House of Commons Committee on Standards and Privileges
Sir John Butterfill, Mr Stephen Byers, Ms Patricia Hewitt, Mr Geoff Hoon, Mr Richard Caborn and Mr Adam Ingram
Ninth Report of Session 2010–11
Volume II
HC 654–II
House of Commons Committee on Standards and Privileges
Sir John Butterfill, Mr Stephen Byers, Ms Patricia Hewitt, Mr Geoff Hoon, Mr Richard Caborn and Mr Adam Ingram
Ninth Report of Session 2010–11 Volume II Appendices, written and oral evidence
Ordered by the House of Commons to be printed 7 December 2010
HC 654–II Published on 9 December 2010 by authority of the House of Commons London: The Stationery Office Limited £0.00
The Committee on Standards and Privileges
The Committee on Standards and Privileges is appointed by the House of Commons to oversee the work of the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards; to examine the arrangements proposed by the Commissioner for the compilation, maintenance and accessibility of the Register of Members’ Interests and any other registers of interest established by the House; to review from time to time the form and content of those registers; to consider any specific complaints made in relation to the registering or declaring of interests referred to it by the Commissioner; to consider any matter relating to the conduct of Members, including specific complaints in relation to alleged breaches in the Code of Conduct which have been drawn to the Committee’s attention by the Commissioner; and to recommend any modifications to the Code of Conduct as may from time to time appear to be necessary.
Current membership Rt hon Kevin Barron MP (Labour, Rother Valley) (Chair) Sir Paul Beresford MP (Conservative, Mole Valley) Tom Blenkinsop MP (Labour, Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) Annette Brooke MP (Liberal Democrat, Mid Dorset and North Poole) Rt hon Tom Clarke MP (Labour, Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill) Mr Geoffrey Cox MP (Conservative, Torridge and West Devon) Matthew Hancock MP (Conservative, West Suffolk) Mr Oliver Heald MP (Conservative, North East Hertfordshire) Heather Wheeler MP (Conservative, South Derbyshire) Dr Alan Whitehead MP (Labour, Southampton Test)
Powers The constitution and powers of the Committee are set out in Standing Order No. 149. In particular, the Committee has power to order the attendance of any Member of Parliament before the committee and to require that specific documents or records in the possession of a Member relating to its inquiries, or to the inquiries of the Commissioner, be laid before the Committee. The Committee has power to refuse to allow its public proceedings to be broadcast. The Law Officers, if they are Members of Parliament, may attend and take part in the Committee’s proceedings, but may not vote.
Publications The Reports and evidence of the Committee are published by The Stationery Office by Order of the House. All publications of the Committee (including press notices) are on the Internet at: www.parliament.uk/sandp.
Committee staff The current staff of the Committee are Mr Steve Priestley (Clerk), Miss Rhiannon Hollis (Second Clerk) and Ms Jane Cooper (Committee Assistant).
Contacts All correspondence should be addressed to The Clerk of the Committee on Standards and Privileges, Journal Office, House of Commons, London SW1A 0AA. The telephone number for general enquiries is 020 7219 6615.
Sir John Butterfill, Mr Stephen Byers, Ms Patricia Hewitt, Mr Geoff Hoon, Mr Richard Caborn and Mr Adam Ingram 1
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Appendix 1: Memorandum from the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards 7
Sir John Butterfill, Rt hon Stephen Byers, Rt hon Patricia Hewitt, Rt hon Geoff Hoon, Rt hon Richard Caborn and Rt hon Adam Ingram 7 Introduction 7 Background 7 The Allegations 11 Relevant Rules of the House 11 My Inquiries 16 General issues 16 Sir John Butterfill: My Inquiries 17 Findings of Fact 27 Rt Hon Stephen Byers: My Inquiries 32 Findings of Fact 47 Rt Hon Patricia Hewitt: My Inquiries 54 Findings of Fact 72 Rt Hon Geoff Hoon: My Inquiries 77 Findings of Fact 94 Rt Hon Richard Caborn: My Inquiries 99 Findings of Fact 114 Rt Hon Adam Ingram: My Inquiries 121 Findings of Fact 140 Findings of Fact: General 144 Conclusions 145 Sir John Butterfill 150 Rt Hon Stephen Byers 152 Rt Hon Patricia Hewitt 156 Rt Hon Geoff Hoon 158 Rt Hon Richard Caborn 162 Rt Hon Adam Ingram 166 Concluding observations 169
Written evidence received by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards 172 1. Extract from Sunday Times article, 21 March 2010 172 2. E-mail to the Commissioner from Rt Hon Stephen Byers MP, 22 March 2010176 3. Letter to Rt Hon Stephen Byers MP from the Commissioner, 22 March 2010176 4. Second e-mail to the Commissioner from Rt Hon Stephen Byers MP, 22 March 2010 176 5. E-mail to the Commissioner from Rt Hon Patricia Hewitt MP, 22 March 2010177 6. Letter to Rt Hon Patricia Hewitt MP from the Commissioner, 22 March 2010177 7. Letter to the Commissioner from Ms Justine Greening MP, 22 March 2010 177 8. E-mail to the Commissioner from Sir John Butterfill MP, 22 March 2010 178 9. Extract from Sunday Times article, 28 March 2010 178 10. Letter to the Commissioner from Mr Greg Hands MP, 28 March 2010 181
1 Sir John Butterfill 183 11. Letter to Sir John Butterfill MP from the Commissioner, 23 March 2010 183
2 Sir John Butterfill, Mr Stephen Byers, Ms Patricia Hewitt, Mr Geoff Hoon, Mr Richard Caborn and Mr Adam Ingram
12. Letter to the Commissioner from Sir John Butterfill MP, 24 March 2010 185 13. E-mail to Sir John Butterfill MP from Anderson Perry Associates, 16 February 2010 187 14. Letter to Sir John Butterfill MP from the Commissioner, 25 March 2010 187 15. Letter to the Commissioner from Sir John Butterfill MP, 6 April 2010 188 16. Letter to Sir John Butterfill from the Commissioner, 2 June 2010 188 17. Dispatches ‘Politicians for Hire’—Transcript of Telephone Conversation with Sir John Butterfill MP on 16 February 2010 189 18. Dispatches ‘Politicians for Hire’—Transcript of Sir John Butterfill MP meeting 24 February 2010 191 19. Letter to the Commissioner from Sir John Butterfill, 22 June 2010 204 20. Letter to Sir John Butterfill from the Commissioner, 25 June 2010 205 21. Letter to the Commissioner from Sir John Butterfill, 15 July 2010 206 22. Letter to Sir John Butterfill from the Commissioner, 20 July 2010 207 23. Letter to the Commissioner from Sir John Butterfill, received 2 August 2010 208
2 Rt Hon Stephen Byers 209 24. Letter to Rt Hon Stephen Byers MP from the Commissioner, 23 March 2010 209 25. Letter to Rt Hon Stephen Byers from the Commissioner, 2 June 2010 212 26. Dispatches ‘Politicians for Hire’—Transcript of Telephone Conversation with Rt Hon Stephen Byers MP on 17 February 2010 213 27. Dispatches ‘Politicians for Hire’—Transcript of Rt Hon Stephen Byers MP meeting, 23 February 2010 215 28. E-mail to the Commissioner from Rt Hon Stephen Byers, 29 June 2010 230 29. Rt Hon Stephen Byers’ response to the questions raised by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, sent to the Commissioner 29 June 2010 230 30. E-mail to Claire Webster, Anderson Perry Associates, from Rt Hon Stephen Byers MP, 24 February 2010 232 31. E-mail to Rt Hon Stephen Byers MP from Claire Webster, Anderson Perry Associates, 24 February 2010 232 32. E-mail to Claire Webster, Anderson Perry Associates, from Rt Hon Stephen Byers MP, 25 February 2010 232 33. E-mail to Claire Webster, Anderson Perry Associates, from Rt Hon Stephen Byers MP, 11 March 2010 232 34. Letter to Rt Hon Stephen Byers from the Commissioner, 1 July 2010 233 35. E-mail to the Commissioner from Rt Hon Stephen Byers, 13 July 2010 233 36. Supplementary Response by Rt Hon Stephen Byers to the Questions raised by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, 12 July 2010 234 37. Letter to Rt Hon Stephen Byers from the Commissioner, 14 July 2010 235 38. Official Report, House of Lords, HL Deb 22 March 2010, cols 754–756 235 39. E-mail to the Commissioner from Rt Hon Stephen Byers, 20 July 2010 237 40. Letter to Rt Hon Stephen Byers from the Commissioner, 20 July 2010 237 41. E-mail to the Commissioner from Rt Hon Stephen Byers, 12 August 2010237 42. Letter to Rt Hon Stephen Byers from the Commissioner, 12 August 2010238 43. E-mail to the Commissioner from Rt Hon Stephen Byers, 31 August 2010239
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44. Letter to Rt Hon Stephen Byers from the Commissioner, 1 September 2010239 45. E-mail to the Commissioner from Rt Hon Stephen Byers, 5 September 2010240 46. Letter to Rt Hon Stephen Byers from the Commissioner, 6 September 2010240 47. Letter to Director of Catering and Retail Services, House of Commons, from the Commissioner, 14 July 2010 240 48. Letter to the Commissioner from the Director of Catering and Retail Services, 27 August 2010 241 49. Letter to Department of Catering and Retail Services from the Commissioner, 1 September 2010 241 50. Letter to the Commissioner from Director of Catering and Retail Services, 6 September 2010 242 51. Letter to Rt Hon Stephen Byers from the Commissioner, 7 September 2010242 52. E-mail to the Commissioner from Rt Hon Stephen Byers, 16 September 2010 242 53. Letter to Rt Hon Stephen Byers from the Commissioner, 16 September 2010 243 54. E-mail to the Commissioner from Rt Hon Stephen Byers, 20 September 2010 243 55. Letter to Rt Hon Stephen Byers from the Commissioner, 29 September 2010 244 56. E-mail to the Commissioner from Rt Hon Stephen Byers, 7 October 2010244
3 Rt Hon Patricia Hewitt 245 57. Letter to Rt Hon Patricia Hewitt MP from the Commissioner, 23 March 2010 245 58. Letter to Rt Hon Patricia Hewitt from the Commissioner, 2 June 2010 247 59. Dispatches ‘Politicians for Hire’—Transcript of Telephone Conversation with Rt Hon Patricia Hewitt MP, 25 February 2010 248 60. Dispatches ‘Politicians for Hire’—Transcript of Rt Hon Patricia Hewitt MP meeting, 9 March 2010 250 61. Letter to the Commissioner from Rt Hon Patricia Hewitt, 27 June 2010 266 62. Letter to Freedom of Information applicant from the Freedom of Information Officer, Department of Health, 24 May 2010 270 63. Timeline for Partnerships in Care involvement in Lord Bradley’s Review and the Health and Criminal Justice Advisory Group, 22 March 2010 272 64. Memorandum from the Diary Manager, Private Office of Mr Phil Hope MP, then Minister of State for Care Services and Minister for East Midlands, 22 March 2010 272 65. Note of Meeting between Rt Hon Patricia Hewitt, Partnership in Care Chief Executive, Mr Phil Hope, then Minister of State for Care Services, and others, which took place at Department of Health, 21 May 2009. Note circulated 5 June 2009 273 66. Letter to Rt Hon Patricia Hewitt from the Commissioner, 1 July 2010 274 67. Letter to Rt Hon Lord Bradley from the Commissioner, 1 July 2010 275 68. Letter to the Commissioner from Rt Hon Patricia Hewitt, 15 July 2010 276 69. Letter to Rt Hon Lord Bradley from the Commissioner, 15 July 2010 278 70. Letter to Ms Joan Ruddock MP from the Commissioner, 15 July 2010 278 71. Letter to Rt Hon Patricia Hewitt from the Commissioner, 20 July 2010 279
4 Sir John Butterfill, Mr Stephen Byers, Ms Patricia Hewitt, Mr Geoff Hoon, Mr Richard Caborn and Mr Adam Ingram
72. Letter to the Commissioner from Ms Joan Ruddock MP, 26 July 2010 280 73. Letter to Ms Joan Ruddock MP from the Commissioner, 28 July 2010 280 74. E-mail to the Commissioner from Ms Joan Ruddock MP, 28 July 2010 280 75. Letter to the Commissioner from Rt Hon Lord Bradley of Withington, 28 July 2010 281 76. Letter to Rt Hon Patricia Hewitt from the Commissioner, 29 July 2010 281 77. Letter to Rt Hon Lord Bradley of Withington from the Commissioner, 2 August 2010 281 78. E-mail to the Commissioner from Rt Hon Patricia Hewitt, 23 August 2010282 79. Letter to the Commissioner from Rt Hon Lord Bradley of Withington, 23 August 2010 282 80. Letter to Rt Hon Patricia Hewitt from the Commissioner, 1 September 2010 283 81. Letter to the Commissioner from Rt Hon Patricia Hewitt, 13 September 2010 284
4 Rt Hon Geoff Hoon 285 82. Letter to Rt Hon Geoff Hoon MP from the Commissioner, 23 March 2010285 83. Transcript of Rt Hon Geoff Hoon MP’s interview on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, 26 March 2010 287 84. Letter to the Commissioner from Rt Hon Geoff Hoon MP, 30 March 2010290 85. E-mail to Rt Hon Geoff Hoon MP from Anderson Perry Associates, 17 February 2010 292 86. Letter to Rt Hon Geoff Hoon MP from the Commissioner, 31 March 2010292 87. Letter to the Commissioner from Rt Hon Geoff Hoon MP, 6 April 2010 293 88. Letter to Rt Hon Geoff Hoon from the Commissioner, 2 June 2010 293 89. Dispatches ‘Politicians for Hire’—Transcript of Telephone Conversation with Rt Hon Geoff Hoon MP on 18 February 2010 294 90. Dispatches ‘Politicians for Hire’—Transcript of Rt Hon Geoff Hoon MP meeting, 3 March 2010 295 91. Letter to the Commissioner from Rt Hon Geoff Hoon, received 8 June 2010308 92. Letter to Rt Hon Geoff Hoon from the Commissioner, 29 June 2010 310 93. Letter to the Commissioner from Rt Hon Geoff Hoon, 2 July 2010 311 94. Letter to Rt Hon Geoff Hoon from the Commissioner, 6 July 2010 312 95. Letter to the Commissioner from Rt Hon Geoff Hoon, 9 July 2010 313 96. Letter to Rt Hon Geoff Hoon from the Commissioner, 13 July 2010 314 97. Letter to the Commissioner from Rt Hon Geoff Hoon, 16 July 2010 315 98. Letter to Rt Hon Geoff Hoon from the Commissioner, 20 July 2010 316 99. Letter to the Commissioner from Rt Hon Geoff Hoon, 23 July 2010 317 100. Letter to Rt Hon Geoff Hoon from the Commissioner, 27 July 2010 318 101. Letter to Rt Hon Geoff Hoon from the Commissioner, 29 September 2010318 102. Letter to the Commissioner from Rt Hon Geoff Hoon, 30 September 2010319 103. Letter to the Commissioner from Rt Hon Geoff Hoon, 6 November 2010319
5 Rt Hon Richard Caborn 321 104. Letter to Rt Hon Richard Caborn MP from the Commissioner, 31 March 2010 321 105. Letter to the Commissioner from Rt Hon Richard Caborn, 19 April 2010 323
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106. Official Report, HC Deb, 29 March 2010, cols 545–548 325 107. Letter to Rt Hon Richard Caborn, from the Commissioner, 18 May 2010 327 108. Letter to the Commissioner from Rt Hon Richard Caborn, 21 May 2010 328 109. Letter to Rt Hon Richard Caborn from the Commissioner, 24 May 2010 328 110. Letter to Rt Hon Richard Caborn from the Commissioner, 2 June 2010 329 111. Dispatches ‘Politicians for Hire’—Transcript of Telephone Conversation with Rt Hon Richard Caborn MP on 16 February 2010 330 112. Dispatches ‘Politicians for Hire’—Transcript of Rt Hon Richard Caborn MP meeting, 10 March 2010 331 113. Letter to the Commissioner from Rt Hon Richard Caborn, 8 June 2010 352 114. Letter to Rt Hon Richard Caborn MP, from the Chairman of the Office of the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments, January 2008 354 115. Letter to the Office of the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments, from Rt Hon Richard Caborn MP, 29 February 2008 354 116. Letter to the Registrar of Members’ Interests, from Rt Hon Richard Caborn MP, 6 March 2008 354 117. Extract from the Register of Members’ Interests, 29 February 2008 354 118. Letter to the Registrar of Members’ Interests, from Rt Hon Richard Caborn MP, 9 October 2008 355 119. Extracts from Mr Caborn’s evidence to the Public Administration Committee on 8 May 2008, First Report of Session 2008–09, HC 36 II 355 120. Letter to Rt Hon Richard Caborn from the Commissioner, 9 June 2010 357 121. Letter to the Commissioner from Rt Hon Richard Caborn, 16 June 2010 358 122. Letter to Rt Hon Richard Caborn from the Commissioner, 23 June 2010 359 123. Extract from list of event and function bookings by Members on behalf of outside organisations between 1 April 2004 and 30 September 2009 360 124. Letter to the Commissioner from Rt Hon Richard Caborn, 1 July 2010 360 125. Letter to Rt Hon Richard Caborn from the Commissioner, 6 July 2010 361 126. Letter to the Commissioner from Rt Hon Richard Caborn, 9 July 2010 362 127. Letter to Rt Hon Richard Caborn from the Commissioner, 14 July 2010 362 128. Letter to Director of Catering and Retail Services, House of Commons, from the Commissioner, 14 July 2010 362 129. Letter to the Commissioner from Director of Catering and Retail Services, 27 August 2010 363 130. Letter to the Director of Catering and Retail Services from the Commissioner, 2 September 2010 364 131. Letter to the Commissioner from the Director of Catering and Retail Services, 6 September 2010 364 132. Letter to Rt Hon Richard Caborn from the Commissioner, 7 September 2010 364 133. Letter to the Commissioner from Rt Hon Richard Caborn, 10 September 2010 365 134. Letter to Rt Hon Richard Caborn from the Commissioner, 13 September 2010 365 135. Letter to the Commissioner from Rt Hon Richard Caborn, 15 September 2010 366 136. Letter to Rt Hon Richard Caborn from the Commissioner, 16 September 2010 366
6 Sir John Butterfill, Mr Stephen Byers, Ms Patricia Hewitt, Mr Geoff Hoon, Mr Richard Caborn and Mr Adam Ingram
137. Letter to the Commissioner from Rt Hon Richard Caborn, 20 September 2010 366
6 Rt Hon Adam Ingram 367 138. Letter to Rt Hon Adam Ingram MP from the Commissioner, 31 March 2010367 139. Letter to Rt Hon Adam Ingram from the Commissioner, 2 June 2010 369 140. Dispatches ‘Politicians for Hire’—Transcript of Telephone Conversation with Rt Hon Adam Ingram MP on 1 March 2010 370 141. Dispatches ‘Politicians for Hire’—Transcript of Rt Hon Adam Ingram MP meeting, 9 or 10 March 2010 371 142. Letter to the Commissioner from Rt Hon Adam Ingram, 28 June 2010 390 143. Extract from response from Ministry of Defence to Freedom of Information Request, 26 February 2010 393 144. Letter to Rt Hon Adam Ingram from the Commissioner, 1 July 2010 395 145. Letter to the Commissioner from Rt Hon Adam Ingram, 7 July 2010 396 146. Letter to Rt Hon Adam Ingram from the Commissioner, 15 July 2010 397 147. Letter to the Commissioner from Rt Hon Adam Ingram, 27 August 2010398 148. Letter to Rt Hon Adam Ingram from the Commissioner, 2 September 2010400 149. Letter to the Registrar of Members’ Financial Interests from the Commissioner, 15 July 2010 401 150. Letter to Registrar of Members’ Financial Interests from the Commissioner, 2 September 2010 401 151. Letter to the Commissioner from the Registrar of Members’ Financial Interests, 9 September 2010 402 152. Letter to Rt Hon Adam Ingram from the Commissioner, 9 September 2010404 153. Letter to the Commissioner from Rt Hon Adam Ingram, 14 September 2010 404 154. Further letter to the Commissioner from Rt Hon Adam Ingram, 14 September 2010 405 155. Letter to Rt Hon Adam Ingram from the Commissioner, 20 September 2010 405 156. Letter to the Commissioner from Rt Hon Adam Ingram, 28 September 2010 406
Appendix 2: Letter from the Rt hon Richard Caborn to the Clerk, 28 November 2010 407
Appendix 3: Email from the Rt hon Stephen Byers to the Clerk, 29 November 2010409
Appendix 4: Response to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards’ Memorandum from the Rt hon Geoff Hoon, 29 November 2010 410
Oral evidence taken in private before the Committee from the Rt hon Geoff Hoon, 30 November 2010 416
Appendix 5: Supplementary evidence from the Rt hon Geoff Hoon, 1 December 2010 421
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Appendix 1: Memorandum from the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards Sir John Butterfill, Rt hon Stephen Byers, Rt hon Patricia Hewitt, Rt hon Geoff Hoon, Rt hon Richard Caborn and Rt hon Adam Ingram
Introduction 1. This memorandum reports on my inquiries into allegations made in March 2010 against six people who were then Members of Parliament in connection with meetings they had held with an undercover reporter who claimed to represent a United States communications company. The Members concerned were Sir John Butterfill, then the Member for Bournemouth West, who referred himself to me, and five others in respect of whom I received complaints: Rt Hon Stephen Byers, then the Member for North Tyneside, Rt Hon Patricia Hewitt, then the Member for Leicester West, Rt Hon Geoff Hoon, then the Member for Ashfield, Rt Hon Richard Caborn, then the Member for Sheffield Central and Rt Hon Adam Ingram, then the Member for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow. None of these Members contested the May 2010 General Election, so none of them is a Member of the current House.
Background 2. On 21 March 2010, the Sunday Times carried an article alleging that a joint investigation for that paper and Channel 4’s Dispatches programme had secretly interviewed nine members of Parliament who were leaving the House at the General Election. The article said that they were told that a US communications company, Anderson Perry Associates, was forming an advisory board and was interested in whether they wished to sit on it.1 In fact, the company did not exist, and the representative who conducted the interviews was an undercover reporter working for the Sunday Times and Dispatches.2 The article featured comments by Mr Byers and Ms Hewitt, in particular, as to how they could use their experience of government to help the company’s clients to lobby Ministers and officials, and according to the article both had expressed a willingness to work for the company. The article also said that Mr Hoon had indicated an interest in doing likewise, alleging that he said he wanted to translate his knowledge and contacts into cash.
3. The article alleged that Mr Byers had during the meeting said, “I’m a bit like a sort of cab for hire”. The article said that Mr Byers had claimed that he had saved hundreds of millions of pounds for National Express through his contacts with Lord Adonis, the Transport
1 An extract is at WE 1 2 Some of these interviews had been covertly filmed.
8 Sir John Butterfill, Mr Stephen Byers, Ms Patricia Hewitt, Mr Geoff Hoon, Mr Richard Caborn and Mr Adam Ingram
Minister, and had delayed and amended food labelling proposals for Tesco after telephoning Lord Mandelson, then the Business Secretary. The article said that Mr Byers appeared keen to work for the fictitious company and was quick to flag up “his impeccable political connections”. He was alleged to have told the reporter, “I still get a lot of confidential information because I’m still linked in to No 10”.
4. Mr Byers was said in the article to have described himself as the “architect” of the Enterprise Act who could therefore offer help to any clients “operating a restrictive practice” or “price-fixing”. He was quoted as saying, “That’s an animal I created, for better or worse ... but you also know ways around it... well actually...there’s an ace you can play here.”
5. The article alleged that the next day Mr Byers sent the undercover reporter an e-mail effectively claiming that he had lied throughout the meeting. It quoted Mr Byers as saying in that e-mail, “In reality I have not been engaged in lobbying Ministers here in the UK. My statements yesterday would have given the opposite impression and I would like to take this opportunity to withdraw them.”
6. Ms Hewitt was said in the article to charge £3,000 a day for a range of advice and services that included helping to influence legislation. She was alleged to have acknowledged that she could help the fictitious company’s clients to influence legislation. “If you’ve got a client who needs a particular regulation removed, then we can often package that up [for a Minister]”, she was quoted in the article as saying. The article also said that Ms Hewitt had listed five ways that a company could contact a Minister, namely by funding think tanks and seminars, hospitality, sponsoring events in party conferences, contacting special advisers and finding a connection with the Minister’s constituency. Ms Hewitt was alleged to have spoken at length of her involvement with Partnerships in Care (PiC), a private mental health service provider owned by the private equity company Cinven. She was said in the article to have claimed that it was through her efforts that PiC was able to give evidence to Lord Bradley’s study about providing care outside prison for criminals with mental health problems.
7. The article alleged that during the meeting Ms Hewitt also claimed she had “spoken to Ministers and civil servants” about changing a carbon reduction regulation that helped her client Cinven and other private equity companies.
8. The next day, 22 March, I received an e-mail from Mr Byers.3 He asked me, in the light of media comments following his interview, to investigate his actions to confirm that he had “at all times complied with all the relevant provisions covering Members of Parliament.” I replied the same day.4 I said that, under the rules agreed by the House for complaints, I was expected to consult the Committee on Standards and Privileges when a Member had asked me to investigate an allegation against him when they are not the subject of a specific complaint. I pointed out that the rules stated that the Committee would expect to authorise such an inquiry only in exceptional circumstances, and invited Mr Byers to let me know later that day why in his view the circumstances justified an inquiry. I also said that I would consider any complaints I received against him in respect of this matter. Later that day, Mr
3 WE 2 4 WE 3
Sir John Butterfill, Mr Stephen Byers, Ms Patricia Hewitt, Mr Geoff Hoon, Mr Richard Caborn and Mr Adam Ingram 9
Byers e-mailed me again.5 He said that he had asked for an inquiry “because media reports have questioned whether I have complied with the rules of the House. I know that I have always complied but now need this to be independently confirmed ... Given the level of media interest and the serious allegations made against me, I believe that these are exceptional circumstances that merit an inquiry.”
