As the Westminster Bridge terror attack of March 2017 showed, the Houses of Parliament are among the most obvious targets for anyone who wishes the British way of life ill. How to protect such a site, and yet allow the freest possible movement of members of Parliament and peers, and be seen to be welcoming of citizens in a democracy – and to do it on a budget? A file at the National Archives at Kew shows how over the decades such questions have kept cropping up.
As of December 1956, Parliament had an establishment of 35 police, that the file Mepo 2/10612, described as ‘necessary’. The authorities were looking to reduce that number. A Metropolitan Police commander (as the Met provided the officers) commented that ‘the matter can only be disposed of at very high level’, having the line before mentioned the Home Secretary. In the 1950s, then, the authorities were considering substituting ‘custodians’ for police that cost more. As one police commander minuted, ‘the fact remains that custodians and not police could quite well be used to augment the existing arrangements if the services of additional custodians could be secured’. In other words, replacing police with guards would be in the interests of economy. The commander summed up: “I have a feeling that if the job was sufficiently well paid the custodians would only be too glad to work overtime and earn the extra money.”
By 1963, the Palace of Westminster (PoW) had gone through a review of its security as a result of the wider Radcliffe report on the security of government buildings. Some 11 police constables paraded for duty in the House of Commons and another five in the Lords between 2pm (the usual time that business began) on ‘sitting days’. As for who was in charge, the Serjeant at Arms (a post that dated back to the 1400s) or his assistant, and the clerk for the House of Lords, paid for security and requested what amount they wanted. Typically the Serjeant at Arms was a retired military man (as of June 1967, Admiral Gordon-Lennox; and his deputy was a Colonel Thorne). A senior policeman minuted in March 1963 that ‘I have felt for some time that the PoW police staff is under-officered and early turn supervision is somewhat haphazard.’
In November 1970 the Palace for the first time got a security coordinator, WF Gilbert. As of April 1971, according to the file, a uniformed policeman was 24-hours at a post at Chancellor’s Gate; and from 10am to 6pm a plain-clothes policeman was on internal security duties. The policeman at the gate post (with telephone) was there for ‘facilitating the progress of peers and members of Parliament’ but was ‘often called upon to deal with sightseers, trades people, official and unofficial visitors including cranks to such an extent that in certain circumstances Chancellor’s Gate was vulnerable to unauthorised access’. Hence on Mr Gilbert’s advice, the Palace authorities intended to install an electronic barrier at this point, ‘to prevent access by pedestrians and vehicles until they are checked and cleared for admission’. The House of Lords meanwhile was asking for one more constable at Chancellor’s Gate post, from Monday to Saturday, 6am to 10pm; with the idea that one man would activate the barrier, and remain at the entrance, while the other would attend to callers and check their credentials. The Met and Parliament – in the person of Admiral Sir Frank Twiss, Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod – disagreed over who should pay for an extra man at the gate.
A draft letter from police to Twiss in July 1971 pointed out ‘to effect a saving in manpower we are substituting security guards for police officers in the protection of New Scotland Yard [see separate article] and although this process is in its early stages no difficulties have occurred with security guards working together with policemen. I find it a little difficult to understand why such an arrangement should not also operate at the Palace of Westminster.’ A memo from the Met Police Commissioner Sir John Waldron in July 1971 suggested to have Gilbert over (that is, talk face to face): ‘he knows our problems’. Gilbert had been a chief superintendent based at Cannon Row police station, that looked after Parliament. After Sir John saw Gilbert, the Commissioner noted in January 1971 that his [Gilbert’s] chief difficulty is the blanket of conservatism surrounding Gordon-Lennox’s office. Most of Gilbert’s recommendations, Sir John went on, ‘have been acted on but so far he has had little enthusiasm for his proposals to introduce passes, check points and a booking in and out system. No room can be spared for a 24-hour control centre,” another of Gilbert’s recommendations. Gilbert had found that the Palace floor for ministers was ‘exposed’, ‘but no extra custodians were available’.
Gilbert had put in a report during the Christmas 1970 recess, ‘but there was no-one there to deal with it’. Gilbert had suggested a barrier across Cromwell Green [by St Margaret’s Church, today the main visitor entry to the Palace], ‘where subsequently the Welsh nationalists attempted to enter the House: this has now been erected …. there is no doubt that the House has been vulnerable in many ways and Gilbert has done much to close the holes. He could accomplish this much more quickly if any urgency was shown by the Serjeant at Arms who has only seen him twice personally; he [Gilbert] generally has to approach Thorne or Swanston [the Serjeant’s assistant, a retired Royal Navy commander]. With the Lords it is easier where he receives every cooperation.’
Around this time a letter from Twiss to Sir John asked for additional police for Chancellor’s Gate, explaining: “We have been tightening up security measures in the Houses of Parliament and checking persons coming into the Palace of Westminster using a system of photo identification passes for everyone except peers and members of Parliament’. As for Chancellor’s Gate, Twiss described it as a particularly vulnerable point, ‘since it is in effect the ‘tradesmen’s entrance’ for the whole of the Palace of Westminster’. Twiss was quibbling about how the police and not the Lords should pay for the extra man. While the Commons and Lords for historical reasons ran themselves apart, Twiss acknowledged that ‘since the Palace of Westminster must be treated as a whole for security purposes, any weak spots in one House will clearly affect the other’.
