The Security Services

HL Deb 16 March 1988 vol 494 cc1139-71

3.6 p.m.

Lord Campbell of Croy rose to call attention to the recruitment process to the security service and British intelligence and the case for a legally enforceable contract of silence to be entered into at the time of recruitment; and to move for Papers.

The noble Lord said: My Lords, I am grateful to noble Lords—some very eminent in different fields of public service—who have put down their names to speak. In particular, I look forward to the maiden speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Hart. We were together in another place and made our maiden speeches there at about the same time having entered Parliament following the 1959 general election.

In many of our debates the opening speaker asks for, and expects, replies from the Minister. That does not apply today. The services which feature in my Motion have to operate in secret and governments have to be careful how much they can prudently say. This convention has been accepted by Parliament. For my part, I do not intend to put any questions to my noble friend Lord Ferrers, and I will understand if his comments at the end of the debate have to be limited.

My purpose in raising the requirement for a legally enforceable contract of silence is to give the subject an airing because it has become a matter of interest and concern to the public. I have formed the impression that it is now widely understood and acknowledged in this country that there is a need for certain services—the security service and certain other organisations which can be simply referred to as British intelligence—to operate in secret. Besides having the general duty of protecting this country, these organisations are the most effective means of countering terrorism. Without intelligence obtained secretly and without the ability of these organisations to co-operate in secret with their counterparts abroad, it would be impossible to keep up with terrorists of all kinds let alone be ahead of them and forestall their planned outrages.

The security service and British intelligence have an essential role and their work must be secret. Furthermore, friendly countries will be reluctant to co-operate closely in these matters if the necessary curtain of secrecy cannot be depended upon. Our debate last month was on the accountability of these organisations and I am not raising that matter today. Nevertheless, the subject this afternoon is complementary to the discussion which took place then. My view remains that Ministers must be accountable to Parliament for these organisations, the Ministers concerned being the Home Secretary, the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary and the Prime Minister. My suggestion in that debate for an advisory group which could be helpful to Ministers would in no way relieve those Ministers of their present responsibilities of supervising and answering for the secret organisations.

In order to preserve with certainty the necessary conditions for secrecy, I submit that those working in the special services should be bound by a contract of silence for life. They should enter into it at the time they start working for the organisation. The obligation should be made unmistakably clear before their careers begin and it shoud be pointed out that it will continue as strongly after retirement, including early departure should that happen for any reason. The Government clearly have been upholding this principle and must surely agree in general with my theme. However, I am referring to the present and the future, not to the recent past, so I shall not be touching on anything that might be sub judice.

The mainstay in securing secrecy in the public service generally has been the Official Secrets Act and it must remain until it is properly and adequately replaced. There is wide agreement that it is not satisfactory, largely because Section 2 is so all-embracing as to make it seem unworkable. The Government must share this view because they have decided to introduce a replacing Bill and a White Paper this summer. From the inquiries which I have made at Question Time over the past five years, your Lordships will know that I support the Government in that move, and I am sure that we all look forward with keen interest to examining their proposals.

This is not a sudden new departure by the Government because they introduced a Bill for the same purpose at the end of 1979. It passed through only one parliamentary stage, its Second Reading in this House, before it was withdrawn. The difficulty appears to be in finding a replacement for Section 2 which will attract a broad measure of agreement in Parliament and in the country.

The Official Secrets Act is used where appropriate for the whole public service, including the home Civil Service, the Foreign Office, the Diplomatic Service and the Armed Forces. Many noble Lords have signed the Act, as I have. In my case it was on entry into the Foreign Office. Later, in 1970, I also took the Privy Counsellors' oath. As a Foreign Office official in the early post-war years I was at times a keen observer of the secret organisations and I was able to appreciate the benefits for Britain resulting from their work. For two years also I was assigned to be private secretary to the then Secretary to the Cabinet, Sir Norman Brook, where again I was concerned with the work of those organisations. I have never been a member of one of the organisations.

I do not know the present status or the conditions of service of people working in them. I do not expect to know as there is no need for more than a very few—those at present engaged in these subjects— to be acquainted with the particulars. I should not be surprised, however, if many in the organisations are not in the category of civil servants or Crown servants.

I must make it clear that I am not referring to agents. Much entertaining fiction about spies, especially the adventures of James Bond, has confused the roles of the intelligence officer and the agent, largely because in the case of Mr. Bond he does everything himself. I am addressing myself in my suggestions to the careers of what can most suitably be called officers in the secret organisations. There will no doubt be differences in status depending on which organisation they work in and the function performed. It seems to me, therefore, that the most effective way of employing officers in these organisations is by contract entered into willingly, with all the restrictions well understood.

I am encouraged in putting forward this view by knowing that my noble and learned friend Lord Hailsham took the same view during a television programme a few days ago. It may increasingly be regarded as the best way of employing people more widely in the public service also. Contracts can be different for different jobs and for different people. For those in the secret organisations there must be provisions enjoining lifelong silence on subjects connected with their work.

The Government's contract would be with an individual as an employee and after he leaves as a former employee. Breach of contract could lead to that person being sued. It may well be asked what the position would be abroad. There may be difficulties depending upon the country. However, there was an interesting letter in The Times of 18th August last from a Mr. Dalby, who drew attention to the strength of international copyright law. In his view, if certain information acquired during government employment could be made government copyright, a contract like a publisher's copyright clause would have the best standing of all in courts at home and abroad. It is a well-known form of protection. Anything which an individual might wish to publish would have to be agreed beforehand in detail with the Government under the terms of the contract, so the possibility of enlisting international copyright law certainly seems worth exploring fully if that is not already being done.

It is normal procedure in the public service generally, and should be observed as a convention besides any obligation, that books and articles of an autobiographical nature touching on any possibly sensitive matters connected with service in an official position should be submitted to the relevant department for clearance. I have seen this done correctly. It is only fair to the authors that such vetting should be carried out quickly. For example, I recall being made responsible in the Foreign Office in the late 1940s for the checking of a book on his wartime mission to Yugoslavia and his pre-war service as a diplomatist by Sir Fitzroy Maclean, whom I came to know later in the other place.

The obligation of silence should extend also to broadcasting and to informing other people who are writing books, articles or scripts. Under the kind of contract I have in mind, clearance would have to be sought and given with any changes considered necessary. A former employee may think there is nothing secret, sensitive or indiscreet in an article, but on his own he is not necessarily in a position to judge. Nine-tenths of the material may be harmless but one-tenth may be unfortunate, though he cannot recognise it as such himself.

I have heard of remarks by authors to the effect that the KGB knows it all, so why go to so much trouble? That is not a sound argument. We are concerned with terrorists and also with the less sophisticated regimes, usually in small countries, engaged in unfriendly, aggressive or disruptive activities. Why hand information on a plate to them, information which would help an Idi Amin or a Colonel Gaddafi to carry out or support international acts of terrorism or subversion?

As regards the passing of sensitive information to authors and journalists for them to use, this should be caught too by the obligation of silence in the contract, prior clearance having to be sought and given. Unfortunately, there are a few people outside the secret organisations who appear to make a living from ferreting out secrets and then disclosing them. A pretext is usually employed such as supposed impropriety of some kind or unauthorised expenditure. The alleged aim is to expose some misdoing which is being covered up. The purpose, however, is clearly to achieve newsworthiness or a scoop in revealing something previously kept under a veil for reasons of security. I hope that those few, the practitioners of that gambit, feel some pangs of conscience when a bomb explodes in Rome, Belfast, in an aircraft, or here in London, for it is the secret organisations which can do most to frustrate the plans of terrorists and prevent such diabolical incidents.

It may be contended that journalists are catered for by the D notice system. I believe that system has a useful role. Nothing I am suggesting is intended to subtract from its functions. A journalist can also obtain advice direct from a senior member of the news department of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office or the Ministry of Defence. But these procedures deal with news items on a day-to-day or week-to-week basis. They are not appropriate for memoirs whose authors in any case are not usually in journalism and do not receive or see D notices. Neither do these procedures apply in cases where someone is determined to make information public and who has no intention of prior consultation.

Of course there is no reason why members of a secret organisation should not write books or articles on subjects unconnected with their work—for example, on gardening or music; or novels—provided they are not using their special knowledge without clearance.

I have been speaking about restrictions. I should now like to say a few words on the positive side of careers in these services. I suggest that Parliament expects the three Ministers most concerned (as part of their responsibilities) to ensure that those working in these organisations have favourable conditions of service, including satisfactory pensions allowing for early retirement, because some officers have to leave early through no fault of theirs. As their work is secret, we do not know about these matters; and I do not expect my noble friend to comment. My own impression is that officers in these organisations are dedicated people doing special jobs, who live quietly and who do not talk about their work. This is definitely not an occupation for someone seeking public limelight; for example, aiming to become a television personality. If a person is suitable and willing to enter into an obligation of life-long silence, and has the aptitude and the ability required, the career should be worthwhile, challenging and rewarding.