9. I also received an e-mail from Ms Hewitt on 22 March.6 She said that, in the course of her discussion with the undercover journalist, she had referred to work she had done for two other companies, in both cases following approval by the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments. Both appointments had been declared in the Register (of Members’ Financial Interests). Ms Hewitt said that, in this work she had “always been mindful of the provisions of the Code of Conduct for Members—for instance, by making clear my association with the firm in any conversation I have had with officials.” She continued, “Nonetheless, the Sunday Times story carried the implication that I (and others) acted improperly and similar allegations have been made by others. I therefore want to refer myself to you and hope that the Committee will agree to allow you to investigate the matter.” I replied to Ms Hewitt the same day, pointing out, as I had to Mr Byers, that the Committee would expect to authorise such an inquiry only in exceptional circumstances, and saying that I would also consider any complaints I received against her in respect of this matter.7
10. On the same day, 22 March, Ms Justine Greening, the Member for Putney, wrote to me to make formal complaints against Mr Byers, Mr Hoon and Ms Hewitt.8 She said that the Sunday Times had reported that they had each been offering their parliamentary expertise to external commercial interests in exchange for financial rewards. In particular, Ms Greening said that Mr Byers had “described himself as a ‘sort of cab for hire’ for commercial enterprises, and claims to have influenced policy on behalf of several major firms, including National Express and Tesco”. She said that Mr Hoon had “offered to allow companies to influence government policy by making use of his knowledge and position for ‘something that frankly makes money’”. She said that Ms Hewitt had “claimed that she had been appointed to a government advisory group on behalf of a client in which she had a financial interest.” Ms Greening believed that there were “strong grounds” to state that Mr Byers, Mr Hoon and Ms Hewitt had compromised their public duties as members of the House and breached the Code of Conduct for Members of Parliament. I decided to accept Ms Greening’s complaint. I wrote to Mr Byers and Ms Hewitt on 23 March to inform them that I did not therefore need to conduct my inquiry on the basis of the self-referrals they had sent me.9
11. On the evening of 22 March, the Channel 4 Dispatches programme was broadcast. It included interviews with Mr Byers, Ms Hewitt and Mr Hoon, and also with other Members drawn from both Houses of Parliament.
5 WE 4 6 WE 5 7 WE 6 8 WE 7 9 WE 24, WE 57.
10 Sir John Butterfill, Mr Stephen Byers, Ms Patricia Hewitt, Mr Geoff Hoon, Mr Richard Caborn and Mr Adam Ingram
12. One of those other Members, Sir John Butterfill, sent me an e-mail that same evening, 22 March.10 Sir John said that he wished to clear his name completely, and that he was referring himself to me so that I might consider whether he had breached the Code of Conduct for Members of Parliament.
13. Following receipt of Sir John’s e-mail I submitted the matter to the 23 March meeting of the Committee on Standards and Privileges, which authorised me to undertake the inquiry. I considered that the allegations against Sir John were potentially serious and reflected on the reputation of the House. I wrote to Sir John on 23 March, and informed him that having consulted the Committee I had decided, exceptionally, to accept the self- referral he had made.11
14. On 28 March, Mr Greg Hands, the Member for Hammersmith and Fulham, wrote to me to make formal complaints against Rt Hon Richard Caborn and Rt Hon Adam Ingram.12 He asked me to investigate allegations that had appeared that day in the Sunday Times13 that both Members had been offering their parliamentary expertise to external commercial interests in exchange for financial rewards. In particular, Mr Hands alleged that Mr Ingram had “admitted that he had used his contacts and experience to help a construction company he worked for carry out a defence project in Libya” and, when asked about whether he could use his experience to develop relationships with Ministers and civil servants, Mr Ingram had allegedly said that he would “do that”. Mr Hands alleged that Mr Caborn had said that he had “previously used his contacts and access to his clients’ advantage”.
15. The Sunday Times article of 28 March on which Mr Hands based his complaint against Mr Caborn and Mr Ingram said that its interviews with them were part of the same joint undercover investigation by the paper and Channel 4’s Dispatches programme as had involved the Members already mentioned. The article alleged that Mr Caborn was interested in working for the company but would wait until after the Election before deciding whether to do so. It said that Mr Caborn had expressed hopes of receiving a peerage, which he considered would improve his access to people, reportedly commenting, “All this is all about contacts, it really is. It’s not so much always about influencing, it’s about getting information, and that’s absolutely key because if you can get information that is very powerful.” Mr Caborn had said that his fee would be similar to that for his other work at £2,500 a day, plus expenses, and that if he took the job he would be willing to build relations with Ministers whom he knew. The article alleged that Mr Ingram had offered to develop a network of former Ministers who could be useful for contacts in different Departments. It claimed that Mr Ingram had appeared keen for work, commenting, “I’ve got a breadth of experience, I think I’ve good knowledge, I’ve run big departments ... and I may be of use to you.” The article said that Mr Ingram had made it clear that he would not lobby until after the Election, and would be happy to approach both Ministers and civil servants. He said his fee would be in a range up to £1,500 a day, plus VAT.
10 WE 8 11 WE 11 This letter is summarised beginning at paragraph 43. 12 WE 10 13 WE 9
Sir John Butterfill, Mr Stephen Byers, Ms Patricia Hewitt, Mr Geoff Hoon, Mr Richard Caborn and Mr Adam Ingram 11
The Allegations 16. In essence, the allegations against the Members were that each of them had engaged in lobbying activities in a way which was contrary to the rules of the House; that their conduct during an interview with a person who subsequently revealed herself as a journalist had been contrary to the rules; that that conduct was not such as to maintain or strengthen the public’s trust in the integrity of Parliament, and that it had brought the House of Commons into disrepute.
Relevant Rules of the House 17. Paragraph 1 of the Code of Conduct for Members of Parliament describes the purpose of the Code as follows:
“The purpose of this Code of Conduct is to assist Members in the discharge of their obligations to the House, their constituents and the public at large by:
a) Providing guidance on the standards of conduct expected of Members in discharging their parliamentary and public duties, and in so doing
b) Providing the openness and accountability necessary to reinforce public confidence in the way in which Members perform those duties.”
18. Paragraph 2 of the Code describes the scope of the Code as follows:
“The Code applies to Members in all aspects of their public life. It does not seek to regulate what Members do in their purely private and personal lives.”
19. Paragraph 9 of the Code of Conduct for Members of Parliament relates to the resolution of conflicts between the public interest and Members’ personal interests, and provides as follows:
“Members shall base their conduct on a consideration of the public interest, avoid conflict between personal interest and the public interest and resolve any conflict between the two, at once, and in favour of the public interest.”
20. Paragraph 10 of the Code provides that “No Member shall act as a paid advocate in any proceeding of the House”.
21. Paragraph 11 of the Code provides as follows:
“The acceptance by a Member of a bribe to influence his or her conduct as a Member, including any fee, compensation or reward in connection with the promotion of, or opposition to, any Bill, Motion, or other matter submitted, or intended to be submitted to the House, or to any Committee of the House, is contrary to the law of Parliament.”
22. Paragraph 12 of the Code relates to activities with or on behalf of organisations with which Members have financial relationships. It provides:
“In any activities with, or on behalf of, an organisation with which a Member has a financial relationship, including activities which may not be a matter of public record
12 Sir John Butterfill, Mr Stephen Byers, Ms Patricia Hewitt, Mr Geoff Hoon, Mr Richard Caborn and Mr Adam Ingram
such as informal meetings and functions, he or she must always bear in mind the need to be open and frank with Ministers, Members and officials.”
23. Paragraph 13 of the Code relates to Members’ use of information received in confidence in the course of their parliamentary duties. It provides:
“Members must bear in mind that information which they receive in confidence in the course of their parliamentary duties should be used only in connection with those duties, and that such information must never be used for the purpose of financial gain.”
24. Paragraph 14 of the Code of Conduct relates to Members’ use of House facilities. It provides:
“Members shall at all times ensure that their use of expenses, allowances, facilities and services provided from the public purse is strictly in accordance with the rules laid down on these matters, and that they observe any limits placed by the House on the use of such expenses, allowances, facilities and services.”
25. Paragraph 15 of the Code relates to the impact of Members’ conduct on public trust and confidence in Parliament as an institution. It provides:
“Members shall at all times conduct themselves in a manner which will tend to maintain and strengthen the public’s trust and confidence in the integrity of Parliament and never undertake any action which would bring the House of Commons, or its Members generally, into disrepute.”
26. In relation to the registration and declaration of interests by Members, paragraph 16 of the Code provides as follows:
“Members shall fulfil conscientiously the requirements of the House in respect of the registration of interests in the Register of Members’ Interests and shall always draw attention to any relevant interest in any proceeding of the House or its Committees, or in any communications with Ministers, Government Departments or Executive Agencies.”
27. Registrable interests are defined in the Guide to the Rules in terms of Categories, and for the purpose of this inquiry, Category 2 is of particular relevance. It is defined as follows:
“Remunerated employment, office, profession, etc: Employment, office, trade, profession or vocation (apart from membership of the House or ministerial office) which is remunerated or in which the Member has any financial interest. Membership of Lloyd’s should be registered under this Category.”
28. The rules in relation to Category 2 which appear to be relevant to this inquiry are those set out in the Guide for 2005.14 Paragraph 19 of that Guide stated:
“All employment outside the House and any sources of remuneration which do not fall clearly within any other Category should be registered here if the value of the
14 The Code of Conduct together with the Guide to the Rules relating to the conduct of Members 2005, HC (2004–05) 351. The version of the Code in this edition is identical to that in the 2009 edition.
Sir John Butterfill, Mr Stephen Byers, Ms Patricia Hewitt, Mr Geoff Hoon, Mr Richard Caborn and Mr Adam Ingram 13
remuneration exceeds 1 per cent of the current parliamentary salary. When registering employment, Members should not simply state the employer company and the nature of its business, but should also indicate the nature of the post which they hold in the company or the services for which the company remunerates them. Members who have paid posts as consultants or advisers should indicate the nature of the consultancy, for example ‘management consultant’, ‘legal adviser’, ‘parliamentary and public affairs consultant’.”
29. The Guide also set out, in paragraph 49 to 54 of that edition, the requirements where a Member has an agreement for the provision of services in his or her capacity as a Member of Parliament. It included above paragraph 49 the following, which is part of a Resolution of the House of 6 November 1995, amended on 14 May 2002:
“Any Member proposing to enter into an agreement which involves the provision of services in his capacity as a Member of Parliament shall conclude such an agreement only if it conforms to the Resolution of the House of 6th November 1995 relating to Conduct of Members; and a full copy of any such agreement including the fees or benefits payable in bands of: up to £5,000, £5,001–£10,000, and thereafter in bands of £5,000, shall be deposited with the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards at the same time as it is registered in the Register of Members’ Interests and made available for inspection and reproduction by the public.”
30. Section 2 of the Guide dealt with the declaration of interests by Members. The 2005 Guide refers to a Resolution of the House on 22 May 1974. This provided as follows:
“In any debate or proceeding of the House or its Committees or transactions or communications which a Member may have with other Members or with Ministers or servants of the Crown, he shall disclose any relevant pecuniary interest or benefit of whatever nature, whether direct or indirect, that he may have had, may have or may be expecting to have.”
31. Paragraph 55 of that Guide provided that:
“...The term ‘servants of the Crown’ should be interpreted as applying to the staff of executive agencies as well as to all staff employed in government departments.”
32. The rule relating to the declaration of interests is broader in scope than the rule relating to registration. Paragraph 56 provided as follows:
“... As well as current interests, Members are required to declare both relevant past interests and relevant interests which they may be expecting to have. In practice only interests held in the recent past, i.e. those contained in the current printed edition of the Register,15 need normally be considered for declaration. Expected future interests, on the other hand, may be more significant. Where, for example, a Member is debating legislation or making representations to a Minister on a matter from which he has a reasonable expectation of personal financial advantage, candour is essential. In deciding when a possible future benefit is sufficiently tangible to necessitate declaration, the key word in the rule which the Member must bear in mind is
15 In the 2009 edition this phrase was replaced with: “ie those current within the previous twelve months”.
14 Sir John Butterfill, Mr Stephen Byers, Ms Patricia Hewitt, Mr Geoff Hoon, Mr Richard Caborn and Mr Adam Ingram
‘expecting’. Where a Member’s plans or degree of involvement in a project have passed beyond vague hopes and aspirations and reached the stage where there is a reasonable expectation that a financial benefit will accrue, then a declaration explaining the situation should be made.”16
33. Paragraph 57 provided as follows:
“It is the responsibility of the Member, having regard to the rules of the House, to judge whether a pecuniary interest is sufficiently relevant to a particular debate, proceeding, meeting or other activity to require a declaration. The basic test of relevance should be the same for declaration as it is for registration of an interest; namely, that a pecuniary interest should be declared if it might reasonably be thought by others to influence the speech, representation or communication in question. A declaration should be brief but should make specific reference to the nature of the Member’s interest.”
34. The rules of the House in relation to lobbying for reward or consideration are set out in Section 3 of the Guide. By a Resolution of the House of 15 July 1947, amended on 6 November 1995 and on 14 May 2002,17 the House prohibited paid advocacy. Paragraph 72 of the 2005 Guide provided as follows:
“It is wholly incompatible with the rule that any Member should take payment for speaking in the House. Nor may a Member, for payment, vote, ask a Parliamentary Question, table a Motion, introduce a Bill or table or move an Amendment to a Motion or Bill or urge colleagues or Ministers to do so.”
35. Paragraph 73 continued:
“The Resolution does not prevent a Member from holding a remunerated outside interest as a director, consultant, or adviser, or in any other capacity, whether or not such interests are related to membership of the House. Nor does it prevent a Member from being sponsored by a trade union or any other organisation, or holding any other registrable interest, or from receiving hospitality in the course of his or her parliamentary duties whether in the United Kingdom or abroad.”
36. Paragraph 76 (1) of the 2005 Guide provided:
“When a Member is taking part in any parliamentary proceeding or making any approach to a Minister or servant of the Crown, advocacy is prohibited which seeks to confer benefit exclusively upon a body (or individual) outside Parliament, from which the Member has received, is receiving, or expects to receive a pecuniary benefit, or upon any registrable client of such a body (or individual). Otherwise a Member may speak freely on matters which relate to the affairs and interests of a
16 In the 2009 edition this paragraph was amplified as follows: “Members are also required to declare relevant indirect interests, for instance those of a spouse or partner, and also non-registrable interests of a financial nature where these are affected by the proceedings in question (as, for instance the possession of a second home when the council tax treatment of these is under discussion). Members may also think it appropriate to declare non-financial interests of the kinds itemised in paragraph 64 where these are relevant to proceedings.” 17 The terms of this Resolution are reproduced in the 2005 Guide to the Rules at paragraph 71.
Sir John Butterfill, Mr Stephen Byers, Ms Patricia Hewitt, Mr Geoff Hoon, Mr Richard Caborn and Mr Adam Ingram 15
body (or individual) from which he or she receives a pecuniary benefit, provided the benefit is properly registered and declared.”
This rule was introduced in 2002 following a recommendation by the Committee on Standards in Public Life, who expressed concern that the rules “should not unnecessarily inhibit the ability of MPs to become well informed and to use their expertise and experience effectively.”18
37. The rules on the use of the refreshment facilities of the House are relevant to two of my inquiries. Page 44 of the May 2008 edition of the Members’ Handbook contained the following:
“Members of Parliament may entertain guests in most Refreshment Department venues, with the exception of the Members’ Dining Room, Members’ Tea Room and Members’ Smoking Room.”
38. Page 5 of the May 2010 edition of the Members’ Handbook contains the following:
“The House provides various facilities and services to Members, the cost of which is either met in full or subsidised by public funds. These include, for example:
• Accommodation, including offices and meeting rooms
• Research support
• ICT equipment and services
• Catering facilities
• Stationery.
These facilities and services are provided in order to assist Members in their parliamentary work. They should be used appropriately, in such a way as to ensure that the reputation of the House is not put at risk. They should not be used for party political campaigning or private business activity.”
39. Paragraphs 4.1 to 4.3 of the House’s terms and conditions for banqueting include the following requirements:
“4.1. The Sponsor is directly and personally responsible for the declaration of any relevant registered interest relating to their sponsorship of a function.
4.2. The Sponsor must complete the relevant section of the Private Dining Confirmation Form to indicate whether or not there is a relevant registered interest.
4.3. In the event that there is any relevant interest, invitations must clearly state ‘relevant interest declared’.”
18 Sixth Report of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, Con. 4557–I, paragraph 3.96
16 Sir John Butterfill, Mr Stephen Byers, Ms Patricia Hewitt, Mr Geoff Hoon, Mr Richard Caborn and Mr Adam Ingram
40. Paragraph 1 of the Guidelines on the acceptance of appointments or employment outside Government by former Ministers of the Crown, produced by the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments, provides as follows:
“It is in the public interest that former Ministers with experience in government should be able to move into business or into other areas of public life. It is equally important that when a former Minister takes up a particular appointment there should be no cause for any suspicion of impropriety. Arrangements have been made therefore to enable former Ministers to seek advice from the independent and impartial Advisory Committee on Business Appointments.”
My Inquiries
General issues 41. After the transmission of the Dispatches programme on 22 March, I decided that it would be helpful to my inquiry also to have access to any unbroadcast material. Accordingly, on 23 March I contacted the company that had produced the programme and asked them to provide me with any unused interview material from the interviews which their reporter had conducted with Sir John, Mr Byers, Ms Hewitt and Mr Hoon.19 I also asked for copies of any follow-up correspondence with each Member. On 31 March, I wrote again to the company to ask for similar material in respect of Mr Caborn and Mr Ingram.20
42. The production company provided me on 27 May with transcripts of the Members’ preliminary telephone conversations with the undercover reporter, who had introduced herself as Claire Webster, and of the meetings themselves. The transcripts, originally prepared by professional transcribers, were certified by a solicitor as accurate, with certain caveats. The signed statement from the solicitors said that the solicitor had listened to the original covert recording once only and had then corrected the transcript to the best of their ability, given its quality. The solicitor had indicated where a word or words were inaudible and inserted a question mark where they were uncertain about a word or words. There was an additional caveat in relation to the transcript of Mr Caborn’s meeting, which I refer to below.21
19 Not included in the written evidence 20 Not included in the written evidence 21 See paragraph 445 below.
Sir John Butterfill, Mr Stephen Byers, Ms Patricia Hewitt, Mr Geoff Hoon, Mr Richard Caborn and Mr Adam Ingram 17
Sir John Butterfill: My Inquiries 43. In my letter to Sir John Butterfill of 23 March,22 I told Sir John that, having consulted the Committee on Standards and Privileges, I had decided exceptionally to accept the request he had made to me in his e-mail of 22 March23 to inquire into allegations made against him arising from the article in the Sunday Times of 21 March24 and Channel 4’s Dispatches programme of 22 March. I asked Sir John to give me a full account of the circumstances in which he had come to be interviewed by someone who turned out to be a journalist.
44. I also asked Sir John to confirm whether, as reported, he had said that:
x he would be happy to make introductions to Ministers on behalf of fee-paying clients and, if true, whether he had made such introductions at any time in the past;
x in the past he had done quite a lot of consultancy work for people who wanted to get involved in the public sector and, if true, what that work had been, when he had undertaken it, and whether he had registered his consultancy work in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests;
x people had in the past come to him for advice on, for example, procurement issues and, if true, when that had happened, what advice he had given, what payment, if any, he had received from these people for this or other services and whether he had registered his services in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests and made appropriate declarations;
x Members of the House of Lords were very much involved in “procurement or in telecommunications or whatever it is you are looking at” and, if true, what Sir John had intended to imply by that statement in terms of his own employment by the client if he were to become a Member of the House of Lords;
x he could organise a meeting with a Minister in their office or on a visit and, if true, when he had done so for a client who had paid him for his services and whether that service had been registered in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests and appropriate declarations made;
x it would be “easy enough” to arrange a meeting with Conservative Ministers if there were to be a Conservative government and if there was something genuine to interest them—and “that depends on how I present things” and if true, what he had intended to convey to the interviewer in respect of the paid employment which he was discussing;
x being in the House of Lords “gives me another string to my bow as far as you are concerned” and, if true, what he had meant to imply by saying that;
22 WE 11 23 WE 8 24 WE 1
18 Sir John Butterfill, Mr Stephen Byers, Ms Patricia Hewitt, Mr Geoff Hoon, Mr Richard Caborn and Mr Adam Ingram
x the going rate for the work he had believed he was discussing was £30,000 to £35,000 a year.
45. I also asked Sir John to confirm whether he had at any time been paid £30,000 to £35,000 a year for consultancy or other services and, if so, by whom and whether he had registered these payments; what subsequent communications he or his legal advisers had had with the reporters; whether, if any of the allegations were true, he had considered he had an obligation to make a Register entry or declaration, or both, in respect of any financial interest he had in these alleged activities; and if any of what Sir John had said was untrue, why he had spoken as he had done. Finally, I told Sir John that I was writing to the Channel 4 programme makers to invite them to let me have any unbroadcast parts of his interview.
46. Sir John replied on the following day, 24 March.25 He said that he had been interviewed by the journalist following a telephone approach to his PA. This indicated that a company known as Anderson Perry, which claimed to be a major consultancy organisation in the US and which was seeking to expand its operations in the UK and Europe, was looking to form an advisory board with authoritative figures from the political, regulatory and diplomatic arenas. It was also apparently looking for consultants having intimate and expert knowledge of government affairs to be employed on a retainer basis. Sir John enclosed a copy of the e-mail that had been sent to him by the undercover reporter on 16 February26, together with his reply of 17 February confirming his interview appointment on 24 February.27 He said that he had also responded by telephone, during the course of which he had indicated that he might be interested in an appointment to their European advisory board but that he was not particularly interested in working in the field of government affairs on a retainer basis. He continued that they had discussed his business background and he had pointed out that he had in the past been active in Europe and a director of companies in France and Denmark, and that he spoke French, Danish and Spanish.
47. Sir John confirmed that the summary in my letter of the televised discussions was accurate, but commented that “the interview was heavily edited to exclude matters which would put these discussions in a different light.” Sir John then set out a number of points that he said had been omitted. The first was the early discussion in the interview about his previous business career and the skills that he could bring to any directorship. The second was that, when he had been asked whether he would be prepared to organise any entertaining of Ministers or civil servants, Sir John said he had answered, “no, that would be improper and a breach of the rules”. The third was, at the end of the interview, when Sir John said that he had indicated that he was unsure whether he would be willing to undertake work for Anderson Perry. He told me that he had said that “before making a decision, I would need to have a great deal more information about them, who their directors and shareholders were and whether they were of the highest integrity and standing. I indicated that this due diligence process might take some time, particularly since I had been
25 WE 12 26 WE 13 27 Not included in the written evidence
Sir John Butterfill, Mr Stephen Byers, Ms Patricia Hewitt, Mr Geoff Hoon, Mr Richard Caborn and Mr Adam Ingram 19 previously approached by American interests and following investigations found out that they were not people I wished to be involved with.”
48. Sir John confirmed that he had said that once he was no longer a Member of Parliament, he would be free to make introductions to Ministers on behalf of clients. He added that he had never in the past made such introductions. Sir John said that the work he had done in the past was entirely unremunerated and related to representations made to him by constituency companies, many of whom were involved in Government in diverse ways, notably in the fields of insurance, financial services and manufacturing. He said that for example, Cobham (formerly Flight Refuelling) who employed a very large number of his constituents , had sought his support and that of other neighbouring MPs. He said that he had never received payment or any other form of remuneration and therefore that registration in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests was not appropriate.
49. Sir John said that his comment regarding the House of Lords “was a rather stupid one since I completely overlooked the fact that, if I were to become a Member of the House of Lords, I would be governed by similar rules to those which apply in the House of Commons.” He confirmed that he had said he could probably organise meetings with Ministers on a paid basis in the future when he was no longer a Member, but commented that he had never done so in the past. Sir John also confirmed that he had said that it would be easy enough to arrange a meeting with Ministers if there were a Conservative Government and if there was something genuine to interest them. He commented, “By this I implied that the matter would be something which the Minister might find helpful and possibly create a situation where valuable business could accrue to UK Plc.” He added that the phrase “that depends on how I present things” “was intended to imply that I would be competent in any initial representation that I made.” He also said that the phrase “gives me another string to my bow so far as I am concerned” had been “intended to imply that potential clients would be likely to look favourably on having a Member of the House of Lords on the advisory board.”
50. Sir John also confirmed that he had said that the going rate for the work they were discussing as a director of an advisory board was in the region of £30–35,000 a year, and that he had never at any time been paid £30–35,000 a year for consultancies or other services. He said that he had in the past acted as an adviser to trade associations, which he listed.28 Sir John commented, “Each of these was remunerated and duly registered in the Register of Members’ Interests. At no time did I specifically lobby for these Associations but was scrupulous to ensure that, if any specific matters arose which were relevant to these bodies, then I would declare it. I did not engage in advocacy for them.” He added that none of his other business appointments were in any way related to membership of the House of Commons.
51. Sir John said that he had not had any contacts with the reporters since the Dispatches programme was broadcast.
52. Sir John said that he did not have to consider whether he had an obligation to make a Register entry or declaration relating to his contacts with Anderson Perry, given that he
28 The British Insurance & Investment Brokers Association (BIIBA) (1992–97), the IFA Association (1992–97) and the British Venture Capital Association (BVCA) (1994–2001).
20 Sir John Butterfill, Mr Stephen Byers, Ms Patricia Hewitt, Mr Geoff Hoon, Mr Richard Caborn and Mr Adam Ingram
had definitely not decided to take up an appointment with Anderson Perry nor had they made any offer. He added, “I had considerable reservations about them.”
53. In conclusion, Sir John commented, “None of what I said was untrue but perhaps foolish and slightly exaggerated in parts.”
54. I replied to Sir John on 25 March.29 I asked him if he could confirm that the consultancy work he had done in the past had been related only to companies based in his constituency, and if he had any further examples in addition to Cobham. I also asked if he could clarify his reference to the companies being involved in government in diverse ways. I also said that I thought that the broadcast quotation about being in the House of Lords was “gives me another string to my bow so far as you are concerned”, was not quite the same as the version Sir John had in his letter,30 and invited Sir John to let me know if he thought I had misheard. Finally, I asked Sir John for details of any contacts he had had with the reporters or programme makers since the interview on 24 February, with copies of any correspondence.
55. Sir John replied on 6 April.31 He said that his past unpaid work was related only to companies based in his constituency or employing large numbers of his constituents, such as Liverpool Victoria, Portman Building Society, Lloyds TSB, Abbey Life etc. He said that all of these would contact him from time to time on a wide variety of issues to raise with the Government, such as taxation, regulatory matters etc. He said that he was not entirely sure of the precise wording of the quotation about being in the House of Lords, but it “was intended to convey that I would be more valuable to them by virtue of being seen to be rather more prestigious in dealings with their clients.” Finally, Sir John said that he had not had any contact with the reporters or programme makers since the interview, other than by sending the programme makers, in response to a letter from them, a short e-mail in which he set out a statement he wished to be included in the programme. Sir John’s statement read: “I have never knowingly breached the Code of Conduct for Members of Parliament, nor would I seek to do so. I have never carried out consultancy work for people seeking Government contracts.” Sir John said he also spoke on the telephone to the Sunday Times reporter before the article was published in that newspaper.