The gate barrier would be erected after the 1971 summer recess. The Marshall report on Parliament had come out in 1969 and the then Department of the Environment was considering its recommendations. Gilbert was also trying to introduce a drill to be followed in an emergency, whether a fire or a bomb; and was having the doorkeepers trained accordingly. “He has from time to time found deficiencies with the custodians and the fire fighting officers and has been obliged to draw their attention to their limitations’, the Met Commissioner stated. Summing up, Sir John wrote that Gilbert had found his progress ‘delayed’ by the Serjeant at Arms.
For his part, Twiss in July 1971 writing to Met Commander VE Coventry at Cannon Row station described the police resources at the Palace as ‘slender’ meaning that at times the man at Chancellor’s Gate could not be relieved for a meal; or, the gate (one of the two main ones on site, the other being Speaker’s Court) had to be closed.
A House of Commons review of its internal departments of February 1967 set out another set of workers under the Serjeant at Arms; store keepers, who for example would issue stationery; and do (free) photocopying for members. The storekeepers’ system of storing keys had shortcomings, according to the review. MPs frequently requested replacement lost keys. The House of Lords had introduced a comprehensive master and grandmaster system of keys; something urgently needed in the Commons, which had ten categories of furniture and doors, and many door locks at least 100 years old and difficult to repair. The then Ministry of Public Buildings and Works said the replacing of door locks in the Commons would cost £5000 (a sum that then might buy a couple of houses), ‘and the project will have to take its turn in the Estimates’. The review begged the question of how to manage thousands of keys, and man any centralised key control system. The document proposed to transfer some police posts to custodians, to save money; and, separately, suggested a Houses of Parliament Police Force (a specialised force like those for London Airport, docks, and the railways).
The Palace had a shortage of doorkeepers, quite likely because they were recruited so narrowly; from senior warrant officer and chief petty officers with at least 21 years’ service (‘the Serjeant at Arms considers that this is the most reliable method of maintaining a corps of resourceful and disciplined men to carry out communication duties and assist in the operational and ceremonial activities of the House’). That pool of ex-military however could earn more doing security work in banks, and for diamond merchants. The review noted that the Corps of Commissionaires (that has since become Corps Security) ‘would like to be invited to submit candidates’.
Doorkeepers had two sets of duties. They passed messages to MPs, whether by telephone (though it only worked a tenth of the time) or by walking the corridors and searching; and did security and ushering. The Palace had trialled the earliest, monochrome CCTV, then literally closed-circuit television. Electronic paging of MPs, while technically feasible, was ‘not practical’ according to the review (because MPs would not take part in it).
The review had a mature attitude to security. It admitted it was difficult to assess, because risk from extreme behaviour might always exist; yet a man watching a corridor might have no incident for months. Citizens could traditionally access the Palace. The cost of a hired constable was £9 a day; and while police were nationally short, employing police was convenient; because they had the power of arrest and could be ‘readily reinforced’. Besides, police could accept sittings of Parliament late into the night; and irregular hours. When the Commons was not sitting, some 20 custodians took over internal security. Custodians were Ministry of Works staff; that is, civil servants (and unionised). When the Commons was sitting, police manned some 38 internal posts.
Gilbert, while serving in the Met, in a 1963 report noted a review of the Palace as far back as 1932 (that is, when the government was looking to economise drastically due to depression). The then Office of Works had replaced some police with custodians. In 1958 police reported that Capt KL Mackintosh, secretary to the Lord Great Chamberlain, Lord Cholmondeley, in the House of Lords, described custodians as ‘stretched to the limit’. That year a committee set up by Cholmondeley to look at security praised the organisation of security staff as ‘ingenious and efficient’ but recruitment of custodians was described as ‘most difficult, and service in the security staff is generally unpopular with the younger policemen; this is very regrettable when easy access demands a high degree of reliance being placed on the judgement of these men.’ The custodian force, founded in 1932, was below strength, ‘owing to unsatisfactory conditions of service’. The 1958 review (in between was another one in 1950) pointed out that the duties of the custodians were much more than security; ‘they are inevitably concerned to a great extent with making the life of busy members run as smoothly as possible and saving them from embarrassment or inconvenience’. The custodians also were responsible for fire prevention (and the 1834 fire that burned down the previous building was still in mind). A tidy routine was impossible because of quiet and busy days, and sometimes large-scale entertaining. Hence to try to economise was ‘like a person carrying a lot of parcels who attempts to pick up one more and drops others in doing so’. Echoing later views, custodians were short because pay was better elsewhere, such as at museums; and yet the work of Parliament, sittings and guest events such as weddings in the crypt chapel, and car park use and public visits to the galleries to watch Parliament in session, were increasing.
Complicating the task of security was that the Serjeant at Arms was only in charge of the Commons when the House was sitting; at weekends, the Lord Great Chamberlain controlled it; while the Ministry of Works was responsible for its cleaning and upkeep. The two Houses paid for their police. As early as 1922, as a result of the post-World War One cost-cutting Geddes Committee, the Commons had considered substituting watchmen for police at night, as cheaper. That ultimately led to the custodians.
