§ Lord Kennetasked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether in view of the United States Adminis-trations' decision not to use so-called "lie detector" tests on federal employees with access to secret information, they are still proposing to use them on the corresponding British employees.
The Minister of State, Privy Council Office, and Minister for the Arts (The Earl of Gowrie)The polygraph has been in use in the United States of America in respect of employees of federal government agencies concerned with matters of national security for many years and continues to be so. The recent decision, to which the noble Lord refers, was to suspend proposals to extend the use of the polygraph to protect the American Administration against unlawful disclosures of classified information. This decision is not relevant to the pilot study which the Security Commission recommended to test the feasibility of polygraph security screening in the intelligence and security agencies in this country: and which is going ahead on a trial basis as planned.