I welcome the initiative of the Government in appointing an internal ombudsman for the security and intelligence services. He is to be known as the staff counsellor. In this House on 10th February my noble friend informed us that Sir Philip Woodfield was to be the first counsellor. This means that members of these services with issues of conscience, worries about the nature or the ethics of their tasks, can take these concerns to the counsellor appointed for that purpose rather than to superior officers. The temptation to leak information to a journalist (as apparently was the only option in the past) should no longer be there.

I come now to retirement. We must be prepared for the eccentricities and failing faculties that may accompany advancing years. The brilliant younger man may become elderly and gaga. To borrow from the way Shakespeare's Jacques described the last phase of man's life, he could be sans his earlier intellect and sans a sense of proportion. In addition, he could be engrossed in a particular cause or theory or he could be nursing a grievance—probably an imagined one. The kind of contract between a government and an individual which I hope may be possible should cover that situation too.

This debate is taking place at a time when the Government must be considering the whole subject of confidentiality in the public service while preparing their White Paper which is expected in the summer. I hope that the suggestions made and views expressed by speakers in this debate will be helpful to Ministers and their advisers.

I conclude by warmly commending the unknown individuals in vital positions of trust who carry out their tasks with silent efficiency as officers of these secret organisations. I express my hope that they find their careers gratifying in the knowledge that their work is essential for the defence and security of this country. I beg to move for Papers.

3.24 p.m.

Baroness Hart of South Lanark

My Lords, it is a great privilege for me to take part on this first occasion in a debate initiated by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, with whom I have had many debates in the other place in the past. I believe that your Lordships may like to know one tiny point. I am not quite sure how far your Lordships take interest in the Guinness Book of Records. I think there may be a tiny point of interest here. If one takes myself, the noble Lord, Lord Home and the noble Earl, Lord Lauderdale, between us we take the name of South Lanark as a constituency and its representation right back to 1931. I believe that is quite a considerable period. I am not sure whether it has been exceeded in any instance.

The noble Lord, Lord Campbell, in introducing this debate, has said that he wishes to do so in order to air the whole subject that he has raised. One welcomes that. That being so, I know that I shall not be regarded as being wrongly controversial or provocative if I venture not to agree with absolutely every point that he has put forward. I believe the issue that he raises promotes and requires consideration of questions of quite fundamental importance in a democratic society.

Many of those questions would be much easier to resolve if we had a freedom of information Act. In itself that would answer many of the difficulties that arise without such an Act. It is a matter of some debate. I very much hope that on all sides we can agree that in this respect the Americans have set us a very good example and that we could well move towards a really effective freedom of information Act.

Perhaps the principal dilemma that faces us when we consider the issues which the noble Lord has raised, is that of balancing the right of freedom of information with the duty of confidentiality. I hasten to say that I have no quarrel with him whatever when it comes to protecting confidentiality on issues of terrorism and matters of that kind. That is situations where life is involved. However, it stretches far wider than that.

Perhaps I may take as a kind of text the recent decision in Edinburgh in the Cavendish case and the judgment of Lord Coulsfield. In passing, perhaps I may mention that one of the examples to which he refers in making his judgment I have not had the time to look up although it looks a fascinating case. He quotes the 1849 case of Prince Albert v. Strange. I confess that I have not taken the energy to see exactly what that involves.

Lord Coulsfield in his judgment does not specifically refer to the publication of the particular memoirs or the argument with the Glasgow Herald or The Scotsman. It is a statement of some principle. He said: …on the one hand the interest in preservation of confidentiality of government information is a public interest and, on the other hand, there are competing public interests in freedom of speech and freedom of the press, and, indeed, a public interest in good government, which may be advanced by public discussion of the information in question". He went on to say, In striking the balance the court is not bound to accept the ipse dixit of the government or its representative as to the effect of a particular disclosure on the national interest. The final passage I quote is one where I agree entirely with Lord Coulsfield: If it is said that a particular disclosure will directly endanger national security, little, if anything, more may be required. Apart from that extreme case, however, it is for the Crown, like any other party seeking to restrain publication, to show that the restraint is necessary.". If we take that as an extremely good context within which these matters should be considered, I think that we may go on to consider the following points.

Immediately a further question is raised concerning to whom or to what loyalty lies. I note that last week in evidence to a Select Committee in the other place on this subject, Sir Robin Butler, the head of the Civil Service, said that the duty of loyalty of a civil servant (anyone who has signed the Official Secrets Act) lay to ministers and to the government of the day. That is the commonly accepted view. I am not sure that we do not need to reconsider that a little in the light of some of the facts that we now know.

Let me mention in passing the highly controversial hook of Peter Wright, which in my view is extremely mediocre and does not deserve the immense royalties it is presently earning. However, what are his disclosures about the MI5 plot against the Wilson Government? I am one of those who know that allegations in his book are true. But if the duty of loyalty is to ministers and the government of the time—that is to say if Sir Robin Butler's definition is accepted—it follows that it is the duty of loyalty of the civil servants of the time to expose those machinations. I cannot see that logic can take us in any other direction. Why did Mr. Wright not do so? Why did his superiors not do so if their duty was to the government, as Sir Robin Butler and the present Government insist that it should be?

I believe that there is a real problem here about achieving accountability, and hence the proposals which the noble Lord has mentioned are useful. I think that the further proposals to achieve greater accountability would go a little further, and I would welcome them. But without accountability there can clearly be the irresponsibility (and I use the word in its perfectly proper sense) which allows such activities to be indulged in by those who are supposed to have a prime loyalty to the government under whom they serve.

I believe a rather wider definition of the duty of loyalty may be required. In the troubled and changing times in which we live it may be better if we at least considered a definition which said that loyalty should be to the values of a democratic society and the concept of liberty which is essential to those values. If one were to take that kind of definition and link it with the public right to freedom of information, one would be in a different and perhaps more sensible ball game.

Perhaps I may give just one example. There was some discussion earlier today concerning the safety of nuclear power stations. Let us take as a hypothetical example the case of a civil servant or quasi-civil servant bound by the Official Secrets Act who is working in the field of nuclear energy and who knows that there is hazard to public health which is not publicly known. Where does his duty lie in the balance which is expressed in Lord Coulsfield's judgment between the public right to information and the duty of confidentiality? I suggest that such a case throws up questions which have not yet been answered and which I venture to suggest would not be answered by the approach which the noble Lord has taken in introducing the debate.

It may be (and this has tended to happen recently) that in order to resolve his personal dilemma he leaks some information; then there is a mole hunt in Whitehall. Of course this is a highly unsatisfactory way of dealing with such a problem. It may even be that the balance of rights and duties favours what he has done. How much better if the right of the public to information did not impose upon him a problem which he can resolve only by the rather unpleasant act of leaking documents to the press or whoever.

There have been so many recent battles in the courts on these issues and so much activity undertaken in relation to them, that I have sometimes wondered whether there was not a very secret new method of employment creation—if one takes into account the lawyers, the journalists, the television producers and the film producers to come. If there were a freedom of information Act I might be able to discover whether this is a secret technique of the Department of Employment.

In the meantime I say very seriously that I believe the issue which the noble Lord has raised is one which merits very full exploration. I do not believe that his approach is enough. However, I hope very much that if the Government are now considering a White Paper on a new Official Secrets Act they will provide the opportunity for the very full and philosophical debate about the competing rights and duties that is necessary before there can be a satisfactory resolution of the issues.

3.37 p.m.

Lord Mayhew

My Lords, in following the noble Baroness in this debate I have the pleasure and honour of congratulating her most warmly on her maiden speech. It may be that in the history of this House there have been less controversial maiden speeches, but I doubt whether there has been a speech which has been listened to with greater respect and attention. When I say that we hope to hear her again I do so with a special meaning. I imagine that the subject that she raised so interestingly of the balance between preserving confidentiality and access to information will be discussed further and that in June when the Government issue a White Paper, and soon afterwards perhaps when there is a Bill, we shall have endless debates in Committee and at Second Reading We look forward to the contribution which we are certain to hear from the noble Baroness.

There was not a great deal of common ground between the two speeches that we have heard. The noble Lord, Lord Campbell, concentrated on the question of recruitment to the intelligence services. There were one or two questions which I wished him to answer about his scheme for subjecting new entrants to the intelligence services to a binding contract. I wanted to know how that linked up with the new legislation that is certain to be introduced in the field of secrecy and the preservation of state secrets. Perhaps if he gets an opportunity we can know more. It seems to me that we shall have a major study of this whole problem of confidentiality versus freedom of information. I do not see how that will fit into the suggestions made by the noble Lord for the recruitment of intelligence personnel.

I was also slightly disappointed that he said that he had no questions for the Government. I have many questions for them. We are grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Campbell, for providing the Government with this opportunity to confirm that there will be a White Paper in June in this field and to tell the House how they are thinking on these difficult questions. We were all puzzled, for example, when the Government put a three-line Whip on an admirable Bill by a gallant Conservative Back-Bencher, Mr. Richard Shepherd. We could not understand this. We could not understand why the Government should object to Mr. Shepherd's Bill. Now that some time has passed, perhaps the noble Earl, when he replies, can tell us what the Government found wrong with that Bill. After all it was very nearly passed by another place on Second Reading despite a three-line Whip.

