MR JUSTICE BURTON
Approved Judgment
Caroline Lucas MP & Ors v Security Service & Ors
the last three or four days about the attitude of the Government
to this question and will also answer, I hope, some questions
put by hon. Members on Monday and the usual Pavlovian titter
which occurred when the name of my right hon. friend the
Paymaster-General [George Wigg MP] was mentioned—not
least because the only connection that he has had with this
question was when I sought his advice on reviewing the
practice about tapping Members’ telephones when we came
into office. He therefore shares such responsibility as I can take
for the present arrangements.
...
The position regarding unauthorised tapping . . . is as follows:
any tapping that, in accordance with the rules of the Report,
becomes necessary by any Crown servant concerned with the
things covered in that Report, can only be done with the
individual authority of my right hon. Friend the Home
Secretary under very strict conditions.”
He then concluded as follows:
“I hold no responsibility for what was done in this matter
before the present Government came to power but it is fair to
point out that the Privy Councillors’ Report itself said that
Members of Parliament should not be treated differently from
members of the public. It is always a difficult problem. As Mr
Macmillan once said, there can only be complete security with
a police State, and perhaps not even then, and there is always a
difficult balance between the requirements of democracy in a
free society and the requirements of security.
With my right hon. Friends, I reviewed the practice when we
came to office and decided on balance—and the arguments
were very fine—that the balance should be tipped the other way
and that I should give this instruction that there was to be no
tapping of the telephones of Members of Parliament. That was
our decision and that is our policy. But if there was any
development of a kind which required a change in the general
policy, I would, at such moment as seemed compatible with the
security of the country, on my own initiative make a statement
in the House about it. I am aware of all the considerations
which I had to take into account and I felt that it was right to
lay down the policy of no tapping of the telephones of Members
of Parliament.”
6.
It is the last paragraph which has been subsequently referred to or repeated as
constituting the Wilson Doctrine. It was extended to members of the House of Lords
by a formal statement by the Earl of Longford as Lord Privy Seal on 22 November
1966 (HL Deb Vol 278, Cols 122-3).