The meeting was a follow-up to the earlier report of the Committee published in the last Parliament.
    Only one of the new Committee had previously served on the Committee - Mr Chris Mullin, who is the new chairman.
    At the start of the meeting a number of general questions were put by Members, and this enabled Commander Higham to explain the Craftís attitude to disclosure.

The following are extracts from the session:

Mr Richard Allan, MP: You will be aware that the Government’s response to the previous Committee’s report was published to this Committee on Tuesday, the proposal being that Freemasonry should be declared for all new appointments within the criminal justice system and that the Grand Lodge’s co-operation would be sought for preparing a register of those members who have existing appointments. We just wanted a brief, initial reaction from you to that proposal from the Government.

Higham: If the registers are to be voluntary, Freemasons must make up their own mind about whether they are going to register. They could ask where the process is going to stop. We heard the Home Affairs Committee’s original inquiry was into the police and the judiciary. Its report added probation officers and prison officers, and I believe that Mr Winnick has said he wants to add the Armed Services and the rest, whatever "the Rest" means ... But the short answer is, yes, if it is a voluntary register, Freemasons will make up their mind about it.

Allan: What about the compulsory element for new entrants to the profession?

Higham: If it is compulsory, then that is going to be for someone to make legislation about. I do not think you are expecting us to compel our people to register.

Allan: But you would presumably comply with any legislation which came forward?

Higham: Yes, if any legislation is made, we will comply with it. We are bound to do that as citizens, and we always have done as Freemasons. We actually complied with a series of laws which required annual reports from Freemasons to be made to the justices’ clerks, and that ran from the 1700s until 1967. It only stopped because - it was not our idea it should stop - the Government of the day tidied up the statute book, and we actually had a great deal of difficulty in stopping our secretaries from going on making the returns.

Allan: So if we legislate, you will comply? It is a straightforward process.

Higham: Yes, but I think people will still ask questions about where the process is going to stop, and why should Freemasons be singled out in this way. We know they are not secret. We know they are not for mutual advancement or self-advancement, that they are encouraged to be good citizens, and that they are supposed to declare interests if they conflict. Our rules on declarations of interest are just as tough as those in local government or Parliament, and we have disciplinary systems for enforcing them if people do not comply. I think really you ought to accept that Freemasons are trying to be exemplary citizens, and it seems unfair they should be singled out for treatment like this when a whole lot of other law-abiding societies which are just as private as Freemasonry escape from what might become public legislation.

Mr Winnick then took on the detailed questioning.

Winnick: Do you not think it would be helpful for the Freemasons, as an organisation, if disclosure was made known? You will obviously be aware of the lingering suspicion that being a member of the Freemasons is an avenue for promotion and preferential treatment, which I know you would strenuously deny. If everything was disclosed would that not help, so everyone would know that so-and-so, a judge or magistrate, probation officer or police officer of whatever rank, is actually a member?

Higham: In theory, yes, if you could assure me that there would be no discrimination against Freemasons. Our people are not to use their interests to advance themselves at all, or not to use Freemasonry to advance anybody. The corollary to that is that Freemasonry should not be used against them, and we know a lot of people have an unreasoned and very deep dislike of Freemasonry and the fact someone is a Freemason has been known to be a factor against his promotion. It is not only us who actually say the Freemasons do not interfere with promotion procedures, you try it on the Metropolitan Police and they get very cross with the idea that anybody, let alone the Freemasons, could interfere with their promotion procedures or operations. A lot of other organisations I think would have the same attitude.

Winnick: As I understand it, you would have no objection to disclosure as long as those who are members were not discriminated against.

Higham: Yes, I think there should be some safeguards built into it.

Winnick: I am totally opposed to discrimination so I would hope that would not occur, but you would take the view there could be some discrimination simply because it was disclosed a person was involved with your organisation?

Higham: This is the other side of the coin. You suspect Freemasons. I say they are not to be suspected. I say if suspicion is justified then we take disciplinary action against them. We disapprove of proved suspicion, but we do not like our integrity being called into question as a general principle.

Mr Gerald Howarth, MP: Do you believe that the Government’s response is draconian in nature? Do you think it sits squarely with the Human Rights Bill which is currently going through the House of Commons? May I ask you also what kind of response you have had from your membership to the Government’s proposals?