Of course we all share the aim of the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, of democracies' need to protect themselves against terrorism, subversion and espionage. They often need to act secretly in order to do so. People who knowingly divulge such secrets, without seeking authority, are traitors. I have read the book Spycatcher—I think we all have—and I share entirely the rather derogatory view of the noble Baroness. In fact, I go a little further if only because if contains one sentence about myself which is both derogatory and untrue.

However, the fact is that it is not a book written from a sense of principle in order to inform the public of matters there is a need for them to know; I deny that absolutely. I am also a little suspicious about those rather skimpy passages about a plot againt the previous Prime Minister, Mr. Harold Wilson. In my opinion, the book was in effect an act of treachery. I think we have to ensure somehow or other that such a situation does not arise again or, if it is done again, that the perpetrator is put behind bars.

The question is: does the suggestion of the noble Lord actually fulfil the admirable aim that he has in mind? This is why I have some doubts. I am inclined to think that legislation is better. It seems to me that if an intelligence officer needs to be bound by a binding contract not to divulge secrets, then he is not fit to be an intelligence officer. I doubt whether one will ever be able to coerce an intelligence officer in that manner. Furthermore, I cannot see why the solution suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, should prevent an intelligence officer who has signed a contract doing what happened in the case of Spycatcher—publishing overseas, beyond the reach of punishment, should he wish to do so. Therefore, a good intelligence officer is one who keeps his mouth shut because he is a person of principle rather than because he has signed an elaborate contract.

It would be better perhaps to await the outcome of the long discussions which will take place about the proposals for new legislation. Everyone agrees, and has done so for years, that Section 2 of the Official Secrets Act is too wide and too weak and that new legislation is needed. Indeed, my old party, the Liberal Party, introduced on two occasions into another place a freedom of information Bill which would not only have made accessible to the public information to which they are entitled and to which at present they have no access but also would have strengthened the protection of state secrets—another admirable project. As I have said, Mr. Shepherd produced only this January another Bill along the same lines which very nearly succeeded. We now await the arrival of the White Paper in June.

I think it is fairly easy to predict that we will find it particularly difficult to legislate against the intelligence officer who, as in the case of Spycatcher, is prepared to make his fortune and avoid punishment by going abroad. Perhaps during the debate we shall find some way around that loophole. I am not satisfied that the solution offered by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, overcomes the difficulty. Therefore, it may be that we should concentrate once more on the need to refine our methods of recruitment, observe meticulously the work and the attitude to work of intelligence officers and attend carefully to terms of service. The noble Lord mentioned pensions and such matters. I think that if our standards here had been higher in the past we could have avoided some of the disastrous mistakes that have been made.

I ask noble Lords to believe that I have never been a security risk. However, I have known some famous MI5 officers. I knew Blunt and Burgess; I was once even interviewed by Spycatcher. I played golf with Roger Hollis. Yet, with the exception perhaps of Hollis, I do not think that any of those men should have been recruited into the security service. I doubt whether any of us here today would have done so. Recruitment is the matter in the end we need to come hack to and examine carefully. We can devise binding contracts and pass new laws. But the worth of our intelligence service depends most of all on the integrity of its staff. It may well be that improved recruitment and management would do most to avoid the disasters of the past.

3.46 p.m.

Lord Carver

My Lords, may I from these Benches add our congratulations to the noble Baroness, Lady Hart of South Lanark, on her very eloquent and thoughtful maiden speech. I am sure that we all look forward very much to hearing equally eloquent and thoughtful speeches on other subjects in the future.

We are most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, for giving us the opportunity to talk about this subject. The difficulty is that if we actually knew what the arrangements for selection and recruitment of officers into those services were, and what their contracts were, we would not be allowed to talk about them. It is true to say that most of us do not in fact know. The result is that we are dependent upon revelations of mistakes that have been made in the past, to which the noble Lord, Lord Mayhew, referred. We have recruited people who, as it turned out, should not have been recruited; for example, Philby, Burgess, Blunt and, no doubt, Peter Wright. My qualifications for speaking on the subject are that I have been a customer of those services over many years in many different places. I must, however, stress that I am very out-of-date. It is 10 years since I had any job which involved dealing with those services. Over that period, on many occasions and in many places, I was a very satisfied customer. I am sure that today the authorities responsible for the affairs in Northern Ireland and Gibraltar are highly satisfied customers.

The recent operations of the intelligence service in keeping track of the gang of three who met their unfortunate end in Gibraltar is an example. On the other hand, I must admit that at times and in many different places, I was not a wholly satisfied customer. I know, and I have experienced working with, many able and dedicated members of those services. However, I have unfortunately come across some of those people who seem to be a little amateurish. At times their attitude towards their work appeared to me to savour of Sherlock Holmes, Richard Hannay, Bulldog Drummond—if anyone can remember him—or even James Bond.

I have two criticisms to make. First, the people concerned seem to live in a completely closed world whereby what really went on and what people actually thought and did, they just did not understand. My other criticism is the lack of coordination between the different intelligence services and between them and the counter-intelligence services. In each case where the army became involved in troubles which involved close work with the intelligence and counter-intelligence services, for example in Malaya, Cyprus, Kenya, Aden and certainly in Northern Ireland—it was not quite the same in Borneo—the whole intelligence side had to be sorted out, brought together and a single head appointed to co-ordinate them in order for operations to have any success. I ask why those criticisms should have arisen. The answer is, of course, the obsession—correctly—of the services themselves with extreme secrecy.

As the noble Lord, Lord Campbell, said, it is of course essential that the services' operations should be secret; that people should not know who their operators are; that they cannot recognise them; and, what is more, that no one should understand their methods. The result of that is often that the services do not co-operate with one another because of their fear that their secrecy will somehow be broken. That obsession with secrecy is also the cause of their appearing to live in an unreal world.

I am attracted by the noble Lord's suggestion of a contract which is not the same for everyone in the service. Some people in the service have to observe strict restrictions on what they say and do. That does not necessarily apply to all. Although I see the force of the argument put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Mayhew, that no contract would have prevented the men I mentioned from doing what they did—I think he is probably right about that—the idea of a contract different for different people is attractive.

I am uncertain about the vow of lifelong silence. I speak as a trustee of the Institute of Contemporary British History, among other things. My experience of dealing with the Ministry of Defence since I wrote a book on E1 Alamein 30 years ago is that. if one leaves the matter to the government department concerned, or the head of the service, to decide whether something can be revealed, nothing is ever revealed; and trivial things could have been revealed much earlier.

There should be an independent tribunal of some kind. It could be something in the nature of the Security Commission, to which a Crown servant, including a member of the secret services, if he wishes to reveal something that occurred during his service, can submit. That material could be looked at, not by the government department involved, but by such an independent tribunal. That suggestion is something that might be considered.

Had the criticisms of which I have spoken occurred in the armed forces, one would not have looked just at the selection and recruitment of the personnel in the first instance, but at their training—because training reveals a great deal about a man. I know nothing of the training system, if there is one, for any of the intelligence services or for the security service; but the impression one receives—it may be a totally false impression for all I know—is that the system for selection and training is rather like the one employed by the army in the 18th century. We want to be careful about criticising that system because it produced Marlborough and Wellington, so it did not do too badly, but the armed forces have moved forward from there. The system operates on the basis that, provided the man or woman is a friend of a friend of a friend, he or she must be all right. After having enlisted that person, the training consists of seeing that he or she learns on the job. Most organisations, and especially the armed forces, would feel that that was a totally inadequate system for a service as important as these services.

If selection and training are to be improved, how is that to be done? I understand that there may have been some inquiries on the subject in recent years. I do not know whether there have been. I do not know what their recommendations were. I do not know whether they were implemented. A form of central organisation for selection, recruitment and training for all the services we are talking about has something to be said for it. There are of course grave dangers in a centralised intelligence organisation. There is the sinister aspect—that we are creating something like the KGB or the Gestapo. There is also a grave danger for intelligence itself of having a monolithic organisation. All intelligence organisations tend to have fixed ideas about things. The Israeli intelligence organisation before the Yom Kippur war is a good example of that point. If one relies solely on one source, one may be badly let down.

There is one aspect of this issue which is of great importance: the exploitation of science and technology in all those services. I am a member of your Lordships' Select Committee on Science and Technology. I am sure that it would be interesting to study the application of science and technology to the intelligence services, but I do not think that we should be allowed to carry it out. Any application of information technology to the gathering of secret information must immediately be applicable to someone who is trying to prevent people from gathering information. That is one aspect of the problem which calls for a central selection and recruitment organisation. However, I realise that the subject of organisation is beyond the scope of the debate.

On the aspects which have been raised in the debate—the publication of material which was classified at the time but should not necessarily forever remain classified; selection and recruitment; and training in general—there are great advantages in having people who do not come from the service concerned and who can take a broader look at the problem. Perhaps this would meet the point made by the noble Baroness. Such a body would not be an executive arm of the Government but an organisation that could take an independent look. Like the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, I do not expect the Government to give any answers. I should like merely to draw those aspects of the problem to their attention.

