ENGLAND'S ancient order of freemasons was heading for a
constitutional clash with Parliament last night after being ordered to release
the names of police officers alleged to be involved with a series of past
corruption scandals.

The United Grand Lodge was given 14 days to comply with the request
by the Commons home affairs select committee or face being arraigned
before the House for contempt of Parliament.

The move came after MPs lost patience with Commander Michael
Higham, grand secretary of the movement, when he repeatedly refused to
provide information about individuals during a heated hearing at
Westminster yesterday.

Cdr Higham insisted that unless specific allegations were made he could
not identify the masons in question. These were among 169 serving and
former policemen who were either members of the disbanded West
Midlands Serious Crimes Squad, or involved in investigations into the
Birmingham pub bombings and the Stalker affair.

Condemning the Parliamentary inquiry as a "fishing expedition" against a
law-abiding and legal society, he threatened to challenge the committee in
the European Court for breach of privacy. "This is an improper inquiry. It
interferes with the public's right to associate," he said afterwards.

However, after conferring with members of the all-party committee, its
Labour chairman, Chris Mullin, announced that the Serjeant at Arms
would write formally to the Grand Lodge demanding to know whether any
of those on the list were masons.

The confrontation left both sides with a dilemma because the statutory
powers of select committees to send for "persons and papers" are rarely
used and have never been challenged in this way before.

Any witnesses refusing to co-operate with a formal order face being
reported to the House for a breach of privilege, provoking an emergency
debate and an inquiry by the standards and privileges committee.

The ultimate sanction that Parliament could impose is imprisonment,
although no one has been sent to jail since Charles Bradlaugh refused to
swear the oath to the Queen on the Bible after being elected a radical
Liberal MP in 1880. The most likely penalty would be to call the offender
before the Bar of the House to be admonished or reprimanded by the
Speaker. The last outsider to suffer this fate was John Junor, the former
Sunday Express editor, in 1957.

However, parliamentary procedure is sufficiently cumbersome to give both
sides time to reach a compromise before such drastic action is initiated.

John Hamill, the librarian and head of communications for the Grand
Lodge, said it was "probable" that the freemasons would respond but the
leadership could not decide until it received the terms of the order. "We
would not wish to be in contempt of Parliament. We are a lawful and
law-abiding organisation," he told the BBC's The World at One.

Nevertheless, only minutes earlier, Cdr Higham had adopted a belligerent
stance during the closing stages of an acrimonious meeting, despite being
threatened with an order and warned that it could put him in contempt.
Pressed by Mr Mullin on whether he was willing to hand over the names,
Cdr Higham said: "Not straight away, no. I hope you will accept that is
'no', but not with contempt." He made clear that he was concerned that
the names would leak out if passed to MPs.

Committee members were irritated by his apparent refusal to take
seriously the general allegation that freemasons had operated within the
West Midlands Serious Crime Squad as a "firm within a firm".

"I really think it is pretty academic. It was a long time ago. The whole thing
has been blown up," Cdr Higham said. A furious Mr Mullin intervened to
remind him that 30 criminal convictions secured by the squad had been
overturned amid allegations that officers held black plastic bags over the
heads of suspects in order to obtain confessions.