Higham: As to how it sits with what went on before, we are unhappy about it. The response accepts the original conclusion of the Home Affairs Committee, which was reached just before the general election. The final conclusion is not supported by the evidence in the report. Membership of the Freemasons to be a declarable and registrable interest is not so much evidence as opinion I think. Draconian, yes. Selective, yes. We have not heard the detailed recommendations of the Committee about how the registers are to be set up and maintained. We do not know how a secret society is to be defined, that is if we are going after secret societies. If we are going after Freemasonry then, as I said, I think it is selective. As to the attitude of the Craft to it, they can see all these things as well as the next person. They may not all have read the whole report of the Home Affairs Committee but they do know the evidence which was given, they have had a summary of it from my office, and I think it is a fair summary, and it does show that the conclusion just does not follow the evidence. There was no evidence that Freemasonry has adversely affected the conduct of criminal justice in this country - judges, policemen, or, I should imagine, the Crown Prosecution Service (although I am not sure many questions were asked about that). Certainly, to my memory, nothing was asked about the probation service or the prison service and yet they are being lumped in, and if Mr Winnick has his way we are going to have the Armed Services and Members of Parliament too, which I think is going to have spin-offs in all sorts of directions. It simply is not justified.

Winnick: Does your membership feel any sense of persecution arising out of this Government announcement?

Higham: Impending persecution, yes, and a deep sense of anger at the slur on their integrity. We know we have bad apples; they are jolly few, and we do take charge of them, but the rest of the ordinary Freemasons - even Mr Mullin has been kind enough to say - are decent chaps.

At the end of the session, chairman Mr Chris Mullin, MP said: "Are you aware that Parliament through this Committee has the right to require you to provide the information we have required?"

Higham: Yes, I do know that.

Mullin: Do you understand that if we now issue a formal order for the information a refusal to co-operate may amount to a contempt of Parliament?

Higham: It will not be a simple refusal. It will be a willingness to accept on the lines which I have discussed with you and it will be with the leave of the men concerned, which I cannot give formally...

Mullin: We are the ones who will decide what the questions are and the decision for you is whether you are going to answer the questions we have put to you to the best of your ability. There are two possibilities, one is yes and one is no. We are reaching make your mind up time.

Higham: I think I shall probably have to go back to the Board and ask them because I have come here with a very clear idea that if I have specific allegations and the names of the men then the names can be given. I have got the leave from the men on the condition that the specific allegations are made and that is a yes. It is a "yes, but ...", but it is a, "Yes, I am willing to help."

The session ended and later Mr Mullin’s Committee ordered that within 14 days the Grand Secretary should lay before the Committee the following:

1. Papers identifying the names of the persons (from the list of names of officers of the former West Midlands Serious Crime Squad submitted to him in a letter of 13 February 1997 from Sir Ivan Lawrence QC, the then Chairman of the previous Committee) indicated in his letter of 20 February 1997 to Sir Ivan Lawrence, and his letter of 10 September 1997 to the Second Clerk of the Committee, as having been at some time a Freemason.

2. Papers identifying the names of those persons, from the list of police officers and others involved in the Birmingham Pub bombings case Nov 1974 - Mar 1991 submitted to him in a letter from the Second Clerk of the Committee of 5 August 1997, who have been or may have been at some time a Freemason according to the records available to Grand Lodge.

3. Papers identifying the names of those persons, from the list of police officers connected with the Stalker-Sampson inquiry submitted to him in a letter from the Second Clerk of the Committee of 16 October 1997, who have been or may have been at some time a Freemason according to the records available to Grand Lodge.

The Grand Secretary responded:

In compliance with the Home Affairs Committee’s Order of 19 February 1998 and on behalf of the Board of General Purposes (the Board) of the United Grand Lodge of England (Grand Lodge), I enclose information about Freemasons and former members of Lodges which, according to records or data in Freemasons’ Hall, seem to match the names provided by the Committee in the three cases referred to in the Order. You have recently told me that you have been advised that this information must be given even though doing so seems to infringe the Data Protection Act.
    You should note that the names seem to match names in the Committee’s lists. The Board cannot confirm that all the Freemasons are the same as the men in the Committee’s lists.
    The information is provided because the Committee is exercising its power to compel disclosure. The Board is extremely uncomfortable abut this compulsion and has been reluctant to provide the information, because in its view the Committee’s inquiry is an invasion into the privacy of the men concerned, who have not consented to their names being disclosed. Some of them are not in touch with their Lodges or former Lodges, and so their consent cannot be obtained; others have said that they would consent if they knew what they were being accused of.
    In supplying the information, the Board relies on the assurances which you have given that you will keep it confidential to yourself, and that the names will not be disclosed to any third party whatsoever.
    None of the other names in the Committee’s lists matches those of Freemasons or former members of Lodges under Grand Lodge.
    Commander Higham commented later: “As a law-abiding body, the Board of General Purposes has complied with the Order of The Home Affairs Committee.
    The Board will, however, soon be writing on behalf of English Freemasons to the Prime Minister, the Lord Chancellor and the Home Secretary to express its concern that the long-established rights of lawful associations and individuals are being challenged and eroded in a country which has always prided itself on its diversity and its tolerance, and in which the right to privacy and natural justice seemed natural.”