3.57 p.m.

Lord Birdwood

My Lords, judging from the evidence of her maiden speech, the House is fortunate to have added the noble Baroness to its number. I appreciated her willingness to speak of important ideas. We all look forward to hearing much more from the former honourable Member for Lanark. I was pleased when my noble friend's Motion surfaced so soon after the second debate on the security services which was opened by the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins. One does not often have the opportunity to develop an argument or point of view, and so I make no apology for speaking a third time in three debates.

We are grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, on this occasion, because he has forced us to focus on two key issues of our intelligence gathering. If we get them wrong, our intelligence, which should be the very foundation of policy, becomes a waste of time and money. The choice is as stark as that. If we know more and know it first, we have the raw material for turning the future; if we know less, and we know it last, we have not only wasted money, we have put at risk lives, principles and freedom itself.

The task given to the intelligence services begins with information. It ends with assessing the importance of that information. As I have said in the House each time the subject has been aired, the mission of the service is to predict intention. It is the mission of the service to pass on those findings to the political managers of the country's affairs. The long-range objectives, which we as a nation support by voting funds and by granting access to the Royal Prerogative, are necessary to this Government and to any government of Great Britain.

We in this House have twice debated the issue of accountability. It usually comes down to a call for operational scrutiny, which would be inane if it were not dangerous. Arguments put foward for an accountability body do not stand up in the real world.

However, turning to the first part of the proposition put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell—the issue of recruitment—we are in an area in which we have perhaps less need to conjecture. I shall talk for a moment about what became MI6. At the end of the war, the service drew mainly on SOE people, and leaned towards the more temperamentally thoughtful. This source dried up in the early 1950s and the service opted for a system of talent-spotting through the universities, giving the talent scouts a profile which concentrated on well-roundedness, academic stability rather than glitter and a personal framework of integrity. I believe the system, contrary to some popular speculation, has worked extremely well. Since the 1950s the flow of candidate raw material has been steady and it has been of high calibre.

I think we can also straighten out the myth that recruitment was or is propped up by the class system. We can infer that recruitment into the security and intelligence services has not been on class lines since the war. If anything, because of tragic mistakes which harked back to 19th-century ideas of links between class and codes of honour, we can deduce a real effort to split apart the recruitment process and any lingering discrimination in favour of privileged backgrounds.

Since the time that this university system has been in use the recruitment process has been remorselessly tightened. Positive vetting, after the Radcliffe recommendations, has become increasingly thorough and is recycled every five years for every officer. The first six months' training for candidates, one believes, is now the severest test of mental resilience and even after that an officer is on probation for three years.

Reviews are made every year throughout a person's service and a man's or woman's progress is constantly being shaped to capitalise on that individual's particular strengths or gifts. I am told that positive vetting has been made more thorough in the last couple of years and is now a substantial user of the service's resources.

The result of the care with which people are recruited, assessed, guided and promoted is that the security services—only really now in their maturity—enjoy an exceptional quality of cohesion. The bonds of respect are lifetime bonds. Where we on the outside find episodes like Spycatcher comic or distasteful, from inside the service attitudes are of the deepest disgust and an uncompromising linking of such oath-breaking to treachery.

There is a new ingredient—and I am glad that the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Carver, made such a point of it—which has brought its own particular issues of values and beliefs. I am talking about the colossal increase in data processing requirements. The word "increase" is not strong enough to describe what has had to happen. More descriptive, the explosion in computing which has hit any organisation dedicated to information has, we can assume, been even more influential in these services.

Recruiting and assessing the staff needed for this will have put new strains on the service resources and this will have been felt most acutely in the technical arms such as GCHQ. There was a risk—now passed, I hope—that recruitment into the scientific side took place in a different framework of attitudes from mainstream recruitment. Nothing could have been more dangerous. It is easy to be sidetracked into a false philosophy which suggests that scientific truth transcends national interests. But the central mission of the intelligence community is commitment to the truth, any way you want to describe it. The mission is to gather and analyse facts, distilling true information out of distortion and subversion. There is no room to dilute the idea of a traitor, using the excuse of scientific integrity.

The second part of my noble friend's Motion draws our attention to the binding power of the Official Secrets Act. I needed to remind myself of its actual wording and, like anybody who has read it recently, the language strikes me as very John Buchan. There are lots of "harbouring of persons" and "communicating sketches or plans". Like so many of these catch-all legal instruments, there is an after-taste of their origins in expediency. When we debated the intelligence services a few weeks ago, my noble friend on the Front Bench committed the Government to a root and branch review of this Act. I look forward to these proposals when they see the light of day, but I am not in any hurry and I do not think the country is.

The outcry for reform, reform, is not likely, I hope, to result in some string-and-paper piece of legislation. The core of this debate is I suppose: how long can one expect an individual to keep silent about his work? Is the threat of this Official Secrets Act enough? Well, no, it probably is not, but not because silence is an unreasonable expectation but because there is a perception that a person's position is legally ambiguous. In cold legal fact it probably is not at all, but one can understand the feelings of ambivalence which surround the obligation. This leads me to agree with the Motion that a legally enforceable contract can be made a condition of employment. Into this contract absolutely specific and grave personal sanctions could be written—and why not?

As I have been inferring, the selection processes are some of the toughest around. Adding a legally enforceable contract will hardly have aspiring candidates going into shock. I think the evidence is that these services as a career have got to the point of maturity where what we can call "open law" can be calmly applied. I have been asked whether it is fair to request someone to keep silence for all his life. My reply is unvarying: why not? I am not an expert on the intelligence services. If I were I probably would not be standing up in open forum like this today. But I think I am an expert, or getting there, on what to expect from individuals.

Because of my work, I suppose I have interviewed upwards of 4,000 people. They have been of all sorts and backgrounds, many gifted in one way or another. I was thinking about this host of faces in the context of this debate. I was reflecting that if it was made clear to the average, ordinary citizen that he or she must cherish certain facts and take those to the grave, the average, ordinary citizen could be expected to do so.

I believe that bringing clarity to an obligation to keep silent will be welcome, but I also believe that it is a deep instinct in our people to protect what they hold precious. There are not many aspects of this country's safety more important than its knowledge of the world's intentions.

4.7 p.m.

Lord Annan

My Lords, I must begin by congratulating the noble Baroness. Lady Hart, who gave a speech which I think showed to perfection the art of being thought provoking without being provocative.

Recruitment is, I think, always a very difficult problem. If you advertise you run the risk of not knowing very much about the man himself or his referees and you may be recruiting a mole—not necessarily a mole for a foreign power but a mole for an internal subversive organisation. On the other hand if you leave recruitment solely to the services they tend to recruit people whose views correspond with their own, and you get one type alone in the service. I think that that was what happened before 1939 in MI6. As a result, that service was not really in very good shape when the war came, because they had not got round to the fact that we were fighting Germany. When the noble Lord, Lord Mayhew, was talking about the recruitment of some of the spies, the odd thing about the recruitment of Philby was not that he had been a communist student at Cambridge. The odd thing was that for his cover he had chosen to belong to the Anglo-German Fellowship and had been a correspondent on Franco's side in the Spanish Civil War.

The CIA advertises, but I believe it would be much better if some arrangement could be made with the Civil Service Selection Board. After all, some of the skills needed, particularly in the security services, are not all that different from those displayed in the old administrative class of the Civil Service. Could not that board give the services a choice of suitable candidates, candidates who had impressed the board as being the sort of men or women for whom the services are looking?

However, the best way to recruit is through dons who have the interests of the services at heart. Sir John Masterman may have behaved exactly like a character out of John Buchan, but as a student of Christchurch he had a very keen nose for the kind of man whom the services needed. I believe that Sir Dick White was one of his protégoés; so, in wartime, I suspect, was Lord Dacre.

Of course things are much more difficult nowadays. There are far too many students for dons to know them individually as they used to, and few dons are bachelors. But I think that every vice-chancellor has a duty to the state to advise the Home Office of members of his academic staff who could help in this matter. They should be the kind of don who can assess character and judge what the services need. That is the first order of persons to be recruited.

I now turn to the second part of the Motion. When Peter Wright published Spycatcher he behaved like the school sneak. It was very natural that the headmistress was determined to punish him. But the rules of Roedean as it was in the 1930s, admirable though those rules were, are not capable of being universally applied. I think that the Crown lawyers gave the Prime Minister very bad advice. Whatever they may have thought the law was, anyone who knew Australia could have told them that an action of that kind did not have the faintest chance of success for the very excellent reason that whatever damage may have been done to our security by the publication of the book no one could possibly believe that it had done much damage to Australian security. As a result the taxpayer was faced with a bill of about £2 to £3 million and I do not think that the incident redounded to the credit of the country.

Of couse we all sympathise with the gut reaction of the Prime Minister on this matter towards Wright's treachery. No one likes to see a four-letter man getting away with it. But sometimes one has to grit one's teeth and not respond to one's nobler feelings.

