusing this with the briefing he received when he became a Minister. It is perhaps understandable, in the circumstances of his resignation and the interview, that this confusion occurred.

§ Mr. Wilson
I am grateful to the Prime Minister for those answers, and indeed for his statement that there should be discussions through the usual channels about a debate on the report. I do not wish to anticipate the main finding in the report, because hon. Members in general have not had an opportunity to read it, but would the right hon. Gentleman agree that, compared with Press reports, there is a new dimension in the situation, namely the drugs dimension, which clearly worried the Security Commission and which is a matter to which all of us, without rushing into the matter, should give a lot more thought—and this applies to Government, Opposition, the security authorities and the House as a whole'? Is he aware that there is son-le reason to believe—without my going too much into painful matters—that so much were drugs in the centre of this picture—rather than some of the salacious matters covered in the Press—that there is reason to think that the noble Lord, Lord Jellicoe, was to some extent an innocent victim of the 1787 use of the name "Jellicoe", with no relation to himself at all, because of code words in connection with drug passing? Would he agree that in regard to the noble Lord, Lord Jellicoe, one should treat this matter with a certain degree of humanity and sympathy?

§ The Prime Minister
The House always considers these matters with humanity and understanding. I know that the right hon. Gentleman would want it to be clear that there was no question whatever of drugs of any kind in regard to the noble Lord, Lord Jellicoe. It is obvious from the report, as hon. Members will see when they read it, that in respect of the former Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed, this matter did give the Security Commission considerable anxiety. This is a matter which must be considered, in the view of the Security Commission in regard to the position of Ministers, the Opposition and all those who may have access to security information.

§ Mr. Tapsell
Is my right hon. Friend aware that there is some anxiety in the country lest the growing obsession with security may itself pose certain threats to the future good government of this country, bearing in mind that many of the great men in the past who have guided this country through great national crises might have been excluded from British national life if some of these criteria had been applied?

§ The Prime Minister
I think that when my hon. Friend the Member for Horn-castle (Mr. Tapsell) reads the report, he will see that the Security Commission has put forward proposals which it thinks will be a practical means of dealing with security. At the same time it expresses the view that it is not its responsibility to make moral judgments.

§ Mr. Grimond
Although no doubt this is a valuable report which will need study, and although it contains practical recommendations, will the Prime Minister, following the question which has just been put to him by the hon. Member for Horn-castle (Mr. Tapsell), guarantee that security is not made an excuse for investigations into the private lives of Ministers in cases where it is obvious from the start that no security can possibly be involved?

§ The Prime Minister
The Security Commission makes it quite plain that it does not consider it its duty to make moral judgments on people's behaviour or to inquire into them for that purpose. When the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Grimond) says that it is obvious that there was no security risk, he must remember that those who have had to deal with security matters know that the situation may not always be quite as simple as that.

§ Mr. Heffer
On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Am I entitled to move that we proceed to the next business?

§ Mr. Speaker
It is within my discretion to decide whether I would accept such a motion.

§ Rear-Admiral Morgan-Giles
Will this report mean that in future any hon. Member who is unable to pass the standard positive security vetting—for instance for having as a young man been a member of the Communist Party—will never be able to be appointed Secretary of State for Defence under any Government?

§ The Prime Minister
The Security Commission makes it absolutely plain that it regards positive vetting of Ministers as out of the question, and one has only to consider the practical difficulties of the formation of a Government, and so on, to recognise the difficulty. But the Commission also says that in a political party colleagues have been working together for a long time and therefore a Prime Minister must accept his responsibilities and recognise the characteristics, but it makes a suitable recommendation about somebody who is brought into a Government and into either House from outside.

§ Mr. Wellbeloved
Does the Prime Minister recall that paragraph 10 of Command 9715 on security, published in 1956, laid down in terms of civil servants and members of the Armed Forces that loose living was a security risk? Will he ensure that we do not apply double standards—one standard for political Ministers and another standard for civil servants and members of the Armed Forces? Will he also bear in mind that there is concern about the delay which occurred from early April to 21st May in 1789 taking action in the Lambton case, which seems to suggest that if it had not been for public disclosure in national newspapers this matter might not even have reached the Security Commission?

§ The Prime Minister
There is no question of double standards. When the hon. Gentleman reads the Security Commission's report he will see that the action of Ministers was judged in the light of what they themselves laid down for those in the Civil Service. This is the first occasion on which the Security Commission has considered a question in which a Minister was involved.
The Commission points out that the character of the person concerned whether a Minister or a civil servant, has to be taken into account in assessing a security risk in particular circumstances. This applies to all those who have to handle security matters.
There is absolutely no truth whatever in the allegation contained in the hon. Gentleman's comments at the end of his supplementary question. As the Security Commission points out, this matter was brought to the notice of the security services long before any question of it appeared in the public Press or in public discussions. Action was taken at once because I asked for immediate advice whether any security factor was involved, and I was told that it was not. That matter also is set out.

§ Dr. David Owen
Is the Prime Minister satisfied that he is exercising his democratic responsibilities in not knowing the full basis on which the Security Commission came to its findings? Is there not a case for the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition at least to know the basis on which the Commission comes to its conclusions, the people from whom it takes evidence, and so on? How is the House to exercise democratic control of the security of the country when the matter is pushed off to a body which is not answerable on any democratic basis?

§ The Prime Minister
My two predecessors took the same view as I do—that the Security Commission is an entirely independent body and that when it produces a report, that report must contain its arguments for its conclusions and any recommendations it may make. The same 1790 applies in this case. I agree that the hon. Gentleman has raised a very important issue, but it is a matter of judgment whether the independence of the Security Commission should not be completely safeguarded in this way.