56. I did not continue my inquiries during the Dissolution of the House. Once the new Parliament had assembled on 18 May, I resumed my inquiry. On 27 May I received from legal representatives of the TV production company the certified transcripts of Sir John’s conversations with the undercover reporter. I wrote to Sir John on 2 June, attaching a copy of the transcripts.32 I said that the transcript of his phone conversation with the reporter did not appear to cover some of the points which he had made in his letter to me of 24 March—in particular, the claim that he was not particularly interested in the field of Government affairs on a retainer basis, and the discussion about his business background. I asked Sir John whether there had been a different conversation when he had raised these points or whether his recall had been mistaken. I noted that the transcript recorded him as
29 WE 14 30 The version in Sir John’s letter was “gives me another string to my bow so far as I am concerned”. See WE 12 and paragraphs 44 and 49. 31 WE 15 32 WE16,17,18
Sir John Butterfill, Mr Stephen Byers, Ms Patricia Hewitt, Mr Geoff Hoon, Mr Richard Caborn and Mr Adam Ingram 21 saying, “I’ve done in the past quite a lot of consultancy for people who wanted to get involved with the public sector … It’s now quite difficult for a serving MP to do that, but once you’re retired you can do as much of it as you like … So people have come to me for advice on procurement issues, for example.”
57. I told Sir John that I would like to be able to reconcile that statement with what he had told me in respect of this issue in his letter of 24 March33 and reiterated in his letter of 6 April.34 Given that all his consultancy work had been unpaid and on behalf of companies in his constituency, I said that I was having difficulty in understanding his reference to it now being difficult for a serving MP to undertake consultancy, since consultancy in support of their constituents might be thought to be a reasonable activity for a Member to undertake.
58. I noted also that in his meeting with the undercover reporter Sir John had made reference to his work in support of members of the pension fund of the former engineering and construction services company Kvaerner. Sir John had said, “… I have to say I blackmailed him [the new owner of Kvaerner]. I said that unless you put a decent amount of money into the British pension fund, he might find it difficult to get public sector work, either here, or in the rest of the EU. And he put twenty five million in.”35 I asked Sir John whether this was an accurate statement of what had in fact happened and whether he thought it had been acceptable for him to “blackmail” the new owner as described. I also asked him how he would have been able to influence public sector work as he had suggested.
59. I noted further that in the transcript Sir John had said that “all my private Members’ Bills are pro bono”.36 I asked Sir John whether he accepted that the implication of this statement would appear to be that there were some private Members’ Bills that were not pro bono, and would be the subject of payment to a Member. I asked Sir John whether it was reasonable to draw such a conclusion and, if so, to make such an allegation.
60. I further noted that Sir John had said in the transcript that he would be prepared to undertake informal consultancy work while still a sitting MP.37 I asked him what he had thought he was agreeing to, and whether he had assumed he would be paid for that work. Sir John had said in the meeting with the undercover reporter that he had received a number of approaches, including from a major trade association, for work after he left Parliament.38 I asked him whether he had at present secured any remunerated employment and, if so, what it was.
33 WE 12 “b) The work that I had done in the past was entirely unremunerated and related to representations made to me by constituency companies, many of whom were involved in Government in diverse ways, notably in the fields of insurance, financial services and manufacturing, for example, Cobham (formerly Flight Refuelling), who employ a very large number of my constituents and who came seeking my support and that of other neighbouring M.Ps.” 34 WE 15 “Paragraph 2(b): My past unpaid work under this heading was related only to companies based in my constituency or employing large numbers of my constituents. Examples are Liverpool Victoria, Portman Building Society, Lloyds TSB, Abbey Life etc., all of whom would contact me from time to time on a wide variety of issues to raise with the Government. These might have related to taxation, regulatory matters etc.” 35 WE 18, 00:28:55 36 WE 18, 00:30:20 37 WE 18, 00.48.22 38 WE 18, 00:58:44
22 Sir John Butterfill, Mr Stephen Byers, Ms Patricia Hewitt, Mr Geoff Hoon, Mr Richard Caborn and Mr Adam Ingram
61. I finally noted that Sir John had referred to his chairmanship of Gold Mining,39 and I asked him whether this was a reference to his Register entry as a Director and shareholder of Gold Island Limited, and whether it was currently unremunerated.
62. Sir John wrote to me on 22 June, confirming that the transcript was largely an accurate version of the discussions he had had with the undercover reporter.40 Sir John said that there were, however, two matters which puzzled him. First, he had a clear recollection that at some point in the discussions, he had made it clear that he was more interested in joining an advisory board than engaging in parliamentary lobbying. To a degree, he said that this was reinforced by the length of information provided by him relating primarily to his business experience rather than his parliamentary career. “You will have noted for example, that when I was pressed on my experience at the Department of Transport, I pointed out that this was all a long time ago.”
63. Sir John said that he was also puzzled that his recollection of the conversations was that when the reporter had asked him about the possibility of entertaining Ministers and/or civil servants, he had responded by saying that this would be improper and contrary to the parliamentary rules. He said, “This does not appear in the transcript, but I did make it clear ... that Ministers and civil servants did not like being wined and dined etc.”41 Sir John also told me that, at the time of the meeting with the reporter, he had been suffering from the after-effects of an illness which had affected him at the end of January. Among other effects, Sir John said that he had been left with a degree of loss of memory.
64. On the difficulty of a sitting MP providing consultancy for people who wanted to get involved with the public sector42 Sir John said that under the Rules this could occur where a Member had a financial interest in a company in his or her constituency, employing perhaps large numbers of his constituents. “In such a case, it seems to me that the Member could argue in favour of the company, provided that the interest had been disclosed in the Register of Members’ Interests, and again disclosed verbally during a debate.”
65. Sir John said that in relation to Kvaerner, he might have used “somewhat colourful language.” Sir John said that he had had no personal contact with the businessman concerned but that, together with other Members of Parliament who had constituents in the Kvaerner Group, he had advised a group of pensioners and employees on how they might best “shame the businessman into providing proper protection to his UK employees.” The Members had advised them to suggest that a failure to protect members of his pension fund would be likely to lead to protests against Kvaerner, were they to seek to obtain contracts from public authorities both in the UK and the EU. This strategy was extremely successful and he was proud of his role in it.
66. So far as private Members’ Bills were concerned, Sir John said that he did not accept that the implication of his statement implied that some private Members’ Bills were not pro bono and he did not accept that it would be reasonable to draw such a conclusion. On the issue of informal consultancy Sir John said that he had made it clear that he did not think
39 WE 18, 01:02:38 40 WE 19 41 See WE 18, 00:38:19 42 WE 18, 00:25:37
Sir John Butterfill, Mr Stephen Byers, Ms Patricia Hewitt, Mr Geoff Hoon, Mr Richard Caborn and Mr Adam Ingram 23 this was likely to occur but that he would have to be careful if he did accept some form of engagement before the Election and that he would have to ensure that no improper conflict of interest occurred. He said he had gone on to say that in view of the imminence of a General Election, he doubted that there would be any likelihood that Ministers would be interested in talking to anyone at the time.
67. Sir John said that while it was correct that he had said that he had had a number of approaches for work after he left Parliament, he had not secured any such remunerated employment and had not heard further from the trade association he had mentioned.43 He said that his Chairmanship of the Gold Mining Company was indeed a reference to his register entry as a Director and shareholder of Gold Island Ltd, and that it was still currently unremunerated.
68. I wrote to Sir John on 25 June.44 I said I hoped that I was right in assuming that he accepted that he had not in fact said that he was more interested in the advisory board than in parliamentary lobbying, and that he did not say that entertaining Ministers and civil servants would be improper. I said that it appeared from the transcripts that he had expected that he would be asked to make introductions to contacts, and that that might suggest that he had been prepared to be involved in that form of parliamentary lobbying once he had left Parliament.
69. I also drew Sir John’s attention to his statement in his letter of 24 March,45 where he said that he had indicated at the end of the interview that he had been unsure whether he would be willing to work for the interviewer’s company and would need a great deal more information about them. I said that I did not think that there was such a statement from him at the end of the interview transcript, although he was recorded as saying, “It’s quite interesting actually … I think this looks like fun. You know, it looks like something that I could get involved with. I recently also had an approach from a major trade association in the UK, that said would I become a consultant to them? … Well I think we could probably manage the two, because I don’t think they’d necessarily conflict, in fact they might actually work quite well with each other, but that remains to be seen … Well I’ll wait to hear from you.”46 I asked Sir John whether he accepted that his recollection on this point was not borne out by the transcript.
70. On difficulties of consultancy work for a serving MP, I said that I had noted the point he had made. Given that the prohibition in the Rules of the House was directed against advocacy as opposed to consultancy, I asked Sir John to explain why he considered that sitting MPs would now find it quite difficult to engage in consultancy. I told Sir John that I was asking him this because I might need to consider whether he was exaggerating the difficulties of current MPs engaging in consultancy in order to strengthen the case for employing a former Member in this role.
71. In relation to Sir John’s evidence about Kvaerner, I asked him whether he considered that, as well as using somewhat colourful language, he had exaggerated his role in this
43 WE 18 00:58:.44 44 WE 20 45 WE 12 46 WE 18, 00:58:44
24 Sir John Butterfill, Mr Stephen Byers, Ms Patricia Hewitt, Mr Geoff Hoon, Mr Richard Caborn and Mr Adam Ingram
matter, since his statement had appeared to imply that he had taken direct action with the individual himself.
72. I said that I recognised that he did not accept that his reference to all his private Members’ Bills being pro bono implied that there were some Members who did not act on this basis. But I said that it would be helpful to know his reasons why he did not think this conclusion should be drawn from his statement.
73. I told Sir John that I had noted his response on the offer of informal consultancy work before the election. I asked him whether he accepted that he did indeed agree to consider such work and that he would have expected to have received a fee for it.
74. Sir John wrote to me on 15 July.47 He said that he remained puzzled why there appeared to be a number of discrepancies between his recollection of discussions and the transcript. Nevertheless he said that he saw no reason to make a major issue of the matter, since the overall conclusion which could be drawn from the transcripts was that he would be interested in both membership of an advisory board and involvement in making introductions to both Ministers and business contacts once he had left Parliament.
75. On the question of entertaining Ministers and civil servants, Sir John said that although the transcript did not contain the word improper, it did record his giving considerable detail on the way that such introductions should be made and suggesting that it would not be helpful to engage in wining and dining. He said that this discussion was concluded and reinforced by the discussion which ran, “JB Yes, they’re very, very cautious about meeting anybody outside their offices” “CW Oh, right. So it’s very hard to get them out for lunch?” “JB, So you don’t take them out to lunch” “CW No exactly, you might alarm them” “JB Yes. That would be the wrong thing to do and actually, even with Ministers because we’re so much scrutinised now ...”48
76. Sir John said that he had stated very clearly in the transcript that he would be unsure whether he would be willing to undertake work for the interviewer’s company or their clients, although the transcript did not include the phrase “seeking due diligence” despite his own recollection that he did use such a phrase. He told me that, more importantly, he had given the undercover reporter an example of a previous similar approach which he had ultimately declined because he had not been satisfied with the information provided to him.49 Sir John noted that this issue was referred to later in the discussion with the undercover reporter, where she had stated that someone from America would be coming to England with a view to Sir John meeting “one of the American guys and one of the clients”. He said that the transcript then showed him as saying, “that will actually be essential and if in the meantime you can give me some more information about the company and the individuals ...”50
47 WE 21 48 WE 18, 00:38:19 49 WE 18, 00:35:34. Sir John said, “Well I can tell you that once I had some people who wanted me to help them put lots and lots of money into the UK and when I dug deeply, the source of the money was not very, strictly kosher... So I just turned that down... I’d need to be pretty reassured.” 50 WE 18, 00:50:04
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77. Sir John also told me that “It is a fact that sitting MPs now find it difficult to engage in consultancy. This is because a large proportion of members of the public and the press now take a view that it is improper for MPs to have any outside interest. It had never occurred to me that my comments on this matter could be interpreted as exaggerating the difficulties of current MPs in order to strengthen the case for employing a former Member in this role. I would take great exception to this interpretation on my comments.”
78. Sir John told me that, in relation to Kvaerner, he might, in fact, have underplayed his role in the matter. He said that he had been approached by a Kvaerner Pension Fund (KPF) pensioner, who had been one of his constituents, and was heading up an action group because of what KPF had been proposing as far as British KPF pensioners were concerned. Sir John said that “Together, we devised a strategy to embarrass KPF by proceeding with a parliamentary lobby group, given the very large number of Members of Parliament who had significant numbers of constituents who were KPF pensioners.” He attached a list of the relevant MPs (60 in all) “which you will see included large numbers of Ministers, including Tony Blair and Gordon Brown!”51 Sir John told me that, through the KPF pensioner, he had made it clear that he would seek the support of these MPs in order to persuade Kvaerner that it would not be in their best interests to alienate such a powerful group of politicians. He said that this action had led the Chairman of the Trustee Board (appointed by the Norwegian board), together with other representatives of Kvaerner, to ask for a meeting with him in his office. He attached the minutes of that meeting, which took place on 10 March 2006.52 These said that the parties at the meeting “recognised that negotiations between the Trustees and the Principal Employer are at a delicate stage ... In view of the delicate nature of the above negotiations, it was recommended that all parties should make every effort to reduce external political pressures on the negotiators ... Sir John Butterfill expressed his appreciation to [names of Trustees] for their frank explanation of the KPF situation. He understood the Trustees’ need, and supported their request, for a reduction in political activity at this sensitive time.” Sir John said that as a result of this he had been requested to “hold fire” whilst additional funding and an improved investment strategy might be arranged, and that following this intervention a satisfactory solution was agreed.
79. Sir John said that his statement that all his private Members’ Bills had been pro bono53 had been made simply to head off any accusations that he might have been trying to make personal gain from such a Bill. He said that he had, therefore, been defending himself rather than seeking to impugn the actions of other parliamentary colleagues. He told me that he took great exception to that suggestion.
80. Sir John said that he had neither agreed nor disagreed to carry out informal paid consultancy work before the Election, or indeed after it. He had regarded the interview as a preliminary discussion for both parties and had made it clear that he would need a great deal more information about the company and its clients before he could give any commitment of any sort.
51 Not included in the written evidence 52 Not included in the written evidence. 53 WE 18, 00:30:20
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81. I replied to Sir John on 20 July.54 I said I had noted that he had agreed that he had offered to make introductions to Ministers and business contacts once he had left Parliament. I said that I assumed that he agreed that this constituted “lobbying”, and asked him to let me know if this was not so.
82. I noted that there was no reference in the minutes of the meeting with Kvaerner Trustees on 10 March 200655 to Sir John’s advice to the pension fund members set out in his letter to me of 22 June,56 that they should suggest that, if they were not protected, there would be likely to be protests against Kvaerner were they to seek to obtain contracts from public authorities both in the UK and the EU. I asked Sir John whether he had given that advice before the meeting in March, and whether that advice had been followed before that meeting, where he had supported the Trustees’ request for a reduction in political activity in view of the delicate nature of the negotiations. I also asked Sir John to confirm the accuracy of his statement to the undercover reporter that Kvaerner had subsequently paid £25 million into the pension fund.
83. I said that I had noted that Sir John believed that he had neither agreed nor disagreed to provide informal consultancy before the Election. I said that I would need in due course to weigh this alongside what he was recorded to have said in the transcript where he appeared to say that he would be available for informal consultancy work subject to looking at each one to see if there was any conflict; and to his suggestion that if the undercover reporter let him know what they were: “I can tell you whether we can do anything in March, but they’re becoming, even now, they’re becoming more and more…Obsessed with winning the election and the campaign and that’s what they’re all focused on.”57
84. Sir John replied to me in a letter which I received on 2 August.58 In response to my suggestion that he had agreed to undertake lobbying once he had left Parliament, Sir John said that he regarded introductions as “part of what might be undertaken as lobbying, but full blown lobbying includes much more, including extensive advocacy and promotion of the client, which would be beyond what I would either wish or be able to offer.”
85. Sir John said that the action which had precipitated the meeting with the Chairman of the Kvaerner Pension Fund Trustees on 10th March 2006 was his suggestion to the KPF pensioner, who had been one of his constituents, and other constituents, that they should make it clear to the new Chairman of Trustees that failure by the company to meet its legal obligations to the pension scheme would result in a vigorous political campaign in the House of Commons. He said that this had resulted in the Trustees seeking the meeting with him and a request by the company to “hold off political activity” whilst negotiations took place. Sir John confirmed that “considerably more than £25 million” had now been paid into the fund.
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86. Sir John said that, in making his remarks about informal consultancy before the Election,59 he had been “trying to explain to the interviewer that there was no point in thinking about setting up a consultancy before the Election.”
Findings of Fact 87. In February 2010 Sir John’s office received an approach from the undercover reporter claiming to represent Anderson Perry. During an initial telephone conversation, Sir John and the undercover reporter agreed to meet.
88. At the start of the meeting with the reporter on 24 February 2010, Sir John referred to his CV. He described “the first lot of the companies where I, I’ve actually been a Director and a shareholder,” before listing a number of other companies with which he had been involved before he became a Member, as well as some in which he had an interest during his time as a Member.60 Sir John summarises this by saying that the early discussion during the meeting centred upon his previous business career and the skills that he could bring to any directorship. Sir John has made entries in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests for remunerated employment as a Partner of Butterfill Associates and in working as a consultant to a firm of chartered surveyors, which he registered as “non-parliamentary” work.
89. When the undercover reporter said in the meeting that it might be “quite nice for you to meet one of the American guys [from Anderson Perry] and one of the clients” Sir John replied, “That will actually be essential and if in the meantime you can give me some more information about the company and the individuals, you know, the Board. Because there’s not, unusually there’s not, there’s nothing on Google about ... About who your directors are”61
90. Sir John says that he is puzzled as to why there appear to be a number of discrepancies between his own recollection of discussions and the detail of the certified transcript. For example he says he has a clear recollection that at some point in his discussions with the undercover reporter, he made it clear to her that he was more interested in joining an Advisory Board than engaging in parliamentary lobbying, though this does not appear in the transcript. He accepts that at the time of the meeting he was suffering from the after effects of an illness which left him with a degree of loss of memory.
Issues subject to inquiry i. Introductions to Ministers
91. Sir John told the undercover reporter “I could organise a Minister, a meeting with a Minister in his office, or possibly if the Minister were really interested in getting more briefing, they might come to you.” 62
Relevant rule of the House: Paragraph 12 of the Code of Conduct: Openness and frankness
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92. Sir John accepted that the implication of his statement was that he could probably organise meetings with Ministers on a paid basis in the future when he was no longer a Member, but says that he had never done so in the past.
93. Sir John said that he regarded such introductions as part of what might be undertaken as lobbying, but that full blown lobbying included much more, including extensive advocacy and promotion of the client, which would be beyond what he would either wish or be able to offer.
ii. Advice on Government contracts
Sir John told the undercover reporter, “I’ve done, in the past quite a lot of consultancy for people who wanted to get involved with the public sector. ... So people have come to me for advice on procurement issues, for example.”63
Relevant rule of the House: Paragraph 16 of the Code of Conduct: Registration and Declaration
94. Sir John says that the consultancy work of this sort that he did in the past was entirely unremunerated, and related to representations made to him by constituency companies, many of whom were involved in Government in diverse ways, notably in the fields of insurance, financial services and manufacturing. He says that he has never received payment or any other form of remuneration for this work and therefore registration in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests was not required. The consultancy work he registered in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests was non-parliamentary.
iii. Possible membership of the House of Lords
95. Sir John told the undercover reporter: “it is quite likely that I will go to the Lords... And it also gives me another string to my bow, as far as you’re concerned.” He said that a Member of the House of Lords “might be somebody who’d been very much involved on procurement or on communications, or whatever it is that you’re looking at.”64
Relevant rule of the House: Paragraph 15 of the Code of Conduct: Disrepute
96. Sir John says that he intended to imply that potential clients would be likely to look favourably on having a member of the House of Lords on the advisory board. He says that his comment regarding the House of Lords was a rather “stupid” one since he completely overlooked the fact that, if he were to become a member of the House of Lords, he would be governed by similar rules to those which apply in the House of Commons.
iv. Meetings with a future Conservative government
97. The undercover reporter asked Sir John, “it would be easy enough to arrange a meeting for us, or our clients with them [Ministers in a future Conservative government]?”65 Sir
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John replied, “Yeah ... Provided there’s something genuine that is likely to interest them and that depends on how I present things.”66
Relevant rule of the House: Paragraph 15 of the Code of Conduct Disrepute
98. Sir John says that by this he implied that the matter would be something which the Minister might find helpful and possibly create a situation where valuable business could accrue to UK plc. He says that the phrase “that depends on how I present things” was intended to imply that he would be competent in any initial representation that he made.
v. Serving MPs acting as consultants
99. Asked by the undercover reporter what was involved in the kind of consultancy work that he did, Sir John said: “it’s now quite difficult for a serving MP to do that, but once you’re retired, you can do as much of it as you like.”67
Relevant rule of the House: Paragraph 15 of the Code of Conduct: Disrepute
100. Sir John says that it is a fact that sitting MPs now find it difficult to engage in consultancy. He believes that this is because a large proportion of members of the public and the press now take a view that it is improper for MPs to have any outside interest. He says that it had never occurred to him that his comments on this matter could be interpreted as exaggerating the difficulties of current MPs in order to strengthen the case for employing him as a former member in this role, and that he would take great exception to that interpretation of his comments.
vi. Kvaerner Pension Fund
101. Sir John told the undercover reporter that Kvaerner “got taken over, together with the British subsidiaries, by a Norwegian ... And I have to say I blackmailed him. I said that unless you put a decent amount of money into the British pension fund, he might find it difficult to get public sector work, either here, or in the rest of the EU.”68
Relevant rule of the House: Paragraph 15 of the Code of Conduct: Disrepute
102. Sir John says he may have used somewhat colourful language. He had no personal contact with the businessman concerned but he did advise a group of his pensioners and employees together with other Members of Parliament who had constituents in the Kvaerner Group, on how they might best shame the businessman into providing proper protection to his UK employees. They advised the pensioners and employees to suggest that a failure to protect members of the pension fund would be likely to lead to protests against Kvaerner, were they to seek to obtain contracts from public authorities both in the UK and the EU. Sir John says that this strategy was extremely successful and he is proud of his role in it. vii. Private Members’ Bills
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103. Having described some of the things he had done, Sir John told the undercover reporter, “A lot of this I’ve done on a pro bono basis. And for example, all my private Members’ Bills are pro bono, the last one, the Building Societies (Funding) and Mutual Societies (Transfers) Act has actually saved the bacon of the mutual sector.”69
Relevant rule of the House: Paragraph 15 of the Code of Conduct: Disrepute
104. Sir John says that he does not accept that his statement implied that some private Members’ bills were not pro bono and he does not accept that it would be reasonable to draw such a conclusion. He says that his statement that all his private Members’ bills had been pro bono was made simply to head off any accusations that he may have been trying to make personal gain from such a Bill. He was, therefore, defending himself rather than seeking to impugn the actions of other parliamentary colleagues and he takes great exception to this suggestion. viii. Entertaining Ministers and civil servants
105. In answer to a comment from the undercover reporter that she “would imagine our clients would be quite impressed to be able to meet a Minister or even to have a lunch or to go in for a meeting within the department”,70 Sir John said, “Yes, I could normally arrange for your clients to meet Ministers. And civil servants are quite difficult about that, they don’t like being taken out to lunch and wined and dined, because they’ll be accused of being partial perhaps.” 71
Relevant rules of the House: Paragraph 15 of the Code of Conduct: Disrepute. Paragraph 16 of the Code of Conduct: Registration and Declaration
106. Sir John says he is puzzled that his recollection of this conversation was that when the reporter asked him about the possibility of entertaining Ministers and or civil servants, he had responded by saying that this would be improper and contrary to the Parliamentary Rules. He notes that this does not appear in the transcript. The transcript records that he said that civil servants did not like being wined and dined. He says that while he told the undercover reporter that once he was no longer an MP, he would be free to make introductions to Ministers on behalf of clients, he had never in the past made such introductions.
ix. Informal consultancy while still a Member
107. The undercover reporter asked Sir John, “in terms of how quickly you’d be able to get involved, you mentioned after the election, I didn’t know whether you’d be available for any kind of more informal consultancy work before then?”72 He replied, “Yes, so long as it doesn’t, I’d have to look at each one to see if there was any conflict.”73
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Relevant rule of the House: Paragraph 15 of the Code of Conduct: Disrepute
108. Sir John says that he believes his statement made it clear that he did not think this was likely to occur, but that he would have to be careful if he did accept some form of engagement before the Election and that he would have to ensure that no improper conflict of interest occurred. He believes that he “neither agreed nor disagreed” to carry out informal paid consultancy work before the Election, or indeed after it.
x. Being paid £30,000–£35,000 a year for advisory board/consultancy work
109. The undercover reporter asked Sir John what his “daily rate” might be for sitting on a board or for consultancy work.74 He replied that for “sitting on a board, the going rate now is thirty, thirty five, something like that.”75
Relevant rule of the House: Paragraph 16 of the Code of Conduct: Registration and Declaration
110. Sir John accepts that he said that the going rate for the work he was discussing with the undercover reporter as a director of an advisory board was in the region of £30–35,000 a year. He says that he has never at any time been paid £30–35,000 a year for consultancies or other services.