It seems to me the same may be true of the proposal that the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, puts forward, which would compel officers of the services to sign a legally enforceable contract. What will they be compelled not to disclose? Where I may differ from the noble Lord is that I do not accept that everything connected with the services should be secret if they are to be effective, for if the services are to be effective they must have the confidence of the public. There are certain parts of their work that the public needs to know about. It is ultimately members of the public, let us never forget, who make positive vetting effective. It is members of the public at home or abroad whom the services need to ask for help in a number of ways.

What is this legally enforceable contract to cover? What is an officer to say to his wife, or a woman officer to her friends, when they are asked what they do? Is that to be something they cannot disclose? Are they to repeat some formula such as, "I work in the Potato Peel Recycling Corporation"? Many officers are bound to have to talk to civil servants, diplomats, politicians and members of the public about their work. Indeed sometimes that is part of their work. I wonder how one can draw up a contract which takes account of that.

Lord Campbell of Croy

My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. I think that there is less disagreement between us than he thinks. Of course there are parts of the lives of the people working for these organisations which are not secret, but the point is that what is said by them should be cleared beforehand. That is what is important; not that everything should be kept secret but that what is not secret should be cleared and understood.

Lord Annan

My Lords, I fully take the point of the noble Lord. I was just thinking that I was glad that I was not a lawyer having to draw up such a contract. I think that the same principle applies here as to recruitment. Trust is everything. From one rotten apple like Wright one should not deduce that the whole barrel is rotten.

If may of course be said that the contract—I was very glad to hear the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, say that—would enable officers to publish some books if they wished to but not necessarily others. The CIA has a very sensible rule that an officer may do this provided that he clears it with the organisation. But I share the doubts of the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Carver: when one does submit a book to the authorities for clearance the answer comes back not that a few deletions have to be made but that it cannot be published at all.

I shall give an example of this. Your Lordships may remember an admirable and most entertaining book entitled Ill Met by Moonlight by Paddy Leigh-Fermor. It described how he captured General Kreipe in Crete and eventually got him away by submarine to Egypt. Colonel Monty Woodhouse and others also published books on their experiences in Greece.

One of the officers who was parachuted into Greece, Mr. Nigel Clive, went to the Epirus to operate with Zervas. After the war was over he joined the intelligence service. When he retired he too wrote a book about his time in the mountains. As a loyal member of the services he submitted it to the authorities. They told him that he could not publish it even though he was not a member of the services at the time that he was writing about and like Woodhouse and Leigh-Fermor he was an army officer. Nothing in his book related to any secret matter in the services. I am very glad to say that he published the book.

That is not a good augury. There is this obsession with total secrecy about every single matter. We are no longer living in the age of John Buchan or of Dornford Yates. We are living in the age of John le Carré, who has disclosed a very great deal about the services in his books on spies.

Nor are we for that matter living in the age of Shakespeare. In Troilus and Cressida Ulysses tells Achilles that the Greek high command knows all about the fact that he is having an intrigue with a Trojan princess in Troy. Ulysses goes on to say: There is a mystery (with whom relation Durst never meddle) in the soul of state, Which hath an operation more divine, Than breath or pen can give expressure to, All the commerce you have had with Troy As perfectly is ours, as yours, my Lord. And better would it fit Achilles much To throw down Hector than Polyxena". The mystery in the soul of state is of course the secret service and "relation" is Shakespeare's word for the press. But of course the press durst meddle today with the services only too readily. If a Cabinet Minister was discovered by MI5 to be having an affair with the daughter of a member of the Politburo, Private Eve would be onto it before the director general could walk round to No. 10.

No one could be more determined than I am to stop journalists like Mr. Duncan Campbell from getting information. I should like to see him thwarted on every occasion. Mr. Campbell was a friend of Philip Agee, the defector from the CIA who made public the names of all CIA and MI6 officers that he knew. Mr. Campbell does not care whether the information he unearths is sensitive and valuable to organisations hostile to this country. In fact my impression is that he rather prefers it to be so.

But the services need to maintain relations with the media like any other department of government. It would be much better if the heads of the three services were publicly known, as they are in America and in the Soviet Union. Then they could deal with the legitimate interests of the press in their activities.

There is one other thing which I think is important for the heads of the services to be able to do; that is always to be able to restore, if necessary, the morale of the officers who work under them. Where officers are publicly named— they may have retired—as being this or that, and when totally false statements are made about them, I think that the head of the services should be able publicly to defend those officers.

We are all grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Campbell, for having aired the matter. I hope we shall explore further the possibilities and the difficulties of obtaining binding contracts for officers in the services. However, such contracts run the danger of being absurd. I am bound to say that the noble Lord, Lord Mayhew, was right when he said that no contract would have stopped a man like Peter Wright doing what he did, nor would it have caught the infamous spies recruited by the Comintern in the 1930s.

4.20 p.m.

Lord Colnbrook

My Lords, I shall start by congratulating the noble Baroness, Lady Hart of South Lanark, on her maiden speech. I have heard her speak many times in another place and have always enjoyed it. I have not always agreed with her and I expect that when she becomes more controversial as time goes on I shall again not agree with her. However, I am delighted to congratulate her on a most interesting performance.

The noble Baroness referred, as have others, to freedom of information and a possible freedom of information Act. A number of people—not the noble Baroness but those outside this House— have spoken of the right of the public to know practically anything that they wish to write about. That demand comes, not widely from the press, but from certain sections of the press. I get very bored with that.

I do not know whether any of your Lordships have asked a journalist to tell you where he got his information. He will not do it. No journalist will ever reveal his sources. In fact, journalists have been know to go to prison rather than reveal their sources. It seems to me that even those who call most loudly for the right of the public to know to be honoured should also accept that there are certain things that cannot and must not be disclosed. I believe that your Lordships as a whole will agree to the elementary proposition that the operations of the security services must not be disclosed. In that matter, the right of the public to know does not exist. The reason is that the objective of the security services is to thwart those who wish to take over this country by means other than the democratic process, whether by invasion or by attack from within. The vital prerequisite for thwarting those activities is intelligence. Intelligence must be gathered almost entirely from people who do their utmost to make their plans in total secrecy.

Many of your Lordships will be more familiar than I with the detailed workings of the intelligence services. However, I know something of some of the organisations which occupy the attention of those services. I am thinking particularly of two organisations in Ireland—the Provisional IRA and the Irish National Liberation Army. We must never forget that it is the publicly declared intention of the Provisional IRA to overthrow the Government of Northern Ireland and, incidentally, that of the Republic of Ireland as well, and to replace those governments with itself. Its methods include the killing of innocent people, the destruction of property and the extremely ruthless way in which it deals with people whom it suspects—not proves but suspects—of having given information, sold information or perhaps just leaked information about what it is seeking to do.

Gathering intelligence about the objectives of those organisations is extremely difficult and extremely dangerous. Thank goodness there are people who are prepared to do that and also that those people are efficient enough—not necessarily all the time but occasionally—to thwart their intentions. One such incident took place, as we know, in Gibraltar recently. I shall say nothing about the denouement of that operation because it is the subject of inquiry by a coroner's court in Gibraltar. However, it seems to me that the whole operation of discovering what was intended, identifying the people who were going to do it, keeping them under surveillance for months at a time and co-operating with the intelligence services of other countries reflects the greatest possible credit on the intelligence services both of this country and of the other countries concerned. Mercifully, because they were successful, scores and perhaps even hundreds of innocent civilians and soldiers are alive today who would otherwise be dead.

I do not know and do not want to know how that was done. The thought that how it was done and the details of the operation might conceivably some day he made public horrifies me. Recent history tells us—does it not?—that things are not going to stop there and that other plots will be made. I think that no one, for whatever reason, ought to be permitted to make the task of thwarting future plots more difficult and dangerous by revealing, even after some years, how that particular plot was thwarted.

We must face two questions. The first question is what we want to stop people from publicising and the second question is how that should be done. The question of what we wish to stop is difficult. The noble and gallant Lord, Lord Carver, spoke from his great experience in the Ministry of Defence when he said that it regards anything—even the number of lumps of sugar that the Secretary of State has in his tea—as being absolutely top secret. I know exactly what he means; everything is thought to be top secret. That is unreasonable. However, I do not go along with him in his suggestion that there ought to be an independent body advising on such matters.

The question is whether any piece of information is damaging to our national security. Who can decide that? It seems to me that only a Minister of the Crown—in fact, the Prime Minister, who is the ultimate head of all the security services—can decide such matters. What independent person can judge that? An independent person does not have the detailed knowledge of what is going on. Furthermore, if a judgment is made and is thought to be wrong, an independent person cannot be challenged. However, the Prime Minister can be challenged, and that is what Parliament is for. A Prime Minister or any other minister can be challenged on the exercise of judgment and, if necessary, dismissed. That cannot be done with an independent person.

