§ 2.39 p.m.
§ VISCOUNT MASSEREENE AND FERRARDMy Lords. I beg to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
§ [The Question was as follows:
§ To ask Her Majesty's Government whether it is approved policy for police officers to enter clubs and attempt to order large quantities of alcohol after licensing hours at the taxpayers' expense, with the apparent object of tempting the management of such clubs to break the law; and, further, whether Her Majesty's Government do not consider that this behaviour approaches dangerously near to the rôle of agent provocateur and is not in the best traditions of the police force.]
§ LORD CHESHAMMy Lords, police officers would be unable to secure compliance with the licensing law unless they entered clubs which have come under suspicion without disclosing their identity. The Metropolitan police officers detailed to carry out these distasteful duties have strict instructions that their conduct must not afford any grounds for suggesting that they have acted as agents provocateurs. My right honourable friend is not responsible for the practice of other forces, but he has no reason to suppose that it is different.
THE EARL OF BESSBOROUGHMy, Lords, is the noble Lord aware that the Hotels and Restaurants Association of 1085 Great Britain are very much concerned with this matter, and that in this recent notorious case it is clear that the licensing laws have been flagrantly ignored, and are also, no doubt, ignored in certain other clubs? Does the noble Lord not agree that this is very unfair to hotels and restaurants which feel obliged to observe these laws?
§ VISCOUNT MASSEREENE AND FERRARDMy Lords, I thank my noble friend for his Answer to my Question. Is he aware that I have been informed that a short time ago police officers spent over £100 at one club, buying alcohol in trying to obtain evidence of illegal drinking? Surely even the most Bacchanalian of your Lordships would agree that that is far more than any member of the public going to a night club would spend. It is more than I should spend.
§ LORD CHESHAMMy Lords, of course I cannot be expected to have too much knowledge of the personal habits of the noble Viscount. I hope he has no misapprehension about how the police act in this matter. Let me make it perfectly clear, to start with, that prosecutions are brought as a result of what a police officer sees and not of what he does. He does not report people because they have sold him a drink, but because he has observed and obtained evidence that drinks have been sold to other people in circumstances which contravene the law. The noble Viscount will understand, I am perfectly certain, that there is no point in an officer's going to a club where, in the common parlance now, they rather "live it up", in a blue serge suit and regulation boots and ordering half a pint of beer. He must behave in exactly the same way as anybody else in the club behaves, as a patron; he must cut his coat, so to speak, according to the local cloth. He may have to visit the club on more than one occasion. I would say, further, that the expenses incurred by the police in these duties are subject to most careful scrutiny, and therefore I do not think that there is a great deal to complain of in the point that the noble Viscount has raised.
The noble Earl, Lord Bessborough, mentioned the British Hotels and Restaurants Association. I was not aware until he mentioned it that they were so concerned; but I find it perfectly credible 1086 that any Association conducting a legitimate trade should be concerned about illegal practices by those who might be said to some extent to be in competition with them. The whole question of club law is a complex and controversial subject, and I do not think it appropriate for us to go into it to-day.
LORD SALTOUNMy Lords, may I ask the Government a question that arises, I think, directly out of this Starred Question? Would Her Majesty's Government consider whether, when somebody has been brought down from Perth or Caithness or Aberdeen, and instructed severely in the high standard of conduct and probity upon which we pride the police in London, to send him to do a thing which I think any one of your Lordships—I certainly—would be extremely indignant at being asked to do. is not calculated to break down that standard? Further, is it not possible that these practices may give rise to secret evils far more dangerous to society than the open evils thereby removed?
§ LORD CHESHAMMy Lords, it is a little difficult for me to produce a positive answer to the noble Lord's rather lengthy supplementary question, but I think he is looking for trouble where none exists. My right honourable friend is perfectly well satisfied that these matters are properly conducted. I have examined what goes on, and I am quite happy to stand here and tell your Lordships that these things, distasteful matters as they are, are as properly conducted as can be devised.
§ LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTHMy Lords, while the noble Lord may be perfectly satisfied, his words may not satisfy the British public. If I heard the noble Lord correctly, he said that these gentlemen visited these places dressed in blue serge suits, et cetera—
§ SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: No.
§ LORD CHESHAMMay I interrupt the noble Lord? That is what I said they did not do.
§ LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTHOf course, there is another thing they do not do. They do not' do what ordinary citizens do; they do not pay the bill. Although I have every sympathy with a great deal of what the noble Lord has said, and I think the police have a very 1087 difficult job, one of the most hateful and distasteful things in our present police investigation is the use of the agent provocateur, which the noble Viscount who put down this Question riled against. I do not think the matter is quite so simple as the noble Lord has stated it to be.