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Rt Hon Stephen Byers: My Inquiries 111. I wrote to Mr Byers on 23 March.76 I told him that, as I had decided to accept Ms Greening’s complaint,77 I did not need to conduct my inquiry on the basis of the self- referral he had sent me on 22 March.78 I asked Mr Byers to give me a full account of the circumstances in which he had come to be interviewed by someone who turned out to be a journalist. I also asked Mr Byers to confirm a number of particular statements that he had been reported as having made during that interview, and whether each such statement was true. The statements concerned were that he:
x had continued to receive confidential information through his links with Number 10;
x had done work for National Express and for Rio Tinto. I asked him, if true, what that work was, why he had undertaken it, and why, as reported, he had received no financial or other benefit from this work;
x had advised that elections are a “great time” if there is an issue where “your clients want to get a regulation changed or some law amended” to get in to see the civil servants. I asked him, if true, whether he had made such attempts for clients at any time, what the circumstances were and whether he had declared his interest;
x knew ways around the Enterprise Act for clients “operating a restrictive practice” or “price fixing”;
x had discussed with the Secretary of State for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (or someone else reporting to him) changes in food labelling regulations;
x had discussed a similar matter with Lord Mandelson;
x had held these discussions following a discussion with a senior representative of Tesco. I asked him, if he had held such discussions with Tesco, whether they or someone else had paid him for the services he had agreed to provide;
x had in or about June 2009 discussed with the Secretary of State for Transport (or someone else reporting to him) the National Express rail franchises;
x had held these discussions following a discussion with a senior representative of National Express. I asked him, if he did have such discussions with National Express, whether they or someone else had paid him for the services he had agreed to provide;
x had said, “I’m a bit like a sort of cab for hire, I suppose, at the moment.” I asked him why he had said that;
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x had told the interviewer that he charged £3,000 to £5,000 a day, or sometimes more, for his services. I also asked Mr Byers to confirm whether he had at any time been paid £3,000 to £5,000 a day for consultancy or other services, and if so, by whom and whether he had registered these payments.
112. I also asked Mr Byers what subsequent communications he or his legal advisers had had with the reporters; whether, if any of the allegations were true, Mr Byers considered that he had an obligation to make a Register entry or declaration, or both, in respect of any financial interest he had had in these alleged activities; and why if any of what he had said had been untrue, he had spoken as he had done. Finally, I told Mr Byers that I was inviting the Channel 4 programme makers to let me have any unbroadcast parts of his interview.
113. The General Election was called soon after the despatch of this letter, and I did not continue with my inquiry during the Dissolution of the House. Once the new Parliament had assembled on 18 May, I resumed my inquiry. On 27 May I received the certified transcripts of Mr Byers’s conversations with the undercover reporter. I wrote to Mr Byers on 2 June, attaching a copy of the transcripts.79 I noted from the transcript his references to a number of his clients at the time and to offers he had received for when he left Parliament. I asked Mr Byers for a full list of all the work he had undertaken in his last two years as a Member of Parliament, both remunerated and unremunerated, including his executive positions, and for clarification on which of these he had registered in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.
114. I noted that, according to the transcript, Mr Byers said, when asked about contacting civil servants, that he would ring them up and say, “I want to bring someone in to have a chat about this policy area … I do it now as an MP.”80 I asked him to confirm that:
x when he was an MP, he had asked for meetings with civil servants;
x as he had apparently implied, he had done so on behalf of a client; and
x if so, whether he had declared his interest to the civil servants at the time.
115. I also asked for information about further work which, according to the transcript, Mr Byers had apparently undertaken for external clients. I also noted that he had said, “I chair this water services company. Every five years the regulator Ofwat comes up with a five-year investment programme … So once again, I approached … Hilary Benn who was dealing with it as the Minister... he said, ‘Well the best way is to talk to the regulator’, which I did, and then talk to the relevant civil servants, which I did, and we just got an announcement just before Christmas, which actually is pretty good in terms of levels of investment … it certainly benefited my guys because they’ve got a high level of investment over the next year, over the next five years.”81 I asked Mr Byers:
x whether he had indeed approached the then Secretary of State and subsequently his officials and Ofwat;
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x when this had occurred;
x whether it had occurred as he had described it; and
x whether at each point he had declared his interests as chair of ACWA Services Limited.
116. According to the transcript Mr Byers had said to the undercover reporter, “the important thing for your clients to be able to say, and for us to be able ... to identify on their behalf, is, if there’s … a business commercial opportunity for them, but there is … some regulation which is standing in the way, or some other restriction … And we then say, ‘right, okay, we can be the facilitators, we can say right … this is how that can be done.’”82 I asked Mr Byers whether he had performed this service for his clients, how he had undertaken it, and whether, in any contacts he had had with Ministers or officials or others, he had declared his interest.
117. I noted also Mr Byers’ description of his role in mediating in a dispute which BP had had with contractors about alleged cost overruns on a pipeline going to Turkey. He was recorded as saying: “...I just sat down for three days with them, and worked out, you know, I had one lot in one room and one lot in the other, and you just negotiate between the two, and say well actually I think, you know, you could, for $380 million, you could solve this. And they then said fine.”83
118. I asked Mr Byers whether:
x he had acted in the way described;
x he had been paid for his services and, if not, why not;
x if he had been paid, he had considered registering that payment in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.
119. I said that according to the transcript Mr Byers had said that his scale of payments varied but it was “usually between three and five thousand a day.” 84 I asked Mr Byers what particular work he had been referring to there, and whether it would be reasonable to assume that the reference applied to the examples of the work he had undertaken as described earlier in the interview.
120. I referred Mr Byers to a passage in the transcript concerning the allegation that he received confidential information from Number 10. He had said that there was someone whom he knew very well in Mr Cameron’s office who would go with him to Number 10, and, “probably over a couple of drinks, we’d … say … rather more than we should say.”85 I asked Mr Byers whether:
x it was the case that he did know someone close to Mr Cameron;
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x he had had the discussions with him which he had described;
x if so, the discussions were on behalf of any of his clients and,
x if so, he had declared his interest during these discussions.
121. I noted that in the transcript Mr Byers said, in the context of the coming General Election and the imminent production of the party manifestos, “We go through the manifesto, we say right if it’s a water company, we say there’s a real problem here … we should go and talk to a civil servant about how they’re going to recommend that is done. … you’ll either get it delayed … basically you want to convince the civil servant that it ‘s totally impractical, you know, high risk.”86 I asked him whether:
x this was an accurate statement of the work he had done on behalf of a water company in respect of any party’s manifesto in any previous General Election;
x he had in fact done this in the recent General Election and;
x if he had done so, he had arranged a meeting with civil servants and in that case he had declared his interest.
122. Finally, according to the transcript Mr Byers had suggested to the undercover reporter that when the alleged employer came over from the United States, “We can meet over in Westminster, you can come along as well, we can have a drink in one of the nice places there.”87 I asked Mr Byers whether it had been his intention to use House facilities to discuss his future employment.
123. Mr Byers replied by e-mail on 29 June.88 To this he attached a paper89 containing his response to my letters of 23 March90 and 2 June.91
124. In the paper Mr Byers said that in early February 2010 he had received “an unsolicited approach from a woman calling herself Claire Webster. She said she was from a public affairs company called Anderson Perry and that she had been given the task of establishing a London office for the company. She asked whether I would be interested in discussing a role with Anderson Perry as a member of a soon to be established advisory board and/or as a consultant to their clients.” Mr Byers told me that he and Claire Webster had agreed to meet on 23 February. He said that this had been very much a preliminary meeting.
125. Mr Byers said that he had understood that the meeting was to be private, and that it was to be a confidential discussion about Anderson Perry’s objectives in setting up a London office and his own plans for employment after he had stood down from Parliament at the forthcoming General Election. During his meeting with the undercover reporter, Mr Byers told me, he had “totally exaggerated” his experience in lobbying on
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behalf of commercial interests. “I must accept that my overstatements were made in order to impress a possible prospective future employer.” The meeting had been held in the afternoon of 23 February. Mr Byers said that that same evening he had reflected on the statements he had made. He had realised that some of them could not be allowed to stand and that he would need to take immediate steps to clarify the situation and withdraw some of his comments. He had done this in e-mails sent the following morning (24 February)92 and on 25 February.93 After giving the whole matter further consideration he had withdrawn his name from consideration in an e-mail sent to the undercover reporter on 11 March.94
126. Mr Byers told me that his e-mail of 24 February had been aimed at setting the record straight about his actual level of experience in relation to the lobbying of Ministers in the UK and withdrawing those statements he had made during the meeting which were wrong. He had also made clear that he had completely over-stated the part he had played in securing changes to the way in which Government dealt with issues. He had sent his second e-mail on 25 February in order to further clarify his comments. Mr Byers said that he had made it clear in this e-mail that he had not spoken to Lord Adonis, Rt Hon Hilary Benn or Lord Mandelson about the matters he had mentioned during his meeting with Claire Webster, and that he did not have any experience of lobbying UK Government Ministers on behalf of commercial interests.
127. Mr Byers said that he had known that he should not have made the comments and so he took immediate steps to withdraw them and set the record straight.95 Mr Byers said that he had continued to give consideration as to whether he really wanted to be engaged by Anderson Perry, and he had then concluded that he did not. He e-mailed Claire Webster on 11 March withdrawing his name from consideration.
128. Mr Byers said that he hoped that his account had answered many of the questions I had raised in my letters of 23 March and 2 June. He also said that he was “not in receipt of confidential information from Number 10; I did not know someone in Mr Cameron’s office ‘very well’; I did not use House facilities to discuss my future employment prospects and all of the work I did in addition to being a Member of Parliament was registered in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. Like most Members I would give advice to friends, voluntary groups and charities when asked, for which nothing is received and no obligations entered into.”
129. Mr Byers said that the dispute in Turkey had concerned the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline for which Consolidated Contractors International had been the major contractor. His role with them had been registered. He had always made a full declaration of his outside interests in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.
130. In conclusion, Mr Byers said that he recognised that while he had taken immediate steps to withdraw and clarify the comments he had made during the meeting on 23 February this was not an excuse for making the comments in the first place. “I could try
92 WE 30 93 WE 32 94 WE 33 95 Mr Byers’ legal representatives made similar points in correspondence with the production company after the meeting but before the programme was broadcast. Not included in written evidence
Sir John Butterfill, Mr Stephen Byers, Ms Patricia Hewitt, Mr Geoff Hoon, Mr Richard Caborn and Mr Adam Ingram 37 and put together all sorts of reasons as to how I come to make the statements I did but I have to accept that I simply should not have spoken in such terms. I therefore want to take this opportunity to offer my sincere and unreserved apologies to the House. I was wrong to have made the statements I did and am sorry for having done so.”
131. Mr Byers sent me copies of his emails to the undercover reporter of 24 and 25 February and 11 March, and of her reply of 24 February.96 In the first e-mail, sent the day after his meeting with her, Mr Byers said that he had been reflecting on their discussion. He said, “... I’m afraid I completely over-stated the part I have played in trying to secure changes to the way in which government deals with issues. In reality I have not been engaged in lobbying Ministers here in the UK. My statements yesterday would have given the opposite impression and I would like to take this opportunity to withdraw them.” He continued that given his lack of experience he might not be the appropriate person to carry out the work she was thinking of. The reporter replied later that day, saying that she was going to speak to the Board in the US over the next week or two about a shortlist. She said she would contact Mr Byers again.
132. Mr Byers e-mailed again on 25 February, saying:
“I don’t have any experience of lobbying UK Government Ministers on behalf of commercial interests. In the context of our discussion on Tuesday this means that I have not spoken to Andrew Adonis, Hilary Benn or Peter Mandelson about the matters I mentioned. I’m sorry that I indicated otherwise but on reflection wanted you to be aware of my lack of experience in this area before you speak to your board in the US about a shortlist. I hope this makes my position clear. If you have any questions don’t hesitate to get in touch. In fact I shall now be in Westminster for the next weeks so we could easily meet up again. Just let me know.”
133. In his e-mail of 11 March Mr Byers said that he had given a good deal of thought to the role Anderson Perry wanted their advisory board members to play. He said that he had no experience in this kind of work. “To be totally open with you this is an aspect of public affairs work that I don’t feel comfortable about and is not something I would wish to be part of.” He asked her to withdraw his name from consideration as an Advisory Board member and he apologised for wasting her time.
134. I wrote to Mr Byers on 1 July. 97 I noted his statement that he had “totally exaggerated” his experience of lobbying on behalf of commercial interests and the points he had made in his e-mails to the interviewer of 24 February,98 25 February99 and 11 March.100 I asked him to provide me with specific responses to each of the questions I had set out in my letters to him of 23 March101 and 2 June,102 and I asked him the following further questions:
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1) In relation to the dispute in Turkey (mentioned in my letter of 2 June103) I asked him whether he had mediated in the dispute, as suggested in the transcript, and, if so, whether he had been paid a separate fee for that work.
2) In relation to the use of House facilities (mentioned in my letter of 2 June104), I said that his statement to the interviewer appeared to suggest that he had intended to use House facilities for the purpose of meeting the fictitious American employers (although, of course, it had never happened).105 I asked Mr Byers whether he agreed that that was the clear impression he had given by his statement and whether he considered that such a meeting would have been an acceptable use of House facilities.
3) I asked Mr Byers whether, at the time he had sent any of his e-mails to Claire Webster , he had had any inkling or suspicion that either she or the company she had said she represented were not what they claimed to be.
135. Mr Byers replied to me on 13 July,106 attaching a supplementary response to my questions.107 He said that in responding to my outstanding questions he did not seek to excuse himself for making the comments in the first place. He continued, “I accept that I should not have spoken in the terms I did and offer my sincere and unreserved apologies to the House for having done so.”
136. Mr Byers told me that he had not done work for National Express108 or Rio Tinto,109 and that he had not sought to gain access to civil servants on behalf of clients. Mr Byers said that he was unaware of ways around the Enterprise Act. In reply to my question about discussions with a senior representative of Tesco before raising the issue of food labelling regulations with DEFRA or Lord Mandelson, he said that no such discussions had taken place. He also said that he had had no discussions with a senior representative of National Express in advance of discussions with the Department for Transport in respect of the National Express rail franchises.
137. Mr Byers said that the full transcript of his meeting with the undercover reporter made clear that in that meeting he had been discussing the situation he would be in once he had left Parliament. He said that he had mentioned the three positions that he had hoped to keep, and that he recognised that the phrase, “I’m a bit like a sort of cab for hire, I suppose, at the moment”, was one that he should not have used. He continued, “In a clumsy way I was trying to indicate that on leaving the House I would not be seeking a single, full time job but would be looking for a number of different employment opportunities.”
138. On the question of fees Mr Byers said that £3,000 to £5,000 a day, or sometimes more, was the level of fee he had charged when making speeches to commercial organisations.
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These had always been declared. Mr Byers said that for consultancy and advisory services he had charged a lower fee, and these had always been declared.110 He had never entered into an agreement with any outside body that had involved him in the provision of services in his capacity as a Member of Parliament.
139. Mr Byers said that his communications with the reporters after the interview comprised the e-mails he had sent to the undercover reporter on 24 and 25 February and on 11 March.111 He had also had a brief telephone conversation with the reporter on 24 February to alert her to the e-mail he had sent her clarifying the remarks he had made during their meeting the day before. He said that the allegations made were untrue and that he had always made a full disclosure of any “declarable” interests and made the appropriate entry in the Register.
140. In response to the questions in my letter of 2 June, Mr Byers said that he had understood that the meeting was to be private to enable a confidential discussion to take place about Anderson Perry’s ambitions and his own plans for employment after he had stood down from Parliament. He said, “Looking back it is clear that I was telling the undercover reporter what I thought she wanted to hear. I accept that I did so in order to impress a possible prospective future employer.”
141. Mr Byers said that in addition to those interests which he had declared in the Register, he had held various unpaid positions.112 He said that none of these had constituted a declarable interest.
142. Mr Byers said that he had not asked for meetings with civil servants on behalf of a client. He said that no approach had been made to the Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, his officials or to Ofwat in relation to the Ofwat investment programme. Mr Byers said that he had not performed a service as a “facilitator” for clients in respect of regulations which had stood in the way of their business opportunities.
143. In relation to his scale of fees, Mr Byers said that he had seen the meeting with the person who turned out to be an undercover reporter “as the beginning of a negotiation to establish a fee ... it is higher than the fee I was charging in respect of those interests I have registered.” He said that he had no other interests that needed to be registered.
144. Mr Byers told me that he had not, as he had told the undercover reporter, gone through any General Election manifesto to identify what might be a “real problem” for a water company and talked to a civil servant about getting a measure delayed because it was “totally impractical”, or “high risk”.
145. In response to my letter of 1 July,113 Mr Byers told me that Consolidated Contractors International had been the main contractor for the construction of the pipeline in Turkey
110 Registered in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. 111 WE 30, 32, 33 112 Vice President of Wallsend Boys Club; President of CORE (a group of community organisations in the north east promoting renewable energy); President of GLOBE International (a group of parliamentarians from G20 countries dealing with climate change and the environment); Chair of the Policy Council of Labour Friends of Israel and a member of the Editorial Board of Inside Ukraine, a publication of the International Centre for Policy Studies, Kiev. 113 WE 34
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and that BP had been the lead client. He said that there had been a commercial dispute between the two and he had assisted the Consolidated Contractors team in the negotiations to achieve a settlement. This was part of his declared work for Consolidated Contractors International and he was not paid a separate fee. Mr Byers agreed that he had given the impression to the undercover reporter that he would use House facilities for the purpose of meeting the fictitious American employers. He said that he had been unaware of any rule relating to the type of guest that a Member could invite to the House.
146. Mr Byers said in relation to the meeting with the undercover reporter that he had “thought long and hard about whether I had any inkling or suspicion that things were not as they were claimed to be.” He said that four months after the meeting it was difficult to say with certainty. “All I can say is that I didn’t know at the time I sent my three e-mails that Anderson Perry was a fictitious company and that I had been deceived. My reason for sending the e-mails was because I knew that I couldn’t allow my comments of 23 February to stand and that I had to take immediate steps to withdraw and clarify them.”
147. Having considered this additional evidence I wrote to Mr Byers on 14 July.114 I said that I noted from Lord Adonis’s statement in the House of Lords of 22 March115 that Lord Adonis had had a brief conversation with Mr Byers in June 2009 about the East Coast main line and the situation then facing National Express. (Lord Adonis had said in his statement that there was no truth in the suggestion that Mr Byers had come to any agreement with him on any matter relating to National Express or that National Express was allowed to avoid any of its rail contract obligations.) I asked Mr Byers to confirm that he had had such a conversation in June 2009 and to let me know why he had done so, and whether and in what terms he had raised with Lord Adonis the difficulties then facing National Express. I said that it would appear on the face of it that Mr Byers might have been lobbying the Minister on behalf of National Express and if so, I would need to know why he had done so.
148. Mr Byers replied to me in an e-mail on 20 July.116 He confirmed that that he had had a brief conversation with Lord Adonis in June 2009 in the terms stated in Lord Adonis’ statement in the House of Lords of 22 March 2010.117 Mr Byers said that he had raised the future of the East Coast main line franchise in his role as a Member of Parliament representing the concerns and interests of his constituents.
149. Mr Byers said that the East Coast main line ran through his former constituency of North Tyneside. A number of his former constituents had been employed by National Express in the operation of the franchise and many former constituents used the service as passengers. He said that in June 2009 there had been a good deal of speculation and uncertainty about the future of the franchise. Constituents had been worried about job security and terms and conditions of employment. Mr Byers told me that members of the travelling public had wanted assurances about reliability and punctuality. “My sole reason for meeting the Secretary of State in June of last year was to raise these concerns on behalf of my constituents. I was not putting forward a case on behalf of National Express.”
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150. I replied to Mr Byers on 20 July.118 I said that in view of what he had said, I was likely to need to come to a view on his statement that he had been speaking on behalf of his constituents and not of National Express. I asked Mr Byers what points he had made to Lord Adonis, approximately how many constituents had raised this with him and in what fora, and whether he could confirm that he had had no discussions or contacts with any representatives of National Express either before or after his meeting with Lord Adonis.
151. In the light of the information he had supplied about his discussion with Lord Adonis, I also asked Mr Byers to let me know whether he had had any discussions or contact at all on water matters with the Rt Hon Hilary Benn MP when he was Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; or with his officials or with Ofwat; or with Lord Mandelson on food labelling regulations when he was Secretary of State for Business. I also asked him to confirm that he had had no discussions at any time with Tesco representatives on food labelling regulations. I said that I needed to be clear whether, as with Lord Adonis, he had had some discussions with each of the people or bodies indentified, albeit not in the terms he had described in his interview with the undercover reporter.
152. Mr Byers responded to me by e-mail on 12 August.119 He said that most of the conversation in his meeting with Lord Adonis in the House of Commons in June 2009 was about “the general political scene”, and that he had also used the opportunity of the meeting to have a brief conversation with Lord Adonis about the East Coast franchise and the concerns of his constituents. They had discussed in general terms the rail franchising system and the difficulties it caused. Mr Byers said, “I remember expressing the view that, in a situation like this, uncertainty was not good and that he [Lord Adonis] should try and reach a decision on the East Coast franchise as soon as possible.” Lord Adonis had replied that, as he had no intention of entering into a renegotiation of the franchise, he should be in a position to decide sooner rather than later. Mr Byers said that, in fact, Lord Adonis had made his decision a few weeks later, on 1 July 2009.
153. Mr Byers said that during May and June 2009, it had been widely known that National Express were in discussions with the Department of Transport about the East Coast franchise. It had first raised been raised with him through political channels in his constituency as the railway trade unions were calling for the franchise to be re-nationalised. He said that the future of the franchise had also been raised during his constituency advice surgeries, by at least one employee of National Express concerned about job security, and by another constituent worried about possible disruption to the service if the franchise changed hands again, GNER having originally held the franchise until they pulled out and it was taken over by National Express.
154. Mr Byers said that in late May or early June 2009 he had met with Mr Richard Bowker, who at the time was Chief Executive of National Express. He told me that he had first met Mr Bowker in 2001 when he had appointed him to head the Strategic Rail Authority and since then they had remained in contact. “Our conversation was wide- ranging. We did, in the course of it, discuss the problems he was having with the East Coast franchise but at no stage did he ask me to intervene on behalf of National Express with Lord
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Adonis. In fact, about a month after our meeting he resigned as Chief Executive of National Express.”
155. Mr Byers said that although he did not know the exact date, during this period he had been one of a number of Members with constituencies on the route of the East Coast railway line who had been spoken to by National Express about the discussions they were having with the Department of Transport about the franchise. He said that “This simply took the form of a briefing for information purposes. At no time did I speak to Lord Adonis on behalf of National Express.”
156. He confirmed that he had had no discussions or contact at all on water matters with Rt Hon Hilary Benn MP, then Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, or with his officials or with Ofwat. He also confirmed that he had had no discussions or contact at all with Lord Mandelson or Tesco representatives concerning food labelling regulations.
157. I wrote to Mr Byers on 12 August.120 I said that it would appear that he had been briefed by a National Express representative sometime in the spring of 2009 and then had a meeting with the then Chief Executive shortly before he met Lord Adonis. I told Mr Byers that it might seem, therefore, that he had been the subject of some lobbying activity by National Express. I added that it might be reasonable to infer that the information they had given him was relevant, at least, to, and might have helped to inform, his conversation with Lord Adonis, along with the points which had been made to him by two of his constituents and the railway trade unions. I noted, however, that National Express were quoted in the Sunday Times article of 21 March121 as saying that they had not paid him and that Mr Byers had told me in his 12 July response122 that he had not done work for that company.
158. I asked Mr Byers for his comments on this interpretation of the evidence which he had given me, for his confirmation that he had received no payments from National Express, and for a little more information to clarify the position. I asked Mr Byers who from National Express had given him his briefing, whether it had been one to one or as part of a group, and whether National Express had made clear what outcome they had been seeking from the Government. I also asked Mr Byers whether the National Express representative had made any suggestion that he might assist them by making appropriate representations to the Government. I asked Mr Byers whether the Chief Executive had asked for a meeting with him, and whether he had made clear what outcome he had been seeking from the Government. Finally, I asked Mr Byers to confirm whether, after the initial conversation he had described to me, he had had any further contacts with Lord Adonis or his civil servants about National Express or the East Coast franchise.
159. Mr Byers wrote to me on 31 August.123 He said that, although he had no record of the exact date of the briefing he received from National Express, he was “confident” that it took place after his meeting with Lord Adonis. Mr Byers confirmed that he had received no payments from National Express.
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160. Mr Byers said that the National Express briefing had been over the telephone. He did not remember who had made the call. “I understand from a statement made by National Express in response to the Sunday Times/Dispatches programme that I was one of a number of Members spoken to at this time because the East Coast line runs through our constituencies. I do not recall any specific desired outcomes being made clear. It was more of an update on their discussions with the Department of Transport.” Mr Byers said that there had been “no suggestion” that he might assist National Express by making representations to the Government. He said his meeting with the Chief Executive had been “an informal affair” and he did not remember who had asked for it. The East Coast franchise had formed a small part of a far more wide-ranging conversation. The Chief Executive had mentioned no specific outcome that he was seeking—“that simply wasn’t in keeping with the nature and tone of our meeting.”
161. Mr Byers confirmed what Lord Adonis had said, in his statement to the House of Lords on 22 March,124 that they had had a brief conversation in June 2009. He confirmed that he had had no further contact with Lord Adonis or his civil servants about National Express or the East Coast franchise.
162. I wrote to Mr Byers on 1 September.125 I noted that the sequence of his discussion with the representatives of National Express as set out in his e-mail of 31 August126 was the opposite of what he had told the interviewer.127 I asked Mr Byers whether his informal discussion with the Chief Executive of National Express took place before or after his meeting with Lord Adonis. I noted that he had told me in his e-mail of 12 August128 that this discussion had taken place in late May or early June, which suggested that it had been held shortly before he had seen Lord Adonis.
163. Mr Byers responded to me by e-mail on 5 September.129 He said that “For the sake of accuracy and hopefully not being too pedantic, I don’t think it’s correct to describe a telephone briefing from one person as ‘a discussion with the representatives of National Express’”. Mr Byers said that I was right to point out that what actually took place was not reflected in the transcript of his interview with the undercover reporter. He re-iterated what he had said in his e-mails to the reporter and from his legal representatives’ letter to the production company,130 that in the meeting with the undercover reporter he had “totally exaggerated” his experience in lobbying on behalf of commercial interests. His comments had been made at what he had been told was a private and confidential discussion about his employment plans when he had ceased to be a Member. Mr Byers accepted that his overstatements, which he had taken immediate steps to clarify and withdraw, were made “in order to impress a possible prospective future employer.” Mr Byers said that although he could not be precise about the date, he believed that his meeting with the Chief Executive had taken place before his discussion with Lord Adonis.
124 WE 38 125 WE 44 126 WE 43 127 WE 27, 00:03:25-35 128 WE 41 129 WE 45 130 WE 30, 32, 33. The letters from Mr Byers’s legal representatives are not included in the written evidence.
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164. I wrote to Mr Byers on 6 September.131 I said I noted what he had said about the telephone briefing, although I noted also that the Sunday Times article of 21 March132 had reported that National Express had said that they had had “discussions” with a number of MPs whose constituencies lay along the East Coast main line. I recalled that Mr Byers had told me in his e-mail of 12 August133 that he had raised with Lord Adonis the concerns of his constituents. I asked Mr Byers whether these concerns had coincided with what he had understood to be the concerns of the Chief Executive of National Express on this matter. I also asked him whether he had mentioned to Lord Adonis that, as well as his constituents’ interests, the Chief Executive of National Express had raised the matter with him. I asked whether I would be right in assuming that he had anyway been aware of and taken account of the Chief Executive’s views when he had had his meeting with Lord Adonis.