In the end, it seems to me that we must leave those matters to the executive of the day. However, I absolutely agree that there ought to be a much clearer definition of what is or is not a matter of state security. Some people undoubtedly go too far in regarding everything as secret when it is not. How does one stop that? The people who stop it are nearly always the members of the security services themselves. Nine hundred and ninety-nine out of a thousand people—no, more than that—would not dream of ever giving publicity to something which they should not. We must not forget that. We talk about people stepping over the line. However, we must not forget that tens of thousands of people do not. They are the best weapon to ensure that that does not happen.

However, there will always be the odd rogue; there always has been and I have a nasty feeling that there always will be. How do we stop that person? My noble friend Lord Campbell of Croy spoke of an enforceable legal contract. I agree on that matter. However, I thought I understood him to speak of copyright, and there he lost me. That seems to be an entirely different kettle of fish. I prefer to the forthright pronouncement of the noble Lord, Lord Mayhew, who said that such people ought to be behind bars. I think that that is a better arrangement.

The precise wording of any contract is something which I should not be competent to spell out. What is clear is that the existing Official Secrets Act and the signing and acceptance of that Act by members of the security services is not always enough. We know that the Government are considering the Official Secrets Act. I understand that we are to have a White Paper some time later this year. I ask the Government, when preparing any proposal to strengthen, revise and replace the Official Secrets Act, to pay the most careful attention to ensuring that there is a provision in it which will ensure (so far as the law is able to do so) that no member of the security services is ever allowed, whether he is still serving or retired, to put at risk both the other members of his service and, in the end, the safety of all the citizens of this country.

4.30 p.m.

Lord Moore of Wolvercote

My Lords, I am most grateful the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, for giving us the opportunity to talk about confidentiality in regard to the security services. I was taught that the affairs of the secret service must remain secret, otherwise the whole objective would be defeated. I am glad to say that in my 40 years of public service confidentiality was the strict rule. Anyone whose work necessarily brought him into contact with the security services was expected to keep his mouth shut and not to discuss their business with any person who did not have a need to know. This applied not only during one's working life but in retirement. The same rule naturally applied to members of the security services. It would have been regarded as unthinkable that a member or ex-member of a security service should speak or write about his work. Today, however, we have a new situation in which members of the security services are being encouraged by the media to write or to speak about their work. This is surely deplorable.

I was abroad and unfortunately unable to attend the debate in the House on 10th February. However, I was very impressed by the excellent speech of the noble Lord, Lord Hankey, in which he said: There has been an inexcusable lapse of national discipline".—[Official Report, 10/2/88; col. 220.] We are not at present allowed to discuss the Spycatcher case since it is sub judice, but I have been greatly heartened to note that all the judges both in the High Court and in the Appeal Court unequivocally endorse the view that members of the security services, whether still serving or in retirement, have a duty of confidentiality to the Crown. I suggest, as mentioned by other noble Lords, that a very good example of the vital importance of secrecy is the operation recently carried out in Spain and Gibraltar. One loose word could have ruined the whole operation; or of course would the co-operation of the Spanish police have been forthcoming if they had not completely trusted their British counterparts. The work of the secret service must be kept secret. On that I think that we are agreed. The content of its work is fascinating to the layman. Of course people wanted to read Spycatcher once it was published, but the point is that such books should not be published.

How this is to be achieved, which is the nub of today's debate, must eventually be the responsibility of government. As I said, I was brought up in a very strict school, and I remain slightly shocked that it should be thought necessary for members of the security services, for whom I have the highest regard, to be required to sign a legally enforceable contract of silence, but if today this is necessary to enable them to resist the blandishments of the media, so be it. What is important is that we should have complete confidentiality in regard to the work of the security services of this country. I shall be interested to hear in due course what the Government propose to do about the problem.

4.34 p.m.

Lord Mishcon

My Lords, the House will be indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, for three things: first, for having introduced into your Lordships' Chamber a most valuable debate; secondly, for having given the House the opportunity to hear the maiden speech of my noble friend Lady Hart of South Lanark; and thirdly, for inspiring the noble Lord, Lord Annan, to recite from Troilus and Cressida in a manner, dramatic as it was, that would have been worthy of the noble Lord, Lord Olivier, whom, unfortunately, we so rarely see these days.

In an attempt to draw together the threads of this interesting and important debate, it may be of advantage to start with the matters on which there appears to be universal agreement in the Chamber. The first is the necessity for having the intelligence services for the security of the state. The second—even though there may have been some sad exceptions to the rule—is the obligation to the members of those services for work well, loyally and truly done. The third matter of agreement is the need, where it is appropriate, to ensure that there is no divulging of secrets learnt in that service to the detriment of the realm. It is in regard to that last part that a discussion can be started which I hope will be useful to the Minister when he replies.

My noble friend Lady Hart of South Lanark posed a question about loyalty: she asked, loyalty to whom? Your Lordships may think that, within the confines of the constitution that we treasure, the loyalty of the intelligence services may well be seen to belong to the Crown, which represents the safety of the realm. Within our constitution there is a remarkable concept which I believe has the admiration—certainly in its title—of nearly every other country in the world: Her Majesty's Government and Her Majesty's loyal Opposition. Your Lordships may well feel in the circumstances that that concept has to be borne in mind when considerations of this kind are being discussed in the House.

Perhaps I may start with a discussion about whether the existing law is in the slightest degree clear in order that the White Paper, the publication of which is anticipated in June, can be written with some clarity as to what that law is. Only two days ago an honourable Member in another place, whose name has been referred to in your Lordships' House this afternoon with respect, Mr. Richard Shepherd, asked the Attorney-General whether it could possibly be desirable to have a lifelong undertaking about confidentiality when such matters as treason, fraud and other criminal acts might be involved. The reply of the Attorney-General on 14th March at col. 855 of the Official Report of the other place is: The first thing to establish in these difficult matters is the law of the country. My hon. Friend is aware that considerable importance is attached to the fact that former and serving members of the security services owe a duty to the Crown". I observe that the lights in the Chamber have dimmed. I think it is quite intentional that I be prohibited from reading the quotation, though I do not accuse the Attorney-General of taking any part in the occurrence.

The passage continues: The question of whether that duty is owed in all circumstances, including the circumstances to which my hon. Friend has referred, is before the courts at the moment. We shall have to see what the House of Lords says when it hears that appeal on 7 June. Then will be the time to consider what, if any, changes should be made to the law by other means". I noted that the judgment in question was to be given in June and equally—the Minister will correct me if I am wrong—that the White Paper was promised for June. I wonder whether that White Paper will have the clarity that it ought to possess when the Attorney-General himself appears to be waiting until June for a judgment of the House of Lords in order to decide whether the issue of confidentiality is applicable in the circumstances to which we have been referring this afternoon.

It was suggested very clearly by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy, that an answer might lie in a lifelong contract of silence required from members of the security services—a statutory obligation which your Lordships may be relieved to know does not occur in the Life Peerages Act. It seems to me that reliance upon a contract as the sanction to stop wrongful disclosures of the kind that we have been hearing about suffers from certain deficiencies.

First of all it invokes a civil remedy and, as most of your Lordships will know, as a rule a civil remedy can be the subject of argument. The matter is neither decided suddenly, as is a criminal act which upon conviction is immediately followed by punishment, nor decided by jury. It is decided as a question of law and interpretation with rights of appeal that often take a very long time to be heard. Therefore, would a contract as such be the appropriate remedy in this case when it is perfectly obvious that the people whom we are anxious to go for (if I may use that expression) are not likely to be deterred by the issue of a civil writ or even an application for an injunction which may lead to proceedings for contempt of court? Would that be sufficient? Is it applicable?

Other speakers in this debate have raised the very important consideration of whether there ought to be a contract of complete silence for life, quite apart from the issues that were raised through the Attorney-General the day before yesterday, as mentioned in the passage that I read out, concerning questions of fraud, treason and other matters that obviously ought to be divulged. I suppose that the answer to the second point might be, "Well, happily, there is now a situation in which proper reports and complaints can be made to a new ombudsman, Sir Philip Woodfield, who is the Staff Counsellor"—that is the title that he has been given. Although many noble Lords asked for a tribunal to be set up almost in the way suggested by the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Carver, in the context of his speech, at least one could be grateful for the fact that something existed by way of an institution to which certain complaints could be made. I hope that that situation is working out well.

However, in a previous debate I raised with the Minister the subject of the availability and ease with which complaints or worries of that kind could be made in future to the Staff Counsellor and I asked him whether it had been made abundantly clear to members of the security services that they had nothing to fear by way of any adverse circumstances happening to them as a result of going to see the Staff Counsellor or of communicating with him about any matters which were thought to be going awry in the security services.

The Minister was courteous enough, as he always is, to reply to me by letter. I have his consent to read out to the House that reply: As I indicated in the debate, the Staff Counsellor keeps confidential the identities of individuals who approach him when they so request it, unless security considerations determine otherwise. As to the ease with which Sir Philip Woodfield may be consulted, all members of the security services have been advised exactly how he may be contacted in complete confidence. The method of approach is simple and direct.". I know that the noble Earl will not think me ungrateful if I say that that was not a reply to the question that I put. I am quite sure that it is made clear to the members of the security services that they will have easy contact with Sir Philip Woodfield. What this House wants is an assurance that it will be made abundantly clear to members of the security services that they have nothing to fear from bona fide communication with Sir Philip Woodfield when they feel that anything is going wrong or that something should be brought to his attention which it would not be sensible, convenient or whatever to bring to the attention of a superior officer. I believe that that is a most essential matter.

In your Lordships' House it never does to make a speech which consists entirely of negative pronouncements. Therefore noble Lords are entitled to ask whether there is any positive contribution that can be made to the question of how to stop the kind of conduct which I believe is found objectionable by all sections of the House; namely, blatantly making money out of what are supposed to be Crown secrets and secrets which are obviously a matter of great importance to the security of the Realm.

The only answer that I can give is some sensible substitution for the ridiculous Section 2 of the Official Secrets Act. Clearly we must not be too insular in our concept of what we are trying to stop. I hope it will be agreed that action must be limited to matters which quite definitely affect the security of the state, whether they are matters of terrorism or concern the enemies or potential enemies of this country. Noble Lords may immediately say, "Well, it may very well be that you have some sort of definition in a new Official Secrets Act which will commend itself to Parliament. But what will be the deciding factor as to whether or not that situation has been created and whether there is a breach of its provisions?" I can see no alternative. A Minister who is responsible for these matters has to take the view that the provisions have been breached and to obtain the advice of the Law Officers of the Crown and the Director of Public Prosecutions as to whether an offence has been committed.

The answer to the most interesting and important question raised by the noble Lord who introduced this debate must be that it is a matter of criminal law and not of civil rights. It must be the criminal law that protects the public, who are entitled to know, and to know especially, about matters which are already within the knowledge of an enemy and other countries and their media, but who are not entitled to know matters which affect the security of the state in cases where that security may be impinged upon should publication take place.

4.50 p.m.

The Minister of State, Home Office (Earl Ferrers)

My Lords, we have had what I believe has been an extremely interesting debate which has produced a lot of very constructive, thoughtful speeches. It is always a privilege to speak after the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon. It is always a quite alarming prospect. He speaks with total clarity. He seems to speak without any notes. There was this evening a touch of H. M. Tennent about it. The lights went down as he spoke—no reflection on what he was saying—and then they went up again. The noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, continued unperturbed, purposefully and faultlessly. I admired that.

My noble friend Lord Campbell, in introducing this debate this afternoon, kindly said that he did not expect any answers. I commend that helpful approach to noble Lords who wish to put Questions which I have a responsibility to answer! I also enjoyed the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Annan, not only for its content and his memory, but because of his method of delivery, which, rather like the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, made me feel that I had momentarily been transported to Stratford-upon-Avon.

The debate was also remarkable because of the maiden speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Hart. Our acquaintance, regrettably for my part, has not been a deep one, but we met when we both sat on the Armitage Committee for the political activities of civil servants way back in 1977. When the noble Baroness joined herself in happy harmony today with my noble friends Lord Home and Lord Lauderdale, and referred hack to 1931, I thought that she was a little on dangerous ground. I was glad that it was only the aggregate of service to Lanark to which she was referring and not to the aggregate of service.

The noble Baroness managed with remarkable restraint to contain the natural tiger of controversy which she always has, and which is always ready to leap out at any possible opportunity, although it did not do so today. It is that natural tiger of controversy that gives the noble Baroness her remarkable character. We look forward to hearing her on many occasions when doubtless the tiger will emerge a little further than it did today. However, we were glad to see her here among us.

If I say that I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Campbell of Croy, noble Lords will understand if my gratitude is muted. I am of course glad to have the opportunity to underline that in our view the essential national interests of this country must impose upon every member of the security and intelligence services a lifelong duty of confidentiality. I was glad my noble friend Lord Campbell underlined that the need for essential and secure intelligence for the protection of our country and our citizens should continue.

However, noble Lords would not expect me to give a seminar on how the security and intelligence services set about recruiting people to their staff. To set out such matters in detail would provide valuable information to those who are hostile to our country. Your Lordships will understand why I cannot therefore respond in detail to those kinds of questions which have been raised during the debate.

Your Lordships are aware that the Government are, and have been, involved with a number of legal actions in order to protect confidential information. There is a simple, fundamental and vital principle which must be preserved: that members of the security and intelligence services have a duty to the Crown not to disclose any information which they may have obtained during the course of their employment, unless they have first received authority to do so. That obligation must obtain whether they are in active employment or retired.

Of course there is the point to which the noble Baroness, Lady Hart, referred. She said that there is the right of freedom of information and the requirement of confidentiality. I was glad that she underlined the necessity for confidentiality. It is a difficult balance to keep and the needle on the public meter is perpetually hunting to try to find the correct balance.

My noble friend Lord Campbell's Motion refers to a contract. The noble and gallant Lord, Lord Carver, found this matter interesting. The noble Lord, Lord Annan, thought that such a contract would not work. I was interested in the controversy which that proposal produced. I prefer not to follow that controversy. Using that word "contract" puts one in some difficulty. The question of whether there is a contractual relationship between the Crown and its servants is at present before the courts. It would be wrong therefore for me to go too far down that road today.

However, I think that most sensible people would readily understand that the nature of employment in the security and intelligence services, and the requirements of national security, demand that there is a duty of confidence and that this must be respected. The duty, if it is to make any sense at all, must continue to apply throughout an officer's life and it cannot end with retirement.

I was glad to hear my noble friend Lord Colnbrook, with his wide experience, reinforce this point so strongly. I was especially glad to hear the suggestion be made at the end of his speech—that in future, if any alteration of the law is going to be made, it should not permit anyone to put his country at risk. This was a very helpful suggestion which I shall draw to the attention of my right honourable friend. I doubt whether there is anyone who can imagine a security service working effectively on any other basis. To suppose that any security service could operate effectively without such confidentiality is, frankly, to wander in the realms of pure fantasy.

I was glad to hear my noble friend Lord Campbell acknowledge the crucial need for the duty of confidence in the debate which we had on 10th February. He said that the security and intelligence organisations must operate in secret if they were to do their job. He went on to say that almost everything connected with their work must be secret if they were to be effective. I am bound to say that I concur 100 per cent. There is no other way.

There is much talk about open government these days. That is very important. But there is one matter about which there cannot be openness. That is the security and intelligence services. The fact is that no organisation can operate effectively if its employees are able to disclose publicly any or every piece of information with which they are entrusted. This is true in the commercial world. It is true in the work of government departments. It is axiomatic in the work of the security agencies.

Unauthorised disclosures by those who have the privilege of privileged and secret knowledge can do untold damage. My noble friend Lord Campbell reinforced this. Bit by bit, these disclosures can assist hostile countries and can enable groups and individuals to build up a picture of our security arrangements which may be unanticipated by those who divulge apparently innocuous information. The disclosure of sensitive material, sometimes in innocence, can alert, for example, terrorists and put the lives of others at risk. Unauthorised disclosures damage the confidence in the security service of those who deal with it, they jeopardise its access to intelligence of what might be of crucial importance to this country. I was glad that the noble Lord, Lord Moore of Wolvercote, referred to that in what was a meritoriously succinct speech.

Such disclosure damages the confidence of our allies in our own country. It creates a reluctance to share knowledge. It destroys trust and it risks lives. There is nothing whatever to be said in favour of it other than for those people who find it a virtue to criticise any government or country for holding a secret.

There are certain things in every family, in every business and in every person which have to be kept secret. A country is no different. There are some parts of our national life which have to remain secret. Those who hold these secrets are in a unique position of trust. The noble Lord, Lord Birdwood, had strong words for those who break this trust. They debase themselves. They debase their personalities and their characters and they let down their countrymen when they break that trust.

Our insistence on the duty of confidence is not a question of trying to stifle a free press. We are not engaged in seeking to foreclose parliamentary discussion about security matters when Parliament has a legitimate concern to express its views. If the record is studied, it can be seen that there has been a remarkable history of frankness in your Lordships' House and in another place on that.

I was interested to hear the suggestion of the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Carver, that there should be a tribunal to vet requests to publish. My noble friend Lord Colnbrook dismissed this idea as being unrealistic. I shall certainly draw this to the attention of my right honourable friend the Home Secretary, but I have to say that the Government remain strongly of the view at present that members of the security services should not reveal details of their work, even if they have been retired for a number of years. The information can still be highly valuable to those who are our enemies.

My noble friend Lord Campbell of Croy referred to the Official Secrets Act. This has come under much public criticism. The Government accept that it needs to be reformed. My right honourable friend has said that the Government's proposals for the reform of the Act will be set out in a White Paper which he hopes to lay before Parliament in June with a view to early legislation. The noble Lord, Lord Mayhew, tweaked the Government for not wishing to see Mr. Shepherd's Bill, the Protection of Official Information Bill, go through. He asked why. Perhaps I can tell him.

Matters relating to official and national secrets are of a highly sensitive nature. We take the view that the Government, whose responsibility it is in these spheres to protect secrets, must take the initiative in putting forward proposals for alteration. Had a Bill been put forward by a Private Member, the Government would have to be in a position of responding to all the various arguments and all the various amendments put down to it—and which would inevitably be put down to it—at a time when the Government themselves have not made up their minds.