165. I told Mr Byers that I had taken from his evidence that the “source close to Richard Bowker” quoted in the Sunday Times on 21 March134 had been wrong in all respects to suggest among other things that National Express had had a commercial relationship with Mr Byers (and so, by implication, had either paid or promised him payment) and that he had been acting on their behalf. I asked him to let me know if I was mistaken on that point.
166. I wrote again to Mr Byers on 7 September, enclosing copies of my correspondence with the Director of Catering and Retail Services.135 I had sought her advice on 14 July about the rules in relation to the type of guest who could be invited to use House facilities.136 I said in that letter that the undercover reporter had told Mr Byers that if someone representing the fictitious potential employers was coming over from America in the next couple of weeks, it would be good for Mr Byers to meet them, and that Mr Byers had responded, “We can meet over in Westminster, you can come along as well, we can have a drink in one of the nice places there... The Americans love it, by the way”137 While no such meeting had taken place, since the company had been fictitious, I asked the Director whether it was within the rules for a Member to invite a prospective employer to a drink in a House of Commons bar in order to discuss their personal employment prospects.
167. The Director of Catering and Retail Services replied to me on 27 August. She said that, with the exception of the banqueting regulations, there were no specific regulations relating to the use of catering facilities in the House of Commons.138 She told me, however, that the general principles and codes of conduct communicated to Members through various documents and channels applied equally to their conduct in using the refreshment facilities “as they do to the use of other House facilities.”
168. I wrote to the Director of Catering and Retail Services on 1 September.139 I said that I had noted the principles set out in the 2010 Members’ Handbook, which made clear that
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169. The Director wrote to me on 6 September.141 She said that she was aware from conversations with my predecessors that guidance was given to Members setting out the general principles and codes of conduct that they should adhere to in conducting their parliamentary duties, and, specifically, in making use of parliamentary facilities. The Director said that the extract I had quoted from the 2010 Members’ Handbook was indeed the sort of guidance she had had in mind, but that she was unable to confirm if this wording was unchanged from previous versions or, indeed, whether or how any other guidance might have been given to Members.
170. I sought Mr Byers’ comments on the Department’s advice, including whether he considered that his suggestion that he would meet the fictitious American company representatives in Westminster for a drink “in one of the nice places there” suggested that he had been offering to use House facilities for private business purposes, namely to discuss his possible employment once he had left the House.142
171. Mr Byers sent me an e-mail on 16 September143 responding to my letter to him of 6 September144 about the East Coast rail franchise and my letter to him of 7 September145 about the evidence from the Director of Catering and Retail Services. Mr Byers said that the views expressed by the Chief Executive of National Express on the East Coast franchise had not been the same as the concerns of his constituents. He said that he thought it unlikely that he would have mentioned to Lord Adonis that he had met the Chief Executive “but given the time lag I cannot be absolutely certain. While I was obviously aware of the Chief Executive’s views this does not mean that I reflected them in my comments to Lord Adonis.” He re-iterated that in his brief conversation with Lord Adonis about the franchise “I raised the concerns of my constituents—and nobody else”. In relation to the quote in the Sunday Times from an unidentified source, he said that it was wrong in all respects.
172. Turning to the use of the House’s catering facilities, Mr Byers noted that the 2010 Members’ Handbook was issued in May 2010. The Members’ Handbook that applied at the time of the conduct which was the subject of the complaint had been the one published in May 2008. He said, “I have gone through it and cannot find guidance of the kind you refer to which is contained in the 2010 version. The only reference relevant to the complaint would appear to be at page 48 which states, ‘Members may entertain guests’.146 There does not appear to be any guidance about the type of guest that might be entertained.”
140 These principles are quoted at paragraph 38 above. 141 WE 50 142 WE 27, 00:04:53 143 WE 52 144 WE 46 145 WE 51 146 Quoted at paragraph 37 above.
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173. I wrote to Mr Byers on the same day, 16 September.147 I said I had noted his response to my letter of 7 September about the use of refreshment facilities, and that he considered that there was no restriction at the time of his meeting with the undercover reporter in using catering facilities for business purposes. I said that I did, however, need to consider whether the more specific provision in the 2010 Handbook was likely to have articulated a more longstanding expectation. I told Mr Byers that it could be argued that that expectation was based on the understanding, as reflected in respect of expenses in successive Green Books, that parliamentary facilities should be used only for the purpose of a Member carrying out their parliamentary duties.
174. I said that I had taken no view on this matter myself. But I asked Mr Byers whether he considered that the arrangement he had suggested during the course of the interview with the undercover reporter was consistent with a principle that parliamentary facilities should be used only in support of a Member's parliamentary duties, and that meeting fictitious American company representatives in Westminster for a drink was an offer to use House facilities for purposes other than parliamentary business, namely to discuss his possible employment once he had left the House.
175. Mr Byers responded by e-mail on 20 September.148 He said that he recognised that if the view was taken that at the time of the complaint the only guests who could be entertained by a Member were those relevant to a Member's parliamentary duties, then his invitation had gone beyond this. He re-iterated that the Members’ Handbook in force at the time of his invitation made no reference to any restriction on the type of guest that could be entertained, although the most recent version of the Handbook published in May 2010 did introduce restrictions. He noted that I had raised the provisions contained in the Green Book, and said that he was unaware that the principles which applied to the claiming of parliamentary expenses would also apply to the type of guest that a Member could invite to the House.
176. After I had reviewed the evidence which he had provided, I wrote to Mr Byers on 29 September to raise an additional point.149 I asked Mr Byers whether he had at any time had a meeting with the then Secretary of State for the Department of Food and Rural Affairs (Rt Hon Hilary Benn) in respect of food labelling regulations. I noted that he had told me in his letter of 13 July150 that he had had no discussions with senior representatives at Tesco before raising the issue of food labelling regulations with DEFRA or Lord Mandelson. I said that in his e-mail of 12 August151 in response to the specific questions I had asked him in my letter of 20 July,152 he had confirmed that he had had no discussions or contact at all with Lord Mandelson or Tesco representatives concerning food labelling regulations. I had not specifically asked him, however, about any contacts he had had with the Secretary of State. I asked him therefore to confirm that he had had no contact with the then Secretary
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177. Mr Byers e-mailed me on 7 October.153 He confirmed that at no time did he have a meeting with the then Secretary of State for the Department of Food and Rural Affairs (Rt Hon Hilary Benn) in respect of food labelling regulations.
Findings of Fact 178. In early February 2010 Mr Byers received an approach from the undercover reporter, who said she was from Anderson Perry.
179. During an initial telephone conversation, Mr Byers and the undercover reporter agreed to meet.
180. Mr Byers and the undercover reporter met on 23 February 2010. Mr Byers’ evidence is that this was very much a preliminary meeting. He says that nothing was agreed and no commitments were made either by himself or the undercover reporter. Mr Byers says he understood that the meeting was to be private, and that it was to be a confidential discussion about Anderson Perry’s objectives in setting up a London office and his own plans for employment after he stood down from Parliament at the forthcoming General Election.
181. Shortly after this meeting he sent a series of e-mails to the undercover reporter. Two, dated 24 and 25 February 2010, withdrew some of the comments he had made. And in an e-mail of 11 March he withdrew his name for consideration as an Advisory Board Member. The e-mails are referred to more fully in section xiii below.
Issues subject to inquiry
i. Confidential information
182. Mr Byers told the undercover reporter, “at the moment I get, I still get a lot of confidential information, because I’m still linked into Number 10 and so on.”154 Mr Byers told the undercover reporter that he knew very well someone in the office of Rt Hon David Cameron and that “probably over a couple of drinks, we’d … say … rather more than we should say.”155
Relevant rules of the House: Paragraph 13 of the Code of Conduct: Confidential information for financial gain. Paragraph 15 of the Code of Conduct: Disrepute
183. Mr Byers says that he was not in receipt of confidential information from Number 10. He says that he did not know someone in Mr Cameron’s office very well.
ii. Accessing civil servants
153 WE 56 154 WE 27, 00:04:05 155 WE 27, 00:04:05
48 Sir John Butterfill, Mr Stephen Byers, Ms Patricia Hewitt, Mr Geoff Hoon, Mr Richard Caborn and Mr Adam Ingram
184. Mr Byers told the undercover reporter, “there’s a very good opportunity ...when the election is called...The civil servants then spend that month working through all the sort of policy options. And it’s a great time, and if there’s an issue where your clients actually want to, to get the, a regulation changed, or some law amended... because there’s no Ministers around ...”156
Relevant rules of the House: Paragraph 15 of the Code of Conduct: Disrepute. Paragraph 16 of the Code of Conduct: Registration and Declaration
185. Mr Byers says he has not sought to gain access to civil servants on behalf of clients. iii. Securing removal of a regulation
186. Mr Byers told the undercover reporter, “... the important thing for your clients to be able to say, and for us to be ...able to identify on their behalf, is, if there’s a..., if there’s a business commercial opportunity for them, but there is a sort of, some regulation which is standing in the way, or some other restriction, ...then we have to work out the solution ... And we then say right okay, we can be the facilitators...”157
Relevant rules of the House: Paragraph 10 of the Code of Conduct: Paid advocacy. Paragraph 15 of the Code of Conduct: Disrepute. Paragraph 16 of the Code of Conduct: Registration and Declaration
187. Mr Byers says that he has not performed such a service for clients.
iv. Ways around the Enterprise Act
188. Mr Byers told the undercover reporter, “when I was at Trade and Industry, I was the sort of architect of the Enterprise Act ... if the Office of Fair Trading say you’re operating a restrictive practice, or if you’re price fixing, or whatever ... But you also know ways round it. Well actually ... there’s an ace you can play here.”158
Relevant rule of the House: Paragraph 15 of the Code of Conduct: Disrepute
189. Mr Byers says he is unaware of ways around the Enterprise Act.
v. Food labelling regulations
190. Mr Byers told the undercover reporter, “there was an issue about labelling food in supermarkets ... it was a massively bureaucratic labelling exercise, so there’s a woman called Lucy Neville-Rolfe ... I know Lucy really well. She rang me to basically, (...INAUDIBLE...) you’ve got to get it stopped.” 159
156 WE 27, 00:03:40 157 WE 27, 00:03:53 158 WE 27, 00:03:53 159 WE 27, 00:04:23
Sir John Butterfill, Mr Stephen Byers, Ms Patricia Hewitt, Mr Geoff Hoon, Mr Richard Caborn and Mr Adam Ingram 49
191. Mr Byers also told the undercover reporter, in discussing the food labelling regulations, “but the trump card when that happens is you talk to the business department, so you ring Peter Mandelson up and say, ‘Peter, did you know that Hilary Benn’s about to do?’ He said ‘What?’ ... And so then so Peter got it, he got it delayed, and then got it amended.”160
Relevant rules of the House: Paragraph 10 of the Code of Conduct: Paid advocacy. Paragraph 15 of the Code of Conduct: Disrepute. Paragraph 16 of the Code of Conduct: Registration and Declaration
192. Mr Byers says he had no discussions or contact at all with Tesco representatives about food labelling regulations. He says that at no time did he have a meeting with the then Secretary of State for the Department of Food and Rural Affairs (Rt Hon Hilary Benn) in respect of food labelling regulations. Mr Byers says he had no discussions or contact at all with Lord Mandelson concerning food labelling regulations.
vi. National Express
193. Mr Byers told the undercover reporter, “I do a bit of work for National Express.”161
Relevant rules of the House: Paragraph 15 of the Code of Conduct; Disrepute. Paragraph 16 of the Code of Conduct: Registration and Declaration
194. Mr Byers says that he has not done work for National Express.
195. Mr Byers told the undercover reporter: “So they [National Express] approached me— June of last year? And said, we’ve got a huge problem, we want to get out of the east coast mainline, but not pay a huge penalty and we want to keep in the other two franchises as long we can.”162
Relevant rule of the House: Paragraph 10 of the Code of Conduct: Paid advocacy.
196. Mr Byers initially told me no discussions had taken place with senior representatives of National Express. Subsequently he said that in late May or early June 2009 he met with Mr Richard Bowker who at the time was Chief Executive of National Express. Mr Byers’ evidence is that he has known Mr Bowker since 2001 when Mr Byers appointed him to head the Strategic Rail Authority, and they had remained in contact since. Mr Byers says that the meeting was informal and that the discussion ranged widely: the East Coast rail franchise formed only a small part of the discussion. The meeting with Mr Bowker was shortly before Mr Byers met Lord Adonis in June 2009. Mr Byers says that, in the course of a wide-ranging conversation with Lord Adonis discussing the general political scene, they discussed briefly the problems with the East Coast franchise and the concerns of his constituents, which Mr Byers says were the sole reason for the meeting with Lord Adonis. Mr Byers says that Mr Bowker had not at any stage asked him to intervene with the Minister on behalf of National Express and he did not do so. Mr Byers says that he was also one of a number of Members with constituencies on the route of the East Coast railway
160 WE 27, 00:02:20 161 WE 27, 00:02:20 162 WE 27, 00:03:25
50 Sir John Butterfill, Mr Stephen Byers, Ms Patricia Hewitt, Mr Geoff Hoon, Mr Richard Caborn and Mr Adam Ingram
line who received a telephone briefing from National Express about the discussions they were having with the Department of Transport about the franchise. He says that this simply took the form of a briefing for information purposes. He believes that the phone call happened after his meeting with Lord Adonis.
197. Mr Byers told the undercover reporter, “So between you and I, I then spoke to Andrew Adonis, the Transport Secretary, and said, ‘Andrew look, [National Express have] got a huge problem. Is there a way out of this?’ And then we, we sort of worked together ... you know you have to keep this very confidential yourself...He said, ‘We shouldn’t be involved in the detailed negotiation between his civil servants and National Express but we can give them a broad steer. So I will talk to you about where I want to go and you then Steve will talk to me about where National Express is prepared to go.’”
198. Mr Byers then said to the reporter, “So we basically got to a situation where we agreed with Andrew he would, he would publicly be very critical of National Express and talk about, ‘I’m going to strip you of the franchise’, and be very gung ho and we said we will live with that and we won’t challenge you in the court, provided you then let us out by December, by the end of the year and we can keep the other two franchises for a little longer. So, and that’s what we managed to do ....”163
Relevant rules of the House: Paragraph 10 of the Code of Conduct; Paid advocacy. Paragraph 15 of the Code of Conduct: Disrepute. Paragraph 16 of the Code of Conduct: Registration and Declaration
199. Mr Byers says that he did not have this discussion as told to the reporter. In June 2009 he had raised in discussion with Lord Adonis the future of the East Coast main line franchise with Lord Adonis in his role as a Member of Parliament trying his best to represent the concerns and interests of his then constituents. He says he was not putting forward a case on behalf of National Express.
200. On 22 March 2010, Lord Adonis told the House of Lords that he had a brief conversation with Mr Byers in June 2009 about the East Coast main line and the situation then facing National Express. He said that there was no truth in the suggestion that Mr Byers came to any arrangement with him about any matter relating to National Express, or that National Express was allowed to avoid any of its rail contract obligations. vii. Rio Tinto
201. Mr Byers told the undercover reporter: “I do a bit of work for Rio Tinto, but that’s been in Kazakhstan ... For example with Rio Tinto, um, one of the things I was doing with them ... I know someone who’s very close to the crown prince in the UAE, and he, we were talking to him about whether they would use one of the, one of the, the big Abu Dhabi funds to invest in the Rio Tinto project.”164
Relevant rule of the House: Paragraph 16 of the Code of Conduct: Registration and Declaration
163 WE 27, 00:03:28 164 WE 27, 00:02:27
Sir John Butterfill, Mr Stephen Byers, Ms Patricia Hewitt, Mr Geoff Hoon, Mr Richard Caborn and Mr Adam Ingram 51
202. Mr Byers says he has not done work for Rio Tinto. viii. Ofwat
203. Mr Byers told the undercover reporter: “I chair this water services company. Every five years the regulator Ofwat comes up with a five-year investment programme … So... I approached … Hilary Benn, who was dealing with it as the Minister. He said, ‘Well the best way is to talk to the regulator’, which I did, and then talk to the relevant civil servants, which I did, and we just got an announcement just before Christmas, which actually is pretty good in terms of levels of investment … It certainly benefited my guys because they got a high-level investment over the next, over the five years.”165
Relevant rules of the House: Paragraph 10 of the Code of Conduct: Paid advocacy. Paragraph 15 of the Code of Conduct: Disrepute. Paragraph 16 of the Code of Conduct: Registration and Declaration
204. Mr Byers has told me that he had no discussions or contact at all on water matters with Hilary Benn, or with his officials or with Ofwat. He has said that he made no approaches to any of those mentioned.
ix. Mediating in a dispute
205. Mr Byers told the undercover reporter: “I do quite a lot of sort of almost, mediation to resolve disputes between companies and so on ... there’s a big pipeline going from Azerbaijan to Turkey, and BP had a dispute with the contractors ... in the end I just sat down for three days with them ...”166
Relevant rule of the House: Paragraph 16 of the Code of Conduct: Registration and Declaration
206. Mr Byers says that the dispute in Turkey concerned a pipeline for which Consolidated Contractors International (CCI) was the major contractor, and BP were the lead client. He says that he assisted the Consolidated Contractors team in the negotiations to achieve a settlement; this was part of his declared work for CCI and he was not paid a separate fee. Mr Byers registered his role with CCI in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.
x. Influencing manifesto implementation
207. Mr Byers told the undercover reporter that “We go through the manifesto, we say, ‘right if it’s a water company, we say there is a real problem here … we should go and talk to a civil servant about how they are going to recommend that is done.’ … You’ll either get it delayed … basically you want to convince a civil servant that it is totally impractical, you know, high risk.” 167
165 WE 27, 00:03:35 166 WE 27, 00:03:50 167 WE 27, 00:04:18
52 Sir John Butterfill, Mr Stephen Byers, Ms Patricia Hewitt, Mr Geoff Hoon, Mr Richard Caborn and Mr Adam Ingram
Relevant rules of the House: Paragraph 10 of the Code of Conduct: Paid advocacy. Paragraph 15 of the Code of Conduct: Disrepute.
208. Mr Byers says that this is not an accurate statement in respect of any General Election.
xi. Use of House facilities
209. Mr Byers suggested to the undercover reporter, in the context of the alleged employers coming over from the United States, that “We can meet over in Westminster, you can come along as well, we can have a drink in one of the nice places there ... the Americans love it by the way.”168
Relevant rules of the House: Paragraph 14 of the Code of Conduct; page 44 of the May 2008 edition of the Members’ Handbook; general principles relating to the use of House facilities.
210. The Director of Catering and Retail Services says that there are no specific regulations relating to the use of catering facilities in the House of Commons. However, the general principles and codes of conduct communicated to Members through various documents and channels apply equally to their conduct in using the refreshment facilities as they do to the use of other House facilities. The 2010 Members’ Handbook for the current Parliament contains a rule saying that House facilities should not be used for “private business activity”. The 2008 Members’ Handbook, which applied at the time of Mr Byers’ conversation, says that Members “may entertain guests” in most Refreshment Department venues.
211. Mr Byers accepts that he gave the impression that he would use the House for private business discussion, but was unaware of any rule relating to the type of guest that a Member can invite to the House. xii. Cab for Hire
212. Mr Byers told the undercover reporter, after some discussion about possible work for Anderson Perry: “But no I’d be very interested, I mean I, I’d be, because it’s not something I sort of, I, I get sort of, I’m a bit like a sort of cab for hire I suppose at the moment ...”169
Relevant rule of the House: Paragraph 15 of the Code of Conduct: Disrepute
213. Mr Byers says that he was discussing the situation he would be in once he had left Parliament. Mr Byers says that the phrase, “I’m a bit like a sort of cab for hire”, is one that he should not have used. He says that in a clumsy way he was trying to indicate that on leaving the House he would not be seeking a single, full time job but would be looking for a number of different employment opportunities, to add to the three positions he already held. xiii. Exaggerated or untrue statements
168 WE 27, 00:04:45 169 WE 27, 00:04:45
Sir John Butterfill, Mr Stephen Byers, Ms Patricia Hewitt, Mr Geoff Hoon, Mr Richard Caborn and Mr Adam Ingram 53
214. After the meeting with the undercover reporter, Mr Byers sent a series of e-mails to her in which he made a number of statements about what he had told her. On 24 February, the day after the meeting, he told her: “I’m afraid I completely over-stated the part I have played in trying to secure changes to the way in which government deals with issues. In reality I have not been engaged in lobbying Ministers here in the UK. My statements yesterday would have given the opposite impression and I would like to take this opportunity to withdraw them. Given my lack of experience in this area it may well be the case that I’m not the appropriate person to carry out the work you are thinking of.”
215. On 25 February Mr Byers told the reporter: “I have not spoken to Andrew Adonis, Hilary Benn or Peter Mandelson about the matters I mentioned.”
216. On 11 March Mr Byers told the reporter: “To be totally open with you this is an aspect of public affairs work that I don’t feel comfortable about and is not something I would wish to be part of. I would therefore be grateful if you could withdraw my name from consideration as an Advisory Board member ...”
Relevant rule of the House: Paragraph 15 of the Code of Conduct: Disrepute
217. Mr Byers accepts that he totally exaggerated his experience in lobbying on behalf of commercial interests. His comments were made at what he had been told was a private and confidential discussion about his employment plans when he ceased to be a Member. He accepts that his overstatements—which he took immediate steps to clarify and withdraw— were made in order to impress a prospective future employer. Mr Byers has offered his sincere and unreserved apologies to the House. He says he was wrong to have made the statements and is sorry for having done so. xiv. Telling the undercover reporter that he charged £3,000 to £5,000 a day, or sometimes more, for his services
218. Mr Byers told the undercover reporter, who asked about his fees: “at the moment my sort of scale is between, it varies, but it’s, it’s usually between three and five thousand a day, that’s the sort of wage ... I mean sometimes I can charge more, but that’s, I mean, I was just, you know, that’s the rate, that’s the range”.170
Relevant rule of the House: Paragraph 16 of the Code of Conduct: Registration and Declaration
219. Mr Byers says that £3,000 to £5,000 a day, or sometimes more, was the level of fee he charged when making speeches to commercial organisations. These were always declared in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. Mr Byers says that for consultancy and advisory services he charged a lower fee, which was also always declared in the Register. Mr Byers says that he saw the meeting with the undercover reporter as the beginning of a negotiation to establish a fee for work to be carried out when he was no longer a Member.
170 WE 27, 00:03:58
54 Sir John Butterfill, Mr Stephen Byers, Ms Patricia Hewitt, Mr Geoff Hoon, Mr Richard Caborn and Mr Adam Ingram
Rt Hon Patricia Hewitt: My Inquiries 220. I wrote to Ms Hewitt on 23 March.171 I said that since I had decided to accept Ms Greening’s complaint, I did not need to conduct my inquiry on the basis of the self-referral she had sent me with her e-mail of 22 March.172 I asked Ms Hewitt to give me a full account of the circumstances in which she had come to be interviewed by someone who turned out to be a journalist. I also asked Ms Hewitt to confirm whether, as reported:
x she had said that it was “very do-able” to put her business clients in touch with a Minister, but “you have to be … quite careful about … how you do it.”173 I asked Ms Hewitt what she had meant to imply by that;
x she had suggested five ways for her client to meet a Minister.174 I asked her whether she had advised any outside body or private company to lobby in any of these ways and in what circumstances;
x she had put Partnerships in Care (PiC) in touch with those working on Lord Bradley’s inquiry, to enable PiC to give evidence to that inquiry and for Lord Bradley to visit one of PiC’s establishments. I asked her, if that was true, how it had come about and how she had achieved it and why it had been necessary;
x she had persuaded the Chairman of the Health and Criminal Justice National Advocacy Group to invite PiC to join the Advocacy Group. I asked her, if that was true, how she had achieved this;
x PiC was her client. I asked her, if so, what remuneration she had received from PiC or indirectly from Cinven,175 and for what services;
x she had responded “Exactly” to the interviewer’s statement that she had got PiC “into the system … with a view to getting further contracts, presumably, and being able to expand their work”;176 and that
x she had spoken to both officials and Ministers about changing a carbon reduction regulation “in fact a way as to help Cinven...” That change helped Cinven and other private equity companies.177 I asked her, if that was true, how she had achieved this.
221. I also asked Ms Hewitt to confirm whether she had at any time been paid £3,000 a day for consultancy or other services, and if so, by whom and whether she had registered these payments; what subsequent communications she or her legal advisers had had with the reporters; whether, if any of the allegations were true, she considered she had an obligation to make a Register entry or declaration, or both, in respect of any financial interest she had
171 WE 57 172 WE 5 173 WE 60, 00:55:04 174 WE 60, 00:55:04 175 PiC was a subsidiary of Cinven. 176 WE 60, 00:46:24 177 WE 60, 00:47:44
Sir John Butterfill, Mr Stephen Byers, Ms Patricia Hewitt, Mr Geoff Hoon, Mr Richard Caborn and Mr Adam Ingram 55 in these alleged activities; and why, if any of what she had said was untrue, she had spoken as she had done. Finally, I told Ms Hewitt that I was inviting the Channel 4 programme makers to let me have any unbroadcast parts of her interview.
222. Ms Hewitt e-mailed me on 7 April suggesting that it would be more convenient if she answered my questions of 23 March along with queries that might arise from the unbroadcast material when it arrived, and I agreed to her request.178
223. I did not continue with my inquiry during the Dissolution of the House. After the new Parliament had assembled on 18 May, I resumed my inquiry. On 27 May I received the certified transcripts of Ms Hewitt’s conversations with the undercover reporter. I wrote to Ms Hewitt on 2 June, attaching the transcripts.179 I asked her to confirm her remunerated directorships and other employment at the time of the interview, and that each had been registered in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests in accordance with the rules.
224. I noted that according to the transcript Ms Hewitt had described how she had been able to introduce PiC to NHS managers and senior Department of Health officials. I asked Ms Hewitt to confirm this and let me know whether on each occasion she had declared to these officials her work with Cinven and the relationship between PiC and Cinven.
225. I referred Ms Hewitt to the transcript of her description of her conversations with officials and Ministers about the Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC) regulations and her statement that she had kept talking to officials because of the regulations’ effect on private equity firms.180 I asked her whether she had declared her interest as a senior adviser to Cinven on each occasion when she had conducted these meetings.