The Government are considering the matter. They are considering all the views. They will consider the views which have been expressed today. At the end of that, they will produce a White Paper. There will then be discussion on the White Paper, no doubt inside Parliament as well as outside Parliament. Then there will be a Bill and there will be further discussion. That is a reason why, in order to get this right, we felt that that was the right course to take.

The noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, referred to what was said recently in another place. I can assure him that if anything emerges on the Lords appeal in the Wright case which needs to be taken into account, it will be.

We have embarked on a work to identify a suitable replacement for the Official Secrets Act 1911 because we want to see information which is of importance to the safety and the security of the nation protected. Everyone agrees that the present legislation is nearing exhaustion. It is too wide and it is too weak. The proposals will come in this White Paper and there will be opportunities for debate on it.

At the heart of my noble friend Lord Campbell's Motion is the proposition that more can and should be done at the time of recruitment and appointment in order to ensure that the confidences which are obtained are not broken later. My noble friend made the interesting suggestion that the law on copyright should become involved. My noble friend Lord Colnbrook, in a happily confessional way, said that he was lost when that suggestion was put forward. I do not blame him, and I do not propose to pursue the thoughts of copyright too far this afternoon.

I believe it is premature at present to talk about possible changes in the law. We shall first have to see what the final outcome will be of the legal actions which are now in train concerning the duty of confidentiality. That will be the time to consider what, if any, changes should be made by any other means. I do not think it will surprise any of your Lordships to know that the Government have been considering whether any other measures would help to uphold the duty of confidentiality which is imposed on public servants. We will obviously want to consider carefully the interesting points which have been made from all sides of the House this afternoon.

My noble friend Lord Campbell has argued the need for a legally enforceable contract to be entered into. While I cannot say too much about that, I thought it might be helpful if I let your Lordships know what is being done already. The position is this. On joining the security service new entrants are given a comprehensive briefing on the need to protect classified material and to respect the duty of confidentiality. They are required to sign a declaration that they are aware of the implications of the Official Secrets Act.

The matter is not left there. Staff are regularly reminded of these requirements by their line managers and by their personnel officers. They are also reminded of this during the periodic reviews of their security clearance. Getting the recruitment stage right is obviously one vital step towards ensuring the loyalty of staff. In recruiting its officers the security service spreads its net widely in order to encompass a broad range of backgrounds, of experience and of skills. There is a particular need to look for people who possess the qualities of reliability and discretion which are required for the handling of the sensitive matters with which the service deals.

Your Lordships would not expect me to go into a detailed description of the selection procedures, much as this might whet the appetites of the curious. Let me just say that the selection procedures which are employed are geared to the special need for reliability and discretion, and a variety of selection methods are used.

Any organisation must see that it gets its management procedures and structures right, not least in the interests of securing the loyalty of its staff and their respect for each other, as well as their respect for the position of trust which they enjoy. Improvements have been made recently. Your Lordships will remember the Bettaney case. The Security Commission's report was presented in 1985. It made certain criticisms and recommendations on the management of the security service and in the field of vetting in the light of that particular case.

As a result, the director general prepared a report on changes in the organisation and management of the security service. The report was shown to the Security Commission. My right honourable friend the Prime Minister, my right honourable friend the Home Secretary and the Security Commission have paid tribute to the amount of thought and effort which the security service devoted to this task.

The process has continued. The style of management has become more open and the procedures which affect the appraisal of staff, their postings and promotions, have all been reviewed and improved so that proper attention is paid to career planning and development. As a result, morale, which is so vital in a service that by its very nature cannot generally defend itself in public, is good. Changes which were promised in the field of positive vetting have also been made and more investigating officers have been recruited.

Your Lordships have referred to the post of the Staff Counsellor and it may be helpful if I explain the part which he plays in these arrangements. One of the concerns expressed in recent years—and the noble Baroness, Lady Hart, referred to this—was that members of the intelligence and security services who were troubled over particular matters and activities should have a means of going outside the ordinary management structures in order to have those anxieties considered. My right honourable friend the Prime Minister asked the director general of the security service to consider the proposal and to let her have some recommendations on the subject. The appointment of Sir Philip Woodfield as Staff Counsellor for the security and intelligence service is the result of that consideration.

The appointment of a Staff Counsellor complements the other changes in management of the security service. Sir Philip is available to be consulted by any member or retired member of the security and intelligence agencies who has anxieties—anxieties which relate to his or her work and which have not been possible to allay through the ordinary processes of discussion with line management. He provides an opportunity to talk in confidence to someone who is senior and knowledgeable about the background but does not have the day-to-day responsibility for operations and is independent of management structures. He can be valuable both to the individual member and the well-being of the service as a whole and act as a safety valve.

The noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, referred to a letter which I sent him and he said in that courteous way of his that I had not actually answered the point which he was addressing. If the letter did not do so I apologise to him because I would not wish him to think that I had deliberately not answered it. He wanted to know whether people in the intelligence services who took the opportunity of seeing Sir Philip Woodfield would be able to do so without fear of any retribution. I am happy to reassure the noble Lord that people who go to the Staff Counsellor in good faith have nothing to fear.

Lord Mishcon

My Lords, perhaps the noble Earl will forgive me. I am sure that that is absolutely right. However, I want to know, as other noble Lords may, whether members of the security and intelligence services are aware beforehand that that is the position and that is not just a statement by the Minister. In other words, are they so informed?

Earl Ferrers

My Lords, I take the noble Lord's point. I will ensure that, if they are not so informed, they are informed. I realise that that is a very genuine and real anxiety and it is important that members of the security services should know that if they wish to avail themselves of the services of Sir Philip Woodfield they may do so in good faith without fear.

I tried to explain to your Lordships some of the improvements that have been made recently in the security services. I am grateful for the support which has been given this afternoon from all sides of the House to what is a vital and frequently dangerous task and is undertaken by our security and intelligence services with remarkable vigour. I was grateful to my noble friend Lord Campbell who put that so forcibly at the end of his speech. That support will be appreciated by those who undertake this difficult and dangerous work on our behalf. Of course we shall study the suggestions which have been made by your Lordships with great care. This is an important subject. There is a White Paper coming out in the future and we shall listen with care both now and in future to the suggestions made as to ways in which we can improve these services.

Lord Campbell of Croy

My Lords, I rise briefly to reply to the debate although we are well within our time limit. I thank all speakers who have taken part and I particularly congratulate, as others have, the noble Baroness, Lady Hart, on her maiden speech, made with a fluency with which we were all familiar in another place. We look forward to hearing her many times in this House.

I should like especially to thank the Minister for imparting to us what he felt he could on this sensitive subject. I understand the difficulty about present legal proceedings to which he referred, and that is one reason why I did not press him for information or replies.

I should like to ask one or two questions. First, the noble Lord, Lord Mayhew, asked me about the proposal for a contract and its relationship to the coming legislation which aims to replace Section 2 of the Official Secrets Act. My proposal is not intended to be contrary to any Bill that comes before Parliament. I hope that the ideas that I have put forward are in tune with the legislation of which the White Paper will be the forerunner.

I should like to point out that the new legislation is likely to cover the whole public service, as did the Official Secrets Act. Therefore, it will be used in many departments where there is very little secret work being carried out. However, the organisations which we have been discussing today operate in complete secrecy so that they are a special group and I hope that arrangements for them will be in tune and within the ambit of the new legislation to replace Section 2.

I should say for the record that it was twice suggested that Burgess was a member of one of those organisations. His position was simply that of a temporary employee of the Foreign Office, having come from the wartime Ministry of Information, and at the time the Foreign Office personnel department had for some period been trying to part with his services and terminate his work because he was unsatisfactory in so many ways. Far from being recruited by our service, he must have been recruited by a Soviet service. However, he was not a very good recruit for anybody.

The noble and gallant Lord, Lord Carver, contributed suggestions on the care needed in recruitment and training. I am sure that the Minister will take those into account. I was delighted that the noble Lord, Lord Annan, was able to take part in the debate because he had previously told me that he might have to be abroad. What a loss it would have been to have been deprived not only of his contribution but also the tour de force of that extract from Troilus and Cressida. He also suggested that dons could be good advisers on recruitment and I am sure that that has also been taken on board.

The noble Lord suggested that contracts are by no means an easy method and I entirely agree with that. I do not suggest that they could be 100 per cent effective. My modest proposal is that it may be a better method for the future than ways which have been employed in the past. I must also make that clear to the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon. With his legal knowledge, experience, lucid thinking and exposition, he has given the House quite a lot to think about concerning the problems of contracts. The Government will no doubt particularly take into account his comments on the application of criminal law required in this field as distinct from civil law.

I hope that government ministers and their advisers will be taking those and other comments made in this debate into full account when preparing this White Paper, which we look forward to seeing in the summer, paving the way for the legislation to replace Section 2. I beg leave to withdraw the Motion for Papers.

Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.