226. I noted that, during the conversation with Claire Webster, Ms Hewitt had said, “So if you’ve got a client who needs a particular regulation removed, then we can often package that up in a way that will give the Minister a win, and with a new Government, committed to less regulation, that’s an attractive argument to make.”181 I asked Ms Hewitt whether, as implied, she had undertaken such actions when she was a Member of Parliament, whether she had done so in support of any of the companies which remunerated her, and, if so, whether she had declared her interest to the Minister or officials whom she had contacted.
227. I said that Ms Hewitt had stated, in relation to civil servants, that she made a point of being in touch and, that “you need just to have a sort of eye to propriety and all of that … But I mean I have regular lunches and coffees and you know we’re all mates really.”182 I asked Ms Hewitt whether she had indeed had such contacts with civil servants, if so, whether they had covered matters of interest to her clients; and, if so, whether she had declared her interest during those occasions.
228. I also noted that she had described actions which she implied she had taken to change a directive or legislation, and asked Ms Hewitt to confirm that she did take such action
178 Not included in the written evidence 179 WE 58, WE 59, WE 60 180 WE 60, 00:47:44 181 WE 60, 00:52:30 182 WE 60, 00:17:15
56 Sir John Butterfill, Mr Stephen Byers, Ms Patricia Hewitt, Mr Geoff Hoon, Mr Richard Caborn and Mr Adam Ingram
when she was a Member of Parliament. I also asked whether, as implied, she had done so on behalf of a client, and, if so, whether she had declared her interest.
229. Finally, I asked Ms Hewitt to confirm the date of the interview.
230. Ms Hewitt responded to my letters of 23 March183 and 2 June184 on 27 June. 185 She told me that she would like to emphasise firstly that, as was apparent from the transcript, the context of her meeting with Claire Webster was her availability and interest in taking on work after she had ceased to be a Member of Parliament. Her intention to stand down from Parliament had already been announced in June 2009. Secondly, as was also apparent from the transcript, she strongly endorsed the statement in the relevant guidelines that “it is in the public interest that former Ministers with experience in government should be able to move into business or into other areas of public life ... provided there is no cause for any suspicion of impropriety.”186
231. I noted from the transcript of the initial telephone conversation187 that the reporter said that she was looking to produce a board to help Anderson Perry break into the UK market and to “kind of advise us and our companies” on strategy. She wanted to know whether it was the kind of thing Ms Hewitt might be interested in getting involved in. Ms Hewitt replied “Well in principle yes” and explained that she already did some advisory work for the Barclays Capital Asian Pacific Advisory Board, for Cinven and Alliance Boots, as well as being a senior non-executive director for BT. The reporter explained that Anderson Perry undertook bespoke consultancy in the defence, construction, transport and health sectors; and that they already had clients in the US and the Middle East. Ms Hewitt then accepted the reporter’s invitation to “drop in” at their office in St James’s for a cup of coffee, to “have a chat about it and to see if this is the kind of thing you might be interested in doing.”She asked for background information to be sent to her private e-mail address in the meantime.
232. Ms Hewitt said that she believed the transcript of this telephone conversation spoke for itself. She added that over the last year, and particularly since she had announced she was standing down from Parliament, she had received a number of approaches from businesses, consultancies and recruitment firms about possible advisory or non-executive positions. So there had been nothing unusual about the Anderson Perry approach. She believed that there would be no harm in having a preliminary meeting, and decided that she would only carry out the usual due diligence on the company and its clients if anything came of the initial conversation. She was therefore only prepared for an informal chat when she met Claire Webster.
233. Ms Hewitt described her arrival at Anderson Perry’s offices for the meeting on 9 March. She said of the arrangements: “None of this was out of the ordinary and I had no reason to suspect either that she was a journalist or that there were hidden cameras in the room.”
183 WE 57 184 WE 58 185 WE 61 186 From the Guidelines issued by the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments. See paragraph 40 above. 187 WE 59
Sir John Butterfill, Mr Stephen Byers, Ms Patricia Hewitt, Mr Geoff Hoon, Mr Richard Caborn and Mr Adam Ingram 57
234. Ms Hewitt responded to my questions, in my letter of 23 March,188 about what she was reported to have said during the meeting. First she responded to my query about her reported statement that it was “very do-able” to put business clients in touch with a Minister but “you have to be ...quite careful about ...how you do it”.189 She said that it was “highly desirable” that a Minister should have a dialogue or contact with businesses in the sector for which they had responsibility, and “in an appropriate case I would not hesitate to do my best to initiate a dialogue between a Minister and such a business. In any case where I was being paid as an adviser, however, I would always declare my interest to the Minister (or official) at the start of the conversation.” By stating that a client should be “quite careful about how you do it” she had been referring to possible problems such as not acting improperly or putting the Minister in an embarrassing position (for example by trying to interfere in a procurement or planning process). Ms Hewitt said she was also referring to not going about it in the wrong way (e.g. by improperly getting an appointment at the Minister’s constituency surgery) and not simply relying on writing to the Department (since the Minister might never see the letter). She also said that she was referring to “not asking an MP to do anything that would breach the Code of Conduct (e.g. an MP asking the Minister for something that would benefit only one company—and wasn’t therefore for the public good)”.
235. Ms Hewitt said that she had always been very conscious of the need to be careful herself if she were approaching a Minister on an issue where she had a financial interest, in particular by declaring her interest immediately and ensuring that she was not seeking to benefit only one organisation.
236. Ms Hewitt then responded to my question about her reported suggestion that she had suggested five ways for her client to meet a Minister and also my question as to whether she had advised any outside body or private company to lobby in any of these ways.190 She said that if a company or voluntary organisation had a matter of legitimate concern that it wished to bring to the attention of a Minister, then the five suggestions she had made in the meeting were all normal and proper ways that any competent public affairs executive would use to approach a Minister. As a constituency MP, she had sometimes advised voluntary organisations and businesses in Leicester on how to make their views known, but she was never paid by such an organisation for that advice.
237. In response to my question about her suggestion that she had put PiC in touch with those working on Lord Bradley’s inquiry, to enable PiC to give evidence to that inquiry and for Lord Bradley to visit one of PiC’s establishments, Ms Hewitt said that she had taken the view that it was unfortunate that the Bradley Inquiry appeared to be talking more to the public than the private sector, and particularly so since PiC had in fact submitted its own evidence to the Inquiry, quite independent of any input on her part. Ms Hewitt said that
188 WE 57 189 WE 60, 00:55:04 190 When asked by the undercover reporter (WE 60, 00:54:50) about arranging for her clients to see Ministers, Ms Hewitt made a number of suggestions. She said:”when I was Business Secretary, I would cheerfully accept hospitality invitations, for instance.” Later she said that if Rt Hon David Cameron were to be elected “he might well decide, because of all this sleaze and expenses stuff to frown on hospitality”. Ms Hewitt also said of ways for clients to see Ministers: “the think tank and the seminar route I think is a very good one and an amenable one.” On the same issue she also said that: “sponsorship of events at party conference... is a classic one” and “if it’s at cabinet level, you really need to talk to the special advisers”. Ms Hewitt also said that:“the other one that can be useful, but may be less appropriate for your clients is the constituency route.”
58 Sir John Butterfill, Mr Stephen Byers, Ms Patricia Hewitt, Mr Geoff Hoon, Mr Richard Caborn and Mr Adam Ingram
she had at least one conversation with Lord Bradley regarding his Inquiry into the treatment of prisoners with mental health problems. She did not remember when that was, but it was before he drew up his report. “When I spoke to Lord Bradley I made it absolutely clear that I worked as an adviser to Cinven, the owners of PiC, and that PiC was an excellent provider of specialist mental health services, funded by the NHS. I declared my interest partly bearing in mind paragraphs 12191 and 16192 of the Code of Conduct for MPs, but also because I would never have a conversation under false pretences.” In fact, she said, Lord Bradley had been neither a Minister nor a servant of the Crown when he undertook his Inquiry, but that did not affect her attitude towards the conversation.
238. Ms Hewitt said that she recalled that she had explained to Lord Bradley why she felt that the independent sector could make a valuable contribution to his Inquiry and “I suggested that he should meet or visit PiC so that he could see their work for himself.” She said she remembered also telling him that PiC had submitted evidence to his Inquiry, but that she had not been sure whether he (Lord Bradley) had personally seen it. Ms Hewitt said she did not remember whether or not Lord Bradley did in fact visit PiC—“when I said ‘I think’ to ‘Ms Webster’, that reflected my lack of clear recollection on this point.” Ms Hewitt said that the views she had expressed to Lord Bradley, although they had only been expressed after she had made clear to him that she was employed by Cinven, “were views that I firmly believe to be in the public interest. The Government has for many years pursued a policy of encouraging diverse providers to offer NHS services. As Health Secretary, I strongly believed that NHS patients and commissioners should be able to get the best services, whether from the public, private or not-for-profit sectors, and I remain of that view today. But I also knew that parts of the NHS did not support that policy, with the result that there is not always a ‘level playing field’ for independent sector providers.”
239. In response to my question whether she had persuaded the Chairman of the Health and Criminal Justice National Advocacy Group to invite PiC to join the Advocacy Group, Ms Hewitt said that she had not claimed to Ms Webster to have persuaded the Chairman of the Health and Criminal Justice Programme Board to invite PiC to join the Advocacy Group. Ms Hewitt noted that there were in fact two separate bodies; PiC was a member of the National Advocacy Group. She quoted the transcript as stating that she was able to persuade the chairman of that taskforce that there would be a private sector, independent sector representative on that taskforce and because Partnerships in Care had been the most active it was their person who was then put on the taskforce.193
240. Ms Hewitt said that she had indeed raised the issue of the independent sector’s involvement in mental health provision with the Department of Health. She attached with her letter to me the official Departmental note of the meeting held on 21 May 2009.194 The note said that PiC “feel that there is a lot of capacity within the independent sector that is currently under-utilised as Commissioners are not involving the independent sector in this building capacity. They claim that MH Trusts and FTs are building their own rather than putting out to tender so that the independent sector can get involved.” The note also said
191 See paragraph 22 above. 192 See paragraph 26 above. 193 WE 60, 00:45:25 194 WE 65
Sir John Butterfill, Mr Stephen Byers, Ms Patricia Hewitt, Mr Geoff Hoon, Mr Richard Caborn and Mr Adam Ingram 59 that “PiC are mainly involved in medium secure mental health provision. Patricia Hewitt explained that she is a paid adviser to Cinven (parent company of PiC)”. Ms Hewitt told me that from this it could be seen that she made her financial interest in Cinven, the owners of PiC, absolutely clear and that “the issues raised were ones of general concern and of public interest.” Ms Hewitt said that an internal Departmental investigation, carried out immediately after the “Dispatches” programme and revealed in response to a Freedom of Information request, confirmed that all relevant officials were fully aware of her role as paid consultant to PiC and that no breach of the Ministerial Code or any other impropriety had taken place.195
241. On my question whether PiC was her client, and, if so, what remuneration she had received from PiC or indirectly from Cinven, and for what services, Ms Hewitt said that, as published in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, she had been appointed a senior adviser to Cinven, which owned PiC, from 1 January 2008 at an annual fee of £60,000, with an expectation of around 18 days’ work. The appointment had been renewed from 1 January 2009 at the same fee, with an expectation of around 16 days’ work. After July 2009, in accordance with the new rules on registration, she had declared each of the quarterly payments she had received from Cinven—£15,000 plus VAT for approximately 30 hours’ work over three months.
242. Ms Hewitt said that, towards the end of 2009, she had agreed with PiC that less time would be needed in the New Year, with her fee correspondingly reduced. Her final entry in the Register, published on 12 April 2010, included the payment of £6,250 plus VAT for approximately 15 hours’ work between January and March 2010.
243. Ms Hewitt said that she had advised Cinven on policy-related issues, particularly in relation to healthcare and the proposed European regulation of private equity. “Without wishing to labour the point, in my view advising a reputable business as to how present its case effectively cannot conceivably be regarded as a breach of the Code of Conduct.” In this context, Ms Hewitt said that the discussions relating to Cinven and PiC to which she had referred did not in any way constitute paid advocacy as prohibited by the Code of Conduct and the Resolution of the House as modified in 2002. She noted that the Guide to the Rules, quoting from the Guidelines from the Committee on Standards and Privileges, said that “advocacy is prohibited which seeks to confer benefit exclusively upon a body (or individual) outside Parliament, from which the Member has received, is receiving, or expects to receive a financial benefit”.196 Ms Hewitt said that she had never sought to “confer benefit exclusively upon a body” from which she had received a financial benefit. She said that she had declared her financial interests both publicly in the Register and privately in every relevant conversation with a Minister, a departmental official or others.
244. Ms Hewitt also replied to my observation that she had responded “Exactly” to the interviewer’s statement that she had got PiC “into the system ... with a view to getting further contracts, presumably, and being able to expand their work”.197 Ms Hewitt said that she had simply been agreeing with “the obvious proposition” that if the independent sector was to be included in NHS tenders, then PiC, like other private organisations, would seek
195 WE 62 196 See paragraph 36 above. 197 WE 60, 00:46:24
60 Sir John Butterfill, Mr Stephen Byers, Ms Patricia Hewitt, Mr Geoff Hoon, Mr Richard Caborn and Mr Adam Ingram
to tender for “further contracts”, which would of course be entirely a matter for the NHS commissioning authorities. Ms Hewitt told me that she had not lobbied, nor would she lobby, on behalf of PiC to obtain such a contract; nor indeed have Cinven or PiC ever suggested that she should. She said that her concern, as the transcript made clear, was simply to secure a level playing field for public, private and not-for-profit sector providers, in line with government policy and her own beliefs.
245. On the question of whether she had spoken to both officials and Ministers about changing a carbon reduction regulation that helped Cinven and other private equity companies, Ms Hewitt said that, from discussions with Cinven, it had been apparent that the proposed carbon reduction regulations would impact in a discriminatory manner on companies owned by a private equity fund. In the interview with Ms Webster Ms Hewitt said that she had referred to this as “a wrinkle” and she had explained why it had appeared to be irrational and counter-productive.198 Ms Hewitt said that she had talked to the relevant Minister, Ms Joan Ruddock MP, about this issue. Ms Hewitt said that she had begun the conversation by explaining her employment with Cinven, a private equity firm, and she had stressed that this was a point of general concern, not specific to one company. This conversation had been, she recalled, followed up by a brief exchange of e-mails.
246. In response to my question whether she had at any time been paid £3,000 a day for consultancy or other services and if so, by whom, and whether she had registered these payments, Ms Hewitt noted that from July 2009 MPs had been required to register each external payment, with details of the organisation making the payment, services provided and hours worked. She said that the payments that she had received and hours worked were therefore already a matter of public record and recorded on the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. As was apparent from the transcript, the figure of about £3000 per day, which was in respect of her services to Cinven, had been arrived at on the basis of dividing the total annual fee of £60,000 by 18.
247. Ms Hewitt also attached copies of some communications which she or her legal advisers had had with the programme’s producers subsequent to the interviews but before the programme was broadcast. These made similar points to the ones she was made to me.199
248. Ms Hewitt also answered my question whether, if any of the allegations were true, she had considered that she had an obligation to make a Register entry or declaration, or both, in respect of any financial interest that she had in these alleged activities. “I can confirm that I made a full disclosure of the details of my involvement in all the companies concerned, including details of each external payment since July 2009, in the Register of Members’ [Financial] Interests.”
249. Ms Hewitt said that, whilst this had been an informal meeting, she believed that everything she had said to Ms Webster had given a fair representation of work she had done.
198 WE 60, 00:46:51 199 Not included in the written evidence.
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250. Ms Hewitt also gave her responses to the questions in my letter of 2 June.200 In answer to my question about remunerated directorships and employment at the time of the interview, and whether they had been registered in accordance with the rules, she stated that all four of her appointments—namely, non-executive director, BT Group plc; senior adviser, Cinven; special consultant, Alliance Boots; and member, Barclays Asia Pacific Advisory Committee—were properly registered in accordance with the rules. Ms Hewitt said that in respect of the first three she had been required to seek, and had duly obtained, the approval of the independent Advisory Committee on Business Appointments.
251. As to whether the relationship between Cinven and PiC, and her work involving both, had been declared to NHS managers and Department of Health officials on each occasion, she referred me to the official Departmental minute of the meeting held on 21 May 2009.201 She said that it would be seen from this minute that she had made her financial interest in Cinven, the owners of PiC, “absolutely clear” and that the issues raised had been ones “of general concern and of public interest”. She referred to the internal Departmental investigation, carried out in response to a Freedom of Information request, which had subsequently confirmed that all relevant officials “were fully aware of [Ms Hewitt’s] role as paid consultant to Partnerships in Care” and that “no breach of the Ministerial Code or any other impropriety had taken place”. 202
252. Ms Hewitt said that she had declared her interest as senior adviser to Cinven at the beginning of her conversation with a Minister (Ms Joan Ruddock MP) about the effect of CRC regulations on private equity firms.
253. In response to my question whether she had helped to get a regulation removed on behalf of a company, and whether on such occasion or occasions she had declared her interest to the Minister or officials concerned,203 Ms Hewitt said that, the transcript made clear that she did not say that she had helped to remove regulations on behalf of a company. In fact, Ms Hewitt said, Ms Webster had asked “if the Conservatives win the next election, how much will that affect the kind of advice you would be able to give the board?” Ms Hewitt said that her answer had simply dealt with that possible future situation. She was not describing any action she had taken previously.204
254. On the question whether it was true that she had regular lunches and coffees with civil servants, Ms Hewitt said that, about once a month, she would have lunch or coffee with such civil servants. On any such occasion, if the discussion touched on matters affecting her clients, Ms Hewitt said that she always drew attention to her interest.
255. Ms Hewitt also responded to my question as to whether she had ever taken action on behalf of a client with a view to changing a directive or legislation whilst a Member of Parliament, and if so, whether she had declared an interest.205 She said that she was not describing any action that she had taken as a Member of Parliament. “Instead, I was
200 WE 58 201 WE 65 202 WE 62 203 WE 58 204 WE 60, 00:50:48 205 WE 58
62 Sir John Butterfill, Mr Stephen Byers, Ms Patricia Hewitt, Mr Geoff Hoon, Mr Richard Caborn and Mr Adam Ingram
indicating the most effective way in which a case could be presented with a view to changing a proposed directive or regulation. I did so specifically in response to the question raised by ‘Ms Webster’ about how best to change or influence various pieces of legislation that could arise ‘sometime in the future’ and that might have ‘a massive impact on our client’.” Both the question and her answer related to what might happen after she had ceased to be a Member of Parliament. Ms Hewitt also confirmed that the interview with Claire Webster had taken place on 9 March 2009.
256. In conclusion, Ms Hewitt said that she believed that she had carefully followed the Parliamentary and Ministerial Codes and guidelines, including by declaring her private interests both in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests and in every relevant conversation. “I have only taken on such appointments for companies with which I am happy to be associated and that would not compromise the time needed to fulfil my Parliamentary and constituency duties. My private appointments have been approved, where appropriate, by the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments.”
257. The letter of 24 May 2010 from the Department of Health to a Freedom of Information applicant,206 a copy of which was attached to Ms Hewitt’s letter of 27 June 2010,207 described an internal investigation which had been undertaken within the Department of Health relating to Ms Hewitt’s interaction with the Department on behalf of PiC. The letter said that this investigation had been instigated by the Permanent Secretary at the Department of Health as head of Department, and conducted by staff in his office. This had included conversations with Ministerial offices and a search of correspondence relating to Ms Hewitt and PiC. This had occurred on 22 March 2010. As part of these investigations, the letter said that policy colleagues in the Department of Health had also been contacted, and that this was also detailed in the documents.208
258. Also attached was a timeline of PiC’s involvement in the review and the Advocacy Group, which detailed correspondence with the CBI about the best method of addressing the private provider perspective.209 This showed that the CBI contacted Lord Bradley in February 2008 regarding involvement in the review, and that the CBI had been told on his behalf that, having been approached by several companies that provided services in this area, he would prefer not to meet each individually. The timeline noted that in May 2008 the CBI stated that they would canvas interest in CBI members and that in June 2008 the CBI confirmed that they would attend a meeting in the Department of Health along with PiC on 2 July 2008.
259. The Department’s letter said that from this it had been established that the then Minister for Care Services, Mr Phil Hope MP, had held one meeting with Patricia Hewitt and PiC on 21 May 2009 to discuss high secure services and wider mental health issues.210 The letter said that this meeting had been recorded on the register of meetings with external parties and published in the usual way. Policy officials and the Minister for Care
206 WE 62 207 WE 61 208 WE 62 209 WE 63 210 A Department of Health note of the 21 May meeting is at WE 65.
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Services had been fully aware of Patricia Hewitt’s role as a paid consultant to PiC both before and during the meeting.
260. The letter said that both the Permanent Secretary at the Department of Health and officials from the Cabinet Office had been satisfied that there had been no improper influence on Government policy and decisions. It said that their conclusion had been that no breach of the Ministerial Code, or any other impropriety, had taken place. PiC had raised the prospect of independent sector representation with respect to the National Advisory Group being set up on the implementation of the Lord Bradley review. This was after the Written Ministerial Statement of 30 April 2009 by Rt Hon David Hanson MP, then the Minister of State for Justice, which had invited comment from all parties, and had been the only invitation made. The letter said that this had been an open invitation for expressions of interest in membership of the Advisory Group. The Department of Health’s letter of 24 May explained that, to be as inclusive as possible, all applications for membership of the group, including the application from PiC, were accepted. It concluded, “In no sense, therefore, could Patricia Hewitt’s involvement be said to have influenced the membership of the National Advisory Group.”
261. I wrote to Ms Hewitt on 1 July, seeking her help on some matters which arose from her response of 27 June.211 I said that I had noted her response to what she had said about the five ways to meet a Minister. I noted that sometimes she had advised businesses and other organisations in her constituency on how to make their views known, but had not been paid for this. I said that I was not sure, however, whether the implication was that she had not given advice to any of the companies or organisations which had employed her about meeting a Minister in any of these ways. I said that this had been the question I had asked in my letter of 23 March and it would be most helpful if she could either confirm that she had not done this or, if she had, what advice she had given to which of the companies employing her and whether, in any case where it was necessary, she had declared her interest to the relevant Minister or officials.
262. I said I noted from the Department’s timeline released under the FOI212 that there was no reference to her conversation or meeting with Lord Bradley, but that there was a reference to the CBI confirming that they and PiC would meet Lord Bradley, which they had done on 2 July 2008. I asked Ms Hewitt whether she had had any contacts with the CBI on these matters either before or after this meeting in relation to the Bradley review and, if so, what they had been.
263. I told Ms Hewitt that I noted that she had told the undercover reporter: “So I was able to get them, basically, in front of Bradley”.213 I asked Ms Hewitt whether that was an accurate representation of the outcome of her work in relation to the Bradley review in as much as it affected PiC.
264. In relation to the Health and Criminal Justice National Advisory Group, I noted that Ms Hewitt considered that she had not persuaded the Chairman to invite PiC to join the group, on the basis (as I understood it) that she had persuaded him that there could be an
211 WE 61 212 WE 63 213 WE 60, 00:44:44
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independent representative on that group and PiC had been chosen because they were the most active in the field. I said that it would appear from the evidence Ms Hewitt had given, however, that she had met the then Minister, Mr Phil Hope MP on 21 May 2009 with senior PiC representatives and DOH officials, but as far as I could see, she did not meet the Chairman of the group. I asked Ms Hewitt whether or not she had met or spoken to the Chairman as her letter implied. I also asked Ms Hewitt for a copy, if one was available, of any paper she had submitted to the Minister to follow up the 21 May meeting. 214
265. I noted that the timeline also included with Ms Hewitt’s evidence suggested that the Chief Executive of PiC had written to nominate himself to the Group and that this had subsequently been accepted by the Department.215 I asked Ms Hewitt whether she had been aware of PiC’s letters of May 2009 and 15 July 2009 in which PiC nominated itself for the “NAG” (what I presumed was a reference to the National Advisory Group) and whether she had advised PiC to write as they did.
266. Also in relation to PiC’s relationship to the Advisory Group, I noted that Ms Hewitt had said to the undercover reporter that: “It’s now kind of over to them because, even though I will keep a watching brief them for as long as is needed, but basically I’ve kind of got them into the system, where they can build the relationships, they can make the arguments.”216 I asked Ms Hewitt whether that was an accurate summary of the assistance she had given to PiC—that basically she had got them into the system.
267. On carbon reduction regulation, I asked Ms Hewitt whether she still had copies of the e-mails, to which she had referred, following up her meeting with Ms Ruddock. I also asked Ms Hewitt if she could let me know which other private health providers were owned by private equity funds.
268. I noted that Ms Hewitt had told the undercover reporter that she had spoken both to officials and Ministers about the carbon reduction regulations, and that she had identified a meeting with a Minister. I said that I saw from Ms Hewitt’s letter of 27 June217 that she had not spoken to officials. I asked her therefore to confirm that in this respect the statement that she gave the undercover reporter was inaccurate.
269. I noted that Ms Hewitt had had lunch or coffee with civil servants about once a month and that she had always drawn attention to her interests if discussions touched on matters affecting her clients. I asked Ms Hewitt, from her recollection, how often the conversation had touched on such matters and what they had been. I also asked her to identify the civil servants with whom she had had coffee or lunch and where the discussions of interest affecting her clients had taken place.
270. I wrote to Lord Bradley on 1 July, noting that Ms Hewitt had told the undercover reporter that she had been “able to get them [Partnerships in Care], basically, in front of Bradley”.218 I summarised the evidence I had received from Ms Hewitt about her contacts
214 The note of the meeting had said that Ms Hewitt would “submit a note outlining the points she has raised for the National Programme Board to consider.” 215 WE 63 216 WE 60, 00:46:09 217 WE 61 218 WE 60, 00:44:44
Sir John Butterfill, Mr Stephen Byers, Ms Patricia Hewitt, Mr Geoff Hoon, Mr Richard Caborn and Mr Adam Ingram 65 with Lord Bradley before he had drawn up his report, and asked Lord Bradley if he could confirm or otherwise modify Ms Hewitt’s evidence to me in relation to this matter. I also asked Lord Bradley to let me know the date of Ms Hewitt’s meeting or meetings with him, and whether he had in fact visited PiC or one of its services, or had had a meeting with PiC and if so, the dates.
271. I also asked Lord Bradley to confirm the sequence set out in the timeline produced by the Department of Health,219 and whether Ms Hewitt’s meeting with him had had any influence on his meeting with the CBI and PiC on 2 July 2008, and, if so, whether to the best of his knowledge it had been facilitated by Ms Hewitt.
272. Lord Bradley wrote to me on 28 July.220 He told me that he had had one telephone conversation with Ms Hewitt about his review, on 20 May 2008, and that she had informed him that she was an adviser to PiC. He said that it had “certainly not” been the case that this telephone conversation had enabled PiC to have particular access to his independent review. Lord Bradley said that, following the announcement of his review on 4 December 2007 there had been a general call for evidence from all interested parties including the private sector. He said that a written submission had been received from PiC on 20 March 2008. His review team had also contacted the CBI on 2 May 2008 about “the best method of addressing the private providers’ perspective and managing the many requests to meet the private sector.” As a result, the CBI had nominated PiC to represent the private sector and he had met both organisations together on 2 July 2008. “The telephone call with Patricia Hewitt therefore had absolutely no influence on this process.”
273. Lord Bradley said that he had been invited by the organisation to visit a PiC facility and contact had been made by his review team to explore possible dates, but it had not been possible to arrange such a visit before he completed his report. Lord Bradley told me: “I did not arrange a meeting with Patricia Hewitt, with or without, Partnerships in Care to discuss my review ... I can categorically state that Patricia Hewitt had absolutely no influence on the findings in my report or its recommendations.”
274. I wrote to Lord Bradley on 2 August, putting to him two points on which I sought some further help.221 I asked him whether he could recall what Ms Hewitt had said to him in their telephone conversation of 20 May 2008. In particular, I asked him either to confirm or modify Ms Hewitt’s recollection of that conversation, as set out in my letter to him of 1 July.222 I also noted that he had referred to the written submission to his inquiry from PiC of 20 March 2008, and asked Lord Bradley whether he recalled whether he had seen this submission himself before Ms Hewitt had telephoned him. I asked him whether, following the conversation, he had asked to see that submission or, if not, what arrangements had been made for the Chairman to be informed of written submissions received by the inquiry.
275. Lord Bradley wrote to me on 23 August. He said that his memory of the short telephone conversation on 20 May 2008, which had been pre-booked through his review
219 WE 63 220 WE 75 221 WE 77 222 WE 67
66 Sir John Butterfill, Mr Stephen Byers, Ms Patricia Hewitt, Mr Geoff Hoon, Mr Richard Caborn and Mr Adam Ingram
team, was that Ms Hewitt had explained to him her view of the importance of the independent sector to his review and that they should be included in his review process. He had confirmed that the independent sector would be included, and that besides any submissions made by individual organisations, contact had been made by his review team with the CBI to determine future contact with his review. Lord Bradley told me that there had been no further discussion with Ms Hewitt after this telephone call before the publication of his report in April 2009. He told me that all written submissions had first been processed by his review team and then he had read all of them. Lord Bradley did not recall whether he had read the PiC submission before the telephone call with Ms Hewitt but he did not discuss their submission with her during the telephone conversation.
276. Meanwhile, Ms Hewitt had written to me on 15 July.223 She commented on my statement in my letter of 1 July224 where I referred to “the interview which [she] gave an undercover reporter...” Ms Hewitt told me that she had not in fact “given an interview”. She said that the transcript of the telephone conversation between the undercover reporter and herself on 25 February225 recorded that after explaining why the reporter had contacted her and “responding to some expression of interest on my part”, the reporter had said: “ I was wondering if you might want to pop to our office ... in St. James’s. I don’t know if you might have time to drop in there for a cup of coffee and perhaps have a chat about it and see if this is the kind of thing you might be interested in doing?”226 Ms Hewitt said that the ensuing meeting on 9 March was “precisely that: an informal chat on the lines envisaged in that telephone conversation. You will readily appreciate that I am concerned that the context in which the meeting took place should not be misunderstood.”
277. In answer to my question whether she had advised any of the companies or organisations employing her how to secure a meeting with a Minister in any of the ways which I described, Ms Hewitt said, “I have not in fact given advice along the lines described to any of the companies or organisations employing me. I am sorry if my reply to your previous question on the point did not make this clear.”
278. Ms Hewitt said that she had had no contact whatsoever with the CBI either before or after her meeting with Lord Bradley in connection with his review. As to whether the words “So I was able to get them, basically, in front of Bradley” accurately represented what she had accomplished as far as PiC was concerned in relation to Lord Bradley’s review, Ms Hewitt said that the words accurately summarised the position: “namely, I had drawn Lord Bradley’s attention to PiC’s existence and its role, and to the fact that it had submitted evidence to his committee; and I had suggested to him that it would be worth his while to pay a visit to one of its establishments.”
279. Ms Hewitt then responded to my question whether she had met or spoken to the Chairman of the Health and Criminal Justice National Advisory Group, and whether she had submitted a paper to the Minister following the meeting on 21 May 2009. On the first point she noted that the Chairman of the National Health and Criminal Justice Programme Board was the Director-General for Social Care in the Department of Health.
223 WE 68 224 WE 66 225 WE 59 226 WE 59
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Although the Director-General had not been present at the meeting with Mr Phil Hope MP, the Minister for Social Care, on 21 May 2009, one of his officials was and the Director- General had received a copy of the minutes. “I did happen to meet [the Director-General] informally in June or July 2009 ... The first time I was aware of his appointment as Chairman was when he told me about it in the course of this purely informal discussion; I recall him saying that he was chairing the ‘taskforce’ that was following up Lord Bradley’s recommendations. I reminded him of my interest in Cinven, the owners of Partnership in Care—something of which he was already aware—and repeated my view that I hoped the independent sector would be included in this work.”
280. Ms Hewitt said that there had in fact been two separate bodies—the Programme Board (chaired by the Director-General) and the National Advisory Group, sometimes referred to as the National Advocacy Group. She said that in her discussion with the undercover reporter, she had simply had in mind “a taskforce”. Ms Hewitt said that she had had no contact with the Chairman of the National Advocacy Group on this matter. Ms Hewitt said that the minutes of the Department of Health meeting on this issue on 21 May 2009 referred to a “note” of the points she had raised. She had not submitted a note or paper following the meeting.
281. Ms Hewitt referred me again to the internal Departmental investigation carried out immediately after the Dispatches programme that confirmed that all relevant officials “were fully aware of [my] role as paid consultant to Partnerships in Care” and that “no breach of the Ministerial Code or any other impropriety had taken place.”227 Every organisation that had nominated itself for the National Advisory Group, including PiC, had been appointed; Ms Hewitt said that she had neither sought nor obtained any “exclusive benefit” for PiC.
282. Ms Hewitt responded to my questions as to whether she had been aware of PiC’s letters of May 2009 and 15 July 2009 in which PiC nominated itself for membership of the National Advocacy Group, and whether those letters had been written on her advice. She said that the letters had not been written on her advice, and “I cannot recall whether I actually saw either of them at the relevant time.” Ms Hewitt said that at the meeting with the Minister, and in her conversation with the Director-General, she had been making the case for the inclusion of the independent sector, and not specifically PiC.
283. Ms Hewitt said that all she had in mind when she said, “...basically I’ve kind of got them [PiC] into the system...” was that PiC was now on the Department of Health’s radar screen in relation to mental health provision.
284. Ms Hewitt said that she had not retained copies of e-mails exchanged between herself and Ms Ruddock on the issue of private equity funds and the carbon reduction regulations. Her recollection was that at the end of their brief conversation Ms. Ruddock had asked her to e-mail her summarising the issue, so that she could check the precise position. She said that Ms Ruddock had then e-mailed her explaining the change that had been made to the regulations and offering to put her in touch with relevant official(s). Ms Hewitt said that she thought she had e-mailed Ms Ruddock back, thanking her and saying that “I would like to talk to the official(s) concerned. There was no further response from her.”
227 Not included in the written evidence.
68 Sir John Butterfill, Mr Stephen Byers, Ms Patricia Hewitt, Mr Geoff Hoon, Mr Richard Caborn and Mr Adam Ingram
285. In response to my question whether she was aware of other private health providers owned by private equity funds, Ms Hewitt said that although there were many privately- owned health providers, she did not know which were specifically owned by private equity funds. “The point I was impressing on the Minister was one of general application to private equity-owned companies in all sectors and had not been raised with the private health sector in mind. There was no reason for me to mention Partnerships in Care, or the health sector, in relation to the carbon reduction regulations and I did not in fact do so.”
286. Ms Hewitt said that in fact she had spoken only to the Minister about the carbon reduction regulations, but had planned to speak to officials as well. The way she had put it in her conversation with the undercover reporter had simply been a mistake.
287. In answer to my question about the frequency with which her informal conversations with civil servants over lunch or coffee touched on matters affecting her clients, Ms Hewitt quoted the response to the Freedom of Information request about her meetings at the Department of Health.228 This had said that “policy officials ... were fully aware of [her] position as a paid consultant to Partnerships in Care”. In fact she had been a paid adviser to Cinven, owners of PiC. She said that she could only recall one informal conversation with an official that had related to her financial interests and that had been her discussion with the Director-General.229 Otherwise, these discussions had covered topics of mutual personal interest and were essentially social in nature.
288. In summary, Ms Hewitt said, “I wish to stress that I registered my financial interests publicly in the Register of Members’ Interests; I drew attention to those interests in every relevant conversation with Ministers and civil servants as well as in my conversation with Lord Bradley; and I neither sought nor obtained any exclusive benefit for Partnerships in Care or any other organisation in which I had a financial interest. The Register speaks for itself; the documentary evidence provided by the Department for Health confirms the latter two points.”
289. I wrote to Ms Ruddock on 15 July, describing the evidence I had received from Ms Hewitt about their meeting and asking her to comment.230
290. Ms Ruddock wrote to me on 26 July.231 She said that her recollection was that Ms Hewitt had spoken to her briefly in the lobby of the House one evening and had told her that she advised a private equity company and that there were issues with the carbon reduction regulations. Ms Ruddock told me she recalled telling Ms Hewitt that she was familiar with the issues because they had received representations from private equity firms. Ms Ruddock said that Ms Hewitt had not specified any particular company and that she (Ms Ruddock) had not told her anything that was not available to anyone enquiring on that point. Ms Ruddock said she had later e-mailed Ms Hewitt from her PDA—having checked with officials that the information she had given was correct. Ms Ruddock said that her e-mail—to her recollection—simply said the information was correct and officials would be happy to talk to her/the company if she wished. Ms Hewitt had e-mailed her
228 WE 61 229 WE 62 230 WE 70 231 WE 72
Sir John Butterfill, Mr Stephen Byers, Ms Patricia Hewitt, Mr Geoff Hoon, Mr Richard Caborn and Mr Adam Ingram 69 thanks and had said that she would contact officials. She had not asked anything further. Ms Ruddock said to me that as she was no longer the minister she did not have access to the PDA or departmental e-mail records and she could not recall dates. “However I can confirm that at no time was Partnerships in Care mentioned to me.”
291. I wrote to Ms Ruddock on 28 July.232 I said I hoped I was right in taking from her letter that she could confirm Ms Hewitt’s recollection of their exchanges. I also asked Ms Ruddock to respond to two points which I had asked her about in my letter of 15 July233and which she had not covered. They were: the date of the conversation she had had with Ms Hewitt; and whether she had been aware from what Ms Hewitt had told her that a change in the regulations would benefit some of the companies which Cinven, the private equity company, owned. I noted that Ms Hewitt had told her that she had advised a private equity company, but I asked her whether she had taken from that that some of the companies which Cinven owned would benefit from a change in the regulations.
292. In an e-mail to me on 28 July, Ms Ruddock said that she did not recall when her conversation with Ms Hewitt had taken place and it would be necessary to find out if her former Department could trace the e-mail from her use of the departmental PDA. She did confirm Ms Hewitt’s account of the conversation. Ms Hewitt’s enquiry “was not significant in my mind as it related to a provision that was in the public domain and being consulted upon. I was familiar with the issue because of companies affected were regularly talking to civil servants.” Ms Ruddock described as “speculative” my question whether some of the companies which Cinven owned would benefit from a change in the regulations. She told me that the official consultation had provided the basis for her to make decisions, and that she did not recall mention of any specific company names.
293. I wrote to Ms Ruddock on 28 July.234 I noted that she could not give me any further help on either of my two questions.
294. Meanwhile, I had written to Ms Hewitt on 20 July.235 I noted that she had said that her meeting with the undercover reporter on 9 March had been “an informal chat”. I said that in the telephone conversation of 25 February,236 the reporter had said that she had been looking “to produce a board for the UK company that can kind of advise us and our … companies” and asked whether it was “the kind of thing you might be interested in getting involved in.” I noted that Ms Hewitt had said in principle yes. I said that the reporter had subsequently invited Ms Hewitt to have “a chat about it and to see if this is the kind of thing you might be interested in doing”, and she had agreed to that meeting. I also said that at the meeting Ms Hewitt had set out the relevant parts of her CV, answered the reporter’s questions, noted that she was interested in taking on another major board position and discussed her day rate.237 The reporter had concluded that she would be drawing up a short
232 WE 73 233 WE 70 234 WE 76 235 WE 71 236 WE 59 237 In commenting on a draft of this memorandum, Ms Hewitt told me that it was not the case that she regarded the position offered by the undercover reporter as a major board position. As she believed the context made clear, in the discussion she was referring to a non-executive directorship with a publicly quoted company (WE 60, 00:06:11).
70 Sir John Butterfill, Mr Stephen Byers, Ms Patricia Hewitt, Mr Geoff Hoon, Mr Richard Caborn and Mr Adam Ingram
list and speaking to the States and then would let Ms Hewitt know how they were going to progress the matter when someone was coming over whom they would then like her to meet. I said that it would appear on the face of it therefore that Ms Hewitt had been aware that the company were looking to employ board members when she had gone to the meeting and that the contribution she would make to the board, her experience and her fees had all been discussed in a series of questions and answers. I said that this might seem to go beyond an informal chat. Since she had raised the point, I also asked Ms Hewitt whether the meeting with the undercover reporter had followed the lines she had expected and, if not, why she had made no reference to this during the discussion.
295. I noted that Ms Hewitt had not given any of the companies who had employed her advice along the lines she had described about how to meet a Minister. I asked her, therefore, why she had set out these ways to meet a Minister in the way that she had done, on what experience her advice had been based, how she had expected her advice to be implemented and whether she had considered pointing out that she had not advised any of her current companies to adopt any of these strategies.
296. On 29 July, I wrote again to Ms Hewitt, this time to show her copies of my correspondence with Ms Joan Ruddock MP.238 I noted that Ms Ruddock confirmed Ms Hewitt’s account of their conversation. I also noted that I had sought Ms Ruddock’s help on when their conversation had taken place and that she had no recollection of the timing. I asked Ms Hewitt to let me know or give me an estimate of the month and year when she recalled this conversation taking place.
297. Ms Hewitt e-mailed me on her response to my questions on 23 August.239 She confirmed her view that her meeting with the undercover reporter had indeed been “an informal chat”. She said that Ms Webster had made it clear, both in the initial telephone call and in their discussion, that she had been having exploratory discussions with a number of people before reporting back to her employer. Ms Hewitt said that she had indeed provided information about herself, “as we all do during informal conversations”. Ms Hewitt also confirmed that the meeting had followed the lines she had expected. “A formal interview could only have taken place once I knew the name and nature of the company planning to employ me—information that ‘Ms Webster’ was not in a position to give me. As a result, I did not come away from my meeting with her feeling much clearer about whether this would turn into a serious proposition which I could then consider.”
298. Ms Hewitt said she was concerned about my reference to “the interview” with “an undercover reporter” with what she said was its suggestion that this was akin to a TV interview. She said, “I am sure you will understand that I am concerned that the context in which the meeting took place should not be misunderstood.”
299. Ms Hewitt reiterated her view that the meeting was an informal discussion. She said that Ms Webster had asked whether it was possible for companies to meet Ministers. “Off the top of my head and given my years of experience, I gave examples of the ways in which organisations can legitimately meet Ministers. Nothing more or less.” She said that five suggestions she had made were all “normal and proper ways that any competent public
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Sir John Butterfill, Mr Stephen Byers, Ms Patricia Hewitt, Mr Geoff Hoon, Mr Richard Caborn and Mr Adam Ingram 71 affairs executive would use to approach a Minister.” Ms Webster had not asked Ms Hewitt whether she had advised any of the companies she had worked for along those lines and “there was no reason for me to explain that I had not in fact done so, since we were talking about a hypothetical situation that might affect one of her employer’s clients in future.”
300. Ms Hewitt said that she did not remember the exact date of her conversation with Ms Ruddock on carbon reduction regulations, but it had been either late 2009 or early 2010. She noted that Ms Ruddock had confirmed her recollection of the conversation—including the fact that she had declared her interest—and said that she had nothing further to add to what Ms Ruddock had told me.
301. I wrote to Ms Hewitt on 1 September.240 I made it clear that I had not suggested that she had given the equivalent of a television interview. I told her that I had used the word “interview” because I had been suggesting that it was a job interview, albeit at its preliminary stages. I said that while I noted that she had been unclear about whether it would turn into a serious proposition and that she did not know the name and nature of the company planning to employ her, the proposition as set out in the transcript had been that the position was to produce a board for the UK company of Anderson Perry to advise that company and their clients. I noted also that the undercover reporter had said that she would be drawing up a shortlist and that she would then let Ms Hewitt know how she was going to progress the matter, when someone from the States was coming over whom she could meet. I said that that might suggest that this was a preliminary meeting or discussion among a number of possible candidates about a job with the named company and its unnamed clients.
302. I noted that Lord Bradley confirmed that, in his telephone conversation with Ms Hewitt, she had informed him that she was an adviser to PiC, but that his evidence did not appear to concur with what Ms Hewitt had told the undercover reporter and confirmed in her letter to me of 15 July, that it was Ms Hewitt’s intervention that put PiC “in front of Bradley”. Lord Bradley stated that he had been invited to visit PiC by PiC itself; that he had asked the CBI to nominate a representative from the private sector; and that the review team’s process meant that he read all written submissions. I noted that Lord Bradley had stated that Ms Hewitt’s telephone call had “absolutely no influence” on the process for nominating a private sector provider to his review.
303. I told Ms Hewitt that in the light of Lord Bradley’s evidence, it would be helpful to know whether she accepted that the statements she had made to the undercover reporter about the effect of her work in putting PiC “in front of Bradley” had been mistaken, or exaggerated, and whether she had been aware, at the time she had made the statement or subsequently, that this had been, according to Lord Bradley’s evidence, an inaccurate statement of the effect of her telephone conversation with him.
304. Ms Hewitt replied to me on 13 September.241 She reiterated that she did not in fact regard the meeting with Ms Webster as a kind of preliminary “job interview” but rather as an exploratory discussion or informal chat. In response to my specific question in regard to her dealings with Lord Bradley, she told me, “I can categorically state that there was no
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72 Sir John Butterfill, Mr Stephen Byers, Ms Patricia Hewitt, Mr Geoff Hoon, Mr Richard Caborn and Mr Adam Ingram
conscious attempt on my part to exaggerate the influence I may have had.” In the context of an informal discussion, she said she was simply trying to give Ms Webster a fair representation of work she had done. “My recollection of my telephone conversation with Lord Bradley is that he was not sure whether he had in fact seen PiC’s evidence before we spoke; I also mentioned the possibility of a visit to him. I did not know about Lord Bradley’s interaction with the CBI, as described in his letter to you of 28 July ... until you sent me a copy of that letter. I did not ask to meet Lord Bradley myself nor did I ever suggest to ‘Ms Webster’ or anyone else that I had influenced Lord Bradley’s findings or recommendations”
305. Ms Hewitt said that of course it was hardly surprising that after an interval of two years, recollections would differ somewhat on a single telephone call. But she noted that in relation to the Code of Conduct, Lord Bradley had confirmed both that she declared her interest in PiC and that she neither sought nor obtained any “exclusive benefit” for PiC . She said that both points had also been confirmed by the Department of Health.
Findings of Fact 306. Ms Hewitt was approached by the undercover reporter claiming to represent Anderson Perry in February 2010. During an initial telephone conversation Ms Hewitt and the reporter agreed to meet.
307. Ms Hewitt met the undercover reporter on 9 March 2010. She says that the context of her meeting with Ms Webster was her availability and interest in taking on work after she had ceased to be a Member of Parliament. Her intention to stand down from Parliament had already been announced in June 2009. Ms Hewitt says that she judged that there would be no harm in having a preliminary meeting, and decided that she would only carry out the usual due diligence on the company and its clients if anything came of the initial conversation. Ms Hewitt says that she was therefore only prepared for an informal chat when she met Ms Webster.
Issues subject to inquiry i. Five ways to meet a Minister
308. Ms Hewitt told the undercover reporter that it was “very do-able” to put your business clients in touch with a Minister, but “you have to be … quite careful about … how you do it”.242 She described a number of ways to do so, namely: hospitality supporting think tanks and seminars. sponsorship of events at a party conference. contacts with special advisers. the “constituency route”
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Relevant rules of the House: Paragraph 10 of the Code of Conduct: Paid advocacy. Paragraph 15 of the Code of Conduct: Disrepute. Paragraph 16 of the Code of Conduct: Registration and Declaration.
309. Ms Hewitt says that her five suggestions are all normal and proper ways that any competent public affairs executive would use to approach a Minister with the issue. Ms Hewitt says that as a constituency MP, she sometimes advised voluntary organisations and businesses in Leicester on how to make their views known, but that she was never paid by such an organisation for that advice. She says that she had never given such advice to any company or organisation which had retained her.
310. Ms Hewitt says that she was always very conscious of the need to be careful herself if she was approaching a Minister on an issue where she had a financial interest, in particular by declaring her interest immediately and ensuring that she was not seeking to benefit only one organisation.
ii. Removing a regulation
311. When Ms Webster asked “if the Conservatives win the next election, how much will that affect the kind of advice you would be able to give the board?”243 Ms Hewitt responded “if you’ve got a client who needs a particular regulation removed, then we can often package that up in a way that will give the Minister a win, and with a new Government, committed to less regulation, that’s an attractive argument to make.” 244
Relevant rules of the House: Paragraph 10 of the Code of Conduct: Paid advocacy. Paragraph 15 of the Code of Conduct: Disrepute. Paragraph 16 of the Code of Conduct: Registration and Declaration.
312. Ms Hewitt says that she did not say that she had helped to remove regulations on behalf of a company. She says her answer simply dealt with a possible future situation following a Conservative victory at the next election: she was not describing any action she had taken previously. iii. Changes to directives or legislation
313. The undercover reporter asked, in respect of legislation that would have a massive impact on a client, sometime in the future, how easy it would be to talk to people “to try to either change it or influence in some way”.245Ms Hewitt is quoted as replying, “Well, at one level ... it’s easy to do but you have to put a lot of effort into it.”246
Relevant rule of the House: Paragraph 16 of the Code of Conduct: Registration and Declaration.
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74 Sir John Butterfill, Mr Stephen Byers, Ms Patricia Hewitt, Mr Geoff Hoon, Mr Richard Caborn and Mr Adam Ingram
314. Ms Hewitt says that she was not describing any action that she had taken as a Member of Parliament. Both the question and her answer related to what might happen after she had ceased to be a Member of Parliament.
iv. Contacts with civil servants
315. Ms Hewitt said, in response to the undercover reporter’s question whether it was easy to get meetings with civil servants and speak to them on behalf of a client, that she made a point of “being in touch” and, that “you need just to have a sort of eye to propriety and all of that … But I mean I have regular lunches and coffees and you know we’re all mates really.”247
Relevant rule of the House: Paragraph 16 of the Code of Conduct: Registration and Declaration.
316. Ms Hewitt says that about once a month, she would have lunch or coffee with such civil servants. She only once discussed a matter in which he had a registered interest (Cinven and PiC) and she declared that interest. She put her case on behalf of the whole sector and not exclusively for her client.
PiC and the Bradley Report v. Putting PiC “in front of” the Bradley inquiry
317. Ms Hewitt told the undercover reporter that she put PiC “in front of” those working on the Bradley inquiry into mental health in prisons, enabling PiC to give evidence to that inquiry and encouraging Lord Bradley to visit one of PiC’s establishments.248
Relevant rules of the House: Paragraph 10 of the Code of Conduct: Paid advocacy. Paragraph 15 of the Code of Conduct: Disrepute. Paragraph 16 of the Code of Conduct: Registration and Declaration.
318. Ms Hewitt says that she had a telephone conversation with Lord Bradley regarding his Inquiry into the treatment of prisoners with mental health problems, before he drew up his report. The telephone conversation took place on 20 May 2008. Ms Hewitt says that when she spoke to Lord Bradley she made it absolutely clear that she worked as an adviser to Cinven, the owners of PiC, and that PiC was an excellent provider of specialist mental health services, funded by the NHS. She says that she explained to Lord Bradley why she felt that the independent sector could make a valuable contribution to his Inquiry and suggested that he should meet or visit PiC so that he could see their work for himself.
319. Lord Bradley confirms that, when she spoke to him, Ms Hewitt stated that she was an adviser to PiC. Lord Bradley also says that he can categorically state that Ms Hewitt had “absolutely no influence” on the findings in his report or its recommendations.
vi. Getting PiC “into the system”
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320. Ms Hewitt responded, “Exactly”,249 to the undercover reporter’s statement that she had got PiC “into the system … with a view to getting further contracts, presumably, and being able to expand their work.”250 Ms Hewitt also said, “It’s now kind of over to them because, even though I will keep a watching brief them for as long as is needed, but basically I’ve kind of got them into the system, where they can build the relationships, they can make the arguments.”
Relevant rules of the House: Paragraph 10 of the Code of Conduct: Paid advocacy. Paragraph 15 of the Code of Conduct: Disrepute.
321. Ms Hewitt says that she was simply agreeing with the obvious proposition that if the independent sector was to be included in NHS tenders, then PiC, like other private organisations, would seek to tender for “further contracts”.251 She says that she has not lobbied, nor would she lobby, on behalf of PiC to obtain such a contract; nor have Cinven or PiC ever suggested that she should. Ms Hewitt says that her concern was simply to secure a level playing field for public, private and not-for-profit sector providers, in line with government policy and her own beliefs. She says that all she had in mind was that PiC was now on the Department of Health’s radar screen in relation to mental health provision.
322. An internal investigation held by the Department of Health in March 2010 concluded that all relevant officials were fully aware of Ms Hewitt’s role as paid consultant to Partnerships in Care and that no breach of the Ministerial Code or any other impropriety had taken place. vii. Enabling PiC to join an Advisory Group
323. Ms Hewitt told the undercover reporter that she had been able to “persuade the chairman of [a group involved with implementing Lord Bradley’s report on health and criminal justice] that there would be a private sector, independent sector, representative on the taskforce and because Partnerships in Care had been most active, it was their person who was put on the task force.”252
Relevant rule of the House: Paragraph 10 of the Code of Conduct: Paid advocacy.
324. Ms Hewitt says that she did not claim to Ms Webster to have persuaded the Chairman of the Health and Criminal Justice Programme Board to invite PiC to join the separate National Advisory Group which had been established as part of the Department’s follow- up to the Bradley report. Ms Hewitt believes that she made her financial interest in Cinven, the owners of PiC, absolutely clear in the discussion she had with the Chairman of the Programme Board and that the issues raised were ones of general concern and of public interest. Ms Hewitt says that she was not aware that PiC nominated itself for membership of the Group in May and July 2009, and that those letters were not written on her advice.
249 WE 60, 00:46:24 250 WE 60, 00:46:09 251 WE 60, 00:46:24 252 WE 60, 00:45:25
76 Sir John Butterfill, Mr Stephen Byers, Ms Patricia Hewitt, Mr Geoff Hoon, Mr Richard Caborn and Mr Adam Ingram
325. The Departmental internal investigation concluded that Ms Hewitt’s involvement could in no sense be said to have influenced the membership of the National Advisory Group. viii. Carbon reduction
326. Ms Hewitt told the undercover reporter, in relation to the carbon reduction regulation that would have the effect of disadvantaging private equity firms, that “unfortunately, private equity people have come to this rather late in the day, so they’ve only quite recently even started talking to me about it ... we’ve achieved one thing, which is to say, if there’s a larger company within a private equity portfolio that if it were freestanding would be registered anyway, that’s fine, they can register in their own right ... ”253
Relevant rules of the House: Paragraph 10 of the Code of Conduct: Paid advocacy. Paragraph 15 of the Code of Conduct: Disrepute. Paragraph 16 of the Code of Conduct: Registration and Declaration.
327. Ms Hewitt says that from discussions with Cinven it was apparent that the proposed carbon reduction regulations would impact in a discriminatory manner on companies owned by a private equity fund. She says that she talked to the relevant Minister (Joan Ruddock MP) about this issue, explaining her employment with Cinven, and stressed that this was a point of general concern, not specific to one company. Neither she nor Ms Ruddock can recall the date of this conversation.
328. The evidence of Mrs Joan Ruddock MP, then the relevant Minister, is that Ms Hewitt spoke to her briefly about the CRC issue, informing her that she advised a private equity company, without mentioning PiC or any other specific company. xv. Receiving £3,000 a day in payments from clients
329. Ms Hewitt told the undercover reporter that she was paid by Cinven £60,000 for 18 days a year, “in day rate terms it was a bit over three thousand.”
Relevant rule of the House: Paragraph 16 of the Code of Conduct: Registration and Declaration.
330. Ms Hewitt says that the payments that she received and hours worked are already a matter of public record and recorded on the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. The figure of about £3000 per day in respect of her services to Cinven was arrived at on the basis of dividing her total annual fee of £60,000 by 18.
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Rt Hon Geoff Hoon: My Inquiries 331. I wrote to Mr Hoon on 23 March.254 I asked him to give me a full account of the circumstances in which he had come to be interviewed by someone who turned out to be a journalist. I also asked Mr Hoon to confirm that during the interview he had said that :
x he was looking forward to translating his knowledge and contacts around the international scene into something that “bluntly, makes money”; 255 and if that was true, the nature of the knowledge and contacts Mr Hoon had in mind;
x he had been offered a chairmanship of a foreign defence firm for “an embarrassing amount of money”;256 and if true, whether he had consulted the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments (ACOBA) about this appointment;
x he was quite happy to give strategic advice and “in the right circumstances” he did not mind leading a delegation in to see a Minister;257 and if true, the circumstances he had in mind;
x if a former Minister asked to see the defence Minister he did not think there would be any difficulty;258 and if true, what benefit Mr Hoon believed he would confer on those using his services;
x Mr Hoon continued to see people in the Ministry of Defence and that they briefed him on the defence review;259 and if that was true, whether he accepted that he had linked this statement to his agreeing with the interviewer that he could give a steer on defence policy which would help clients with what they were bidding for,260 and whether he had declared his financial interests to the Ministry of Defence;
x he had had a meeting with a private equity fund in the USA and agreed to give them “a fairly accurate account of what’s going on” in terms of the [NATO] defence policy which he was developing, and that he had subsequently referred to talking to these firms about buying market share in Europe.261 I asked him, if that was true, what these funds had paid or proposed to pay for this service; and whether Mr Hoon had registered any payments in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests;
x his rate for consultancy or similar services was £3,000 a day;262 and if true, whether he had provided any such remunerated services for that or any other rate and, if so, whether he had registered the payments in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.
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78 Sir John Butterfill, Mr Stephen Byers, Ms Patricia Hewitt, Mr Geoff Hoon, Mr Richard Caborn and Mr Adam Ingram
332. I also asked Mr Hoon to confirm what subsequent communications he or his legal advisers had had with the reporters; whether, if any of the allegations were true, he considered he had an obligation to make a Register entry or declaration, or both; and if any of what Mr Hoon had said had been untrue, why he had spoken as he had done. Finally, I told Mr Hoon that I was writing to the Channel 4 programme makers to invite them to let me have any unbroadcast parts of his interview.
333. Mr Hoon replied on 30 March.263 He said that he had been approached, initially through his parliamentary office, by an undercover reporter, supposedly on behalf of a US communications company named Anderson Perry Associates, which the reporter had said had recently set up a UK office and had clients looking to expand their operations in the UK and Europe. He enclosed a copy of her e-mail, in which she had invited him to visit their offices for what she described as “an informal chat”.264 Mr Hoon said that the e-mail provided a link to a high quality website which he had examined; and that the telephone for both their office in the United States and an address in London was professionally answered. “After speaking to Claire Webster an appointment was made for me to have what Vera Productions and Channel 4 later described as ‘a preliminary meeting where nothing was agreed or committed to’ on 3rd March 2010”.
334. Mr Hoon said that he had decided some time before these events that he would be leaving the House of Commons before the next election, and had announced this on 10 February 2010.
335. Mr Hoon said that his lawyers had produced a transcript of the Channel 4 programme as it applied to him, and that he had seen copies of material that appeared in the Sunday Times on 20 March. Mr Hoon said, “Despite a series of requests neither Channel 4 nor the Sunday Times were willing to provide a full account of the allegations they were proposing to make. I have not seen a full transcript of my interview.”
336. Mr Hoon said that in his lawyer’s response he had sought to put the nature of the interview with the undercover reporter into context. He said that he had made clear that nothing he said referred to his current position as a Member of Parliament. He had assumed that in his own time it would be permissible to participate in a general and private conversation about possible opportunities arising after the Dissolution of the House. He acknowledged that there was “an element of exaggeration and immodesty” in his remarks as he sought to achieve a favourable outcome.
337. Mr Hoon said that when he had referred to using his knowledge and contacts around the international scene, he was referring to the fact that over the past 25 years he had developed a good understanding of how international organisations operate. “I was a Member of the European Parliament for 10 years. I have held Ministerial positions in Defence and the Foreign Office. I have in the last six months been engaged in voluntary unpaid work on behalf of the NATO Secretary-General.” Mr Hoon went on to say that he had been led to believe that such experience might be of use in the commercial world and that, like many people who had left public life, he might secure a position providing strategic advice through the kind of advisory board that was being described. He had
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Sir John Butterfill, Mr Stephen Byers, Ms Patricia Hewitt, Mr Geoff Hoon, Mr Richard Caborn and Mr Adam Ingram 79 specifically referred to his ambition to give strategic advice. Mr Hoon added that he did not have any specific contacts in mind because “individuals move from one job to another fairly quickly and what is useful is to have an overall understanding of how international organisations work”.
338. Mr Hoon said that the “embarrassing amount of money” he had said he had been offered was a figure suggested by a head hunter as being the likely amount on offer from an overseas company. He said that although the head hunter had led him to believe that this offer was to be made shortly it had not so far materialised. In those circumstances he had not yet contacted ACOBA. He would expect to do so only if he had a firm offer of an appointment or employment from the company itself. Mr Hoon said that he had spoken to ACOBA and the person concerned had confirmed that this was the correct approach.
339. Mr Hoon said that since his understanding of what was being discussed was a position on an advisory board and since he had no ambition to be involved in lobbying, he had made clear that he did not want to be “some sort of lobbyist”. He continued, “I know however from my own experience of Ministerial life that there could be times when a director or a chairman of a company would meet a Minister. I indicated that ‘in the right circumstances’ I would be willing to help to arrange that, although I added , ‘but that’s not what I want to spend my life doing’, indicating that I thought this would be exceptional.”
340. Mr Hoon regretted that his suggestion that a former Minister might ask to see the Defence Minister “was no more than my showing off and trying to impress”. He continued, “It is likely that as a former Secretary of Defence I could get to meet with whoever happened to be in the position at the time but I would have to put forward a reason and I do not believe that could be based on any kind of representation of a third party—unless that was in itself for legitimate reasons unconnected with my former position. My comment would not therefore confer any benefit on anyone considering employing me.”
341. Mr Hoon said that the reference to giving a private equity fund a “fairly accurate account” 265of the direction of defence policy was in relation to the voluntary unpaid work that he was doing on behalf of NATO to advise the Secretary General about the new strategic concept. He had been nominated to serve in an independent capacity and the only briefings he had had were in relation to the British Government’s views on this. Mr Hoon added that this was a public process, based around a series of seminars in different NATO member states, which would conclude with the publication in early May of a document that would be available to everyone. He continued, “I was simply trying to demonstrate that I retained a continuing interest in and knowledge of defence policy. I was not in any way seeking to trade on knowledge or information that was obtained confidentially.” Mr Hoon said that, as a result, he could “give a steer on defence policy” but only as a result of his own personal knowledge, experience and reading.
342. Mr Hoon said that he did not have any financial interests that would need to be declared to anyone at the Ministry of Defence. As an MP he would have to declare any outside financial interests in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, and he had none.
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343. Mr Hoon said that the meeting with a private equity firm had been in the United Kingdom with a UK based fund and had taken place on the morning of the interview. He had been referring to the relationship between overall NATO policy and the national defence policy of member states. Mr Hoon commented, “I do have my own thoughts and ideas about what this might mean for companies involved in defence which is why I indicated that I might be going back after standing down as an MP to talk about it. I have not received any payment for offering to do this nor have I discussed any particular amount of money for doing so in the future.”
344. Mr Hoon said that the only work that he had been offered was for one day, some weeks after the Dissolution of the House. He enclosed copies of the correspondence that he and his legal advisers had had with Vera Productions, Channel 4 and the Sunday Times.266 He said that, for the reasons he had set out, he did not believe that he had any obligation to make a Register entry or declaration or both in respect of these alleged activities because no financial or other interests arose.
345. Mr Hoon concluded by saying that he had been deceived about the nature of his likely involvement with the fictitious company. He had been advised that he should be thinking about joining advisory or other company boards once he stepped down as a Member of Parliament. This is what he thought he was being approached about. “The initial questioning was however designed to elicit my interest in lobbying. When I made clear that I was not interested in work as a lobbyist I assumed that I was being asked about work on behalf of the proposed advisory board. I was however still being asked, probably scripted, questions designed to elicit my willingness to engage in what could with appropriate editing and commentary subsequently be described by Channel 4 and the Sunday Times as lobbying.”
346. I replied to Mr Hoon on 31 March.267 I asked him if he could confirm the date of his interview with the reporter. I also noted that he had said in his letter that the private equity firm he said he had met was a UK-based fund, but in his interview he had said that he was “… talking … to American private equity firms …” I asked Mr Hoon if these talks were different to those he had had with the UK private equity fund on the day of the interview and, if so, if he had spoken to them in the same way as to the UK fund and offered them a briefing on the relationship between overall NATO policy and the national defence policy of member states; and whether it was made clear that he would be charging for those briefings.
347. Mr Hoon replied on 6 April.268 He said that he was confident that the secretly recorded meeting took place on 3 March 2010. He said that Vera Productions suggested that it was 23 February in their letter to him of 15 March 2010269 and he appeared to have adopted that date in his reply to them. Mr Hoon confirmed that he had had “meetings with two ‘American private equity firms’ in London and a second meeting with one of them in Washington”. He commented, “To the extent that it is relevant both maintain separate European operations. I do not recall offering either of them a briefing but we would have
266 Not included in the written evidence 267 WE 86 268 WE 87 269 Not included in the written evidence.
Sir John Butterfill, Mr Stephen Byers, Ms Patricia Hewitt, Mr Geoff Hoon, Mr Richard Caborn and Mr Adam Ingram 81 discussed defence policy in general terms. There was no discussion about fees in the course of these meetings.”
348. I did not continue my inquiries during the Dissolution of the House. On the assembly of the new Parliament on 18 May, I resumed my inquiry. On 27 May I received the certified transcripts of Mr Hoon’s conversations with the undercover reporter. I wrote to Mr Hoon on 2 June, attaching the transcripts.270 I noted that in the transcript he was quoted as saying said that he might well go and talk to some people in a private equity company about Europe including “defence policy more generally which is what I have been doing across the road … I might well go and spend a day with them and they might pay me a fee …”271 I asked Mr Hoon whether it would be reasonable to conclude from this that, when he was a Member of Parliament, he had received a fee for briefing a private equity company on the work he was then doing on defence policy, namely (as I understood it) the NATO review. If so, I asked Mr Hoon what had been the nature of that briefing, and whether the fee had been at a level which required him to register it in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.
349. I noted that in the transcript Mr Hoon had referred to various possible job opportunities. I asked him whether any of these had materialised while he had been a Member of Parliament, whether any had since materialised, and if so, whether any had required him to draw on his Ministerial experience, particularly in defence. I also noted that in the transcript he had said, in relation to work with NATO, that, “in a sense I’m devising, I’m developing this policy so they [the private equity fund] will get a fairly accurate account of what is going on.”272 I said that I was having some difficulty in reconciling that with the point in his letter to me of 30 March when he had said that the advice to the Secretary General about the new strategic concept was a public process, based around a series of seminars in different NATO member states.273 I asked Mr Hoon whether he had been in any sense exaggerating his role in explaining it to the reporter.
350. I said that in the transcript Mr Hoon was quoted as saying that he had been seeing officials in the MOD since “they’re both advising me as to what the Government position is but also working separately on the … Defence Review.”274 I recalled that I had asked him about his contacts with people in the MOD in my letter to him of 23 March,275 and that in his response of 30 March,276 he had said that “The only information I have about the Defence Review is from publicly available sources such as the recent Green Paper.” I asked Mr Hoon whether he had in fact had any discussions with MOD officials, either about the NATO work, the Defence Review or any other matter. I asked him, if so, whether he thought it necessary to declare his interest, in particular in his proposed work for the private equity fund.
270 WE 88 271 WE 90, 00:29:19 272 WE 90, 00:23:08 273 WE 84 274 WE 90, 00:23:54 275 WE 82 276 WE 84
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351. I also noted that Mr Hoon had said, apparently referring to a document in his coat pocket, “… this is hot from the press, I’ve just got this from Washington. But it’s the kind of thing that, I think if you had one or more defence clients who really wanted to kind of understand where things are going, then I’d be very happy to come and present that.”277 I asked him to describe the nature of the document to which he had referred, who had produced it and whether it had been provided to him in confidence.
352. I then said that in his interview on the BBC Radio Four “Today” programme on 26 March, Mr Hoon had said, “I certainly got it wrong … I should not have said some of the things I did say … I was guilty of showing off … I was trying to impress and demonstrate my knowledge and experience and background ...” 278 I asked Mr Hoon why he believed he had got it wrong and, in particular, the points which he should not have said, and why.
353. Mr Hoon replied to me in a letter which I received on 8 June.279 He said that he had made clear in his previous letter to me280 that his conversation with the undercover reporter dealt only with his plans for when he had left Parliament. Mr Hoon said that the full transcript bore this out. He said he referred to “the beginning of May for the start of my new life” and “even after a determined effort by the undercover reporter to ask me about my earlier availability”, he had said that he could do April “because I think parliament will be dissolved at the beginning of April”.
354. Mr Hoon said that “... I gave no briefings to a private equity company whilst an MP and I have given none since. I have received no fees from any private equity company as an MP or since. No question of registration therefore arises ...” He told me that in case there was any confusion about the reference to a briefing “across the road”, this had been a lunch organised by the Latvian Ambassador for other Ambassadors from Scandinavia and the Baltic States at the Travellers’ Club on Pall Mall at which he (Mr Hoon) had discussed the work of the NATO Group of Experts of which he was then a member. Mr Hoon told me that no fee for this had been asked for or offered, nor would he have expected in such circumstances to receive one.
355. Mr Hoon said that he had, by the date of the meeting with the undercover reporter, indicated to his constituents his intention of standing down at the General Election. “I received no job offers whilst still a Member of Parliament and I have received none to date.” Mr Hoon said that it was of course possible that he could be offered a position in the future that could draw on his Ministerial experience in defence, although he noted that he had left the Ministry of Defence in May 2005. Mr Hoon said he would expect to comply fully with the rules relating to Ministerial appointments.
356. Mr Hoon said that the description of the work of the NATO Group of Experts that he had given in his previous letter was accurate. This had been a public process based around a series of seminars and a public consultation exercise, and the conclusions had recently been published. He said his reference in the transcript to “devising” and “developing” this policy was a reference to his then role as a member of the Group expecting to play a part in
277 WE 90, 00:28:22 278 WE 83 279 WE 91 280 WE 84
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357. He said that he had received several briefings from a mixed group of Ministry of Defence and Foreign Office officials regarding what the British Government wanted to see in the report of the Group of Experts. He said he had been appointed to the Group in an independent capacity but “I was obviously interested in the views of the British Government. I received briefings from officials from other governments as well. All of those briefings were concerned only with the work of the NATO Group of Experts.”
358. Mr Hoon said that he did not understand my reference to any declaration of interest in relation to the private equity fund. He had done no work of that kind and did not believe that any question of declaration arose. Mr Hoon said that the document in his coat pocket which he had told the reporter “we are working on now”281 was the near final version of an academic paper that he had helped to write with academics from the Washington National Defense University about NATO defence capabilities. He said that it had been written for publication and provided a web address for it. The paper was to be the basis for that section of the Experts report dealing with NATO capabilities, again showing the public nature of the process. “Given that I had helped to write the paper it was obviously not supplied in confidence.”
359. On the issue of his comments in the Today programme interview on 26 March, Mr Hoon said that the reference to getting it wrong was his failure to detect that “I was being set up by media organisations prepared to go to considerable lengths to entrap me and others into making private comments that could then be presented publicly to our detriment. “
360. Mr Hoon said that he accepted that he had made a number of comments in the course of the secretly recorded interview, during what he had assumed to be a private conversation, that “appear crass and embarrassing when published.” He said that unfortunately that would probably be true of many private conversations if they were published in the same way. He had not been suggesting in the “Today” interview that he believed that he had broken any relevant rules. The reason for making such comments had been as set out in the Today interview, that he was “trying to impress”.
361. I wrote to Mr Hoon on 29 June.282 I noted that he had asked me why I had referred, in my letter of 2 June,283 to the possibility of his declaring his interest, in particular in his proposed work for the private equity fund, in any discussions he had with MoD officials. I told Mr Hoon that I had asked this because the declaration rules extended beyond a
281 WE 90, 00:22:22. Mr Hoon referred to the paper in the transcript as follows: “I carry around with me a paper that we are working on now, and indeed I’ve just written a paper for the National Defense University of Washington, on how we see the development of those capabilities.” 282 WE 92 283 WE 88
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requirement to declare matters registered in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I drew his attention to Paragraph 73 of the 2009 Edition of the Guide to the Rules.284
362. I said that the question I was asking Mr Hoon was whether his possible work for private equity firms—or indeed his chairmanship of a defence company—amounted to relevant interests which he was expecting to have at the time when he had had his discussions with MoD and other officials. I asked him to confirm whether, when he had had these briefings, he had had a reasonable expectation of a future financial benefit on account of his understanding of the Government and NATO’s defence policy. I said that if he considered that he did not have such an expectation, it would be helpful if he could explain the purpose of these contacts with private equity firms or the FTSE 100 company.285
363. On 2 July Mr Hoon wrote to me, saying that it appeared from my most recent letter286 that he had not properly explained the nature of the meetings that I was examining.287 He said that the meetings with the private equity firm had been arranged by a recruitment advisor and were necessarily introductory in nature. Mr Hoon said that he had not met any of the people before, and they had not previously met him. He said there had been no follow up from these introductory meetings to date and at this stage he did not expect there to be any. Mr Hoon said that “the words of Paragraph 73 of the Guide to the Rules, which you quote in your letter, properly capture what took place, in that I had a vague hope or aspiration that such a meeting might lead in the future to some sort of employment but it was well short of anything that could be described as a reasonable expectation of a financial benefit.” The language that he had used was “clearly aspirational” and had not led to anything specific.
364. Mr Hoon said that he was also concerned that he had failed to explain properly to me the nature of his meetings with MOD and FCO officials. He said that he recognised that normally when an MP goes to a government department for a briefing he or she derives some benefit from the information received, that could in relevant circumstances require the MP to make an appropriate declaration, particularly where in terms of Paragraph 73 “a Member is...making representations to a Minister”. He said that it was important to note however that in the course of these meetings he had not been making representations either to Ministers or to officials. These meetings with officials had not been arranged for his benefit, nor even at his request. They had been arranged for the benefit of the British Government. Mr Hoon said he had been asked as a member of the NATO Group of Experts, by those same officials, if he would be willing to attend two or three meetings to listen to their views as to what the draft strategic concept should contain as the process evolved. Mr Hoon said that this had been an opportunity for the officials to set out what the British Government would like to see emerge from the process of discussion and consultation; they had been making representations to him. He had had similar meetings with representatives of other NATO governments. “I cannot imagine circumstances in which I would reveal the content of those meetings to others—even to other members of the
284 See paragraph 35 above. 285 Mr Hoon said:” I’m then hoping to go on the board of a FTSE 100 company as a non exec.” WE 90, 00:18:14. 286 WE 92 287 WE 93
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Group of Experts. The officials obviously wished to influence my thinking. I was not in any way trying to influence theirs; hence my previous puzzlement about declarations of interest.”
365. Mr Hoon said that he hoped that this made unnecessary my question about whether he had a reasonable expectation of a future financial benefit on account of his understanding of the Government and NATO’s defence policy. He said that that the officials had not been explaining either the Government’s or NATO’s defence policy to him. They had been setting out what they wanted to see from a process in which he had played a part. “I cannot think of anything that I learned from officials during those meetings that had any kind of commercial or financial value.”
366. In any event, Mr Hoon said, at the time he had had no sufficiently tangible future financial benefit within the terms of Paragraph 73 to require any declaration.288 No specific offers had been made to him at the time; only very general questions of financial benefit had been discussed referring to what other people earned in comparable positions. He had been aware of prospects, as he had said in the transcript. He said he had indicated to the undercover reporter that “the most likely thing is some sort of Chairmanship...that would be probably 3 or 4 days a month”.289The vagueness of his explanation showed that nothing had at that stage been decided or any offer made. He had gone on to say “...it’s not quite a done deal but it’s pretty close”. 290 Mr Hoon said that that had proved to be “over-optimistic” on his part as no such offer had to date materialised, “although for the sake of completeness I am still in contact with the company in question.” He said that exactly the same could be said about his reference to a FTSE 100 company; he had at the time of the interview hoped to go on the board but given that the company in question was subject at the time to a takeover, as he had made clear to the undercover reporter, he knew that this was no more than an aspiration and might not in any event be possible. Mr Hoon said that the takeover had been successful and this company would in due course no longer exist and neither would its board. He said that he had had no contact whatsoever with the new company.
367. I wrote to Mr Hoon on 6 July.291 I said that I recognised that the meetings with MOD and FCO officials had been to enable them to brief him on their views on what should be contained in the draft strategic concept which the NATO Group of Experts, of which he was a member, had been preparing. I said that while I recognised the distinction he was making—that they had been seeking to influence him, not the other way round—there nevertheless remained a question which I might need to address as to whether he should have let them know that he had (in terms of paragraph 73 of the Guide to the Rules) a reasonable expectation of personal financial advantage deriving directly or indirectly from his work on the NATO Group of Experts and, indeed, from his knowledge of what the British Government wanted to see in terms of a draft strategic concept for NATO. I said that I took it from his response that, even if there were such an obligation, it had fallen because, at that stage, he did not believe that he had a reasonable expectation of personal financial advantage, because his possible job offers had not reached a sufficiently advanced
288 See paragraph 35 above. 289 WE 90, 00:18:14 290 Ibid. 291 WE 94
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stage to justify such an expectation. I asked him to confirm or modify my understanding of his evidence on this point.
368. I said that the second issue, therefore, was whether in his interview with the undercover reporter he had given the interviewer an unreasonable impression that he had expected to be employed by particular companies in a way which would have allowed him to make use of the information available to him, either as a member of the NATO Experts Group or arising from his discussions with Government officials. I said I would need to resolve whether it was within the Code of Conduct for him to offer to brief the clients of the fake company on the relationship between NATO and national defence policy, given his statement that he was devising and developing “this policy”, by which he had told me he had meant the report of the NATO Group of Experts, and his statement that he knew “some people on the team in the MoD who are working on this, because they brief me about it.”292 I noted that this statement had followed the interviewer’s question about whether Mr Hoon could give a steer on where defence policy was going. It had also followed Mr Hoon’s subsequent statement that the people he was seeing had been advising him about the Government position (in the context of his NATO work), but that they had also been working separately on the Defence Review.
369. I told Mr Hoon that I would need to come to a view on whether it was likely that he had been receiving any briefing on the Defence Review; and, if not, whether he had given the impression to the interviewer that his contacts with these officials on NATO had given him some insight into the Defence Review which he could share with their clients and, if so, whether that had been a misleading or exaggerated impression.
370. In respect of Mr Hoon’s future job offers, I noted that in the transcript he had referred to a possible job with a US investment bank, where he had said that: “They want to kind of build a business around me, they want to expand into Europe.”293 I said that I assumed that nothing had in fact come of this offer, but I asked Mr Hoon whether it had been an exaggeration to suggest that the investment bank was planning to build its European business around him, in the terms in which he had subsequently explained that he would be acting as a figurehead chairman.
371. Mr Hoon wrote to me on 9 July, saying that he was grateful for my recognition that the meetings with MOD and FCO officials had been “at their behest” and that they had been seeking to influence his views.294 He said that he still had some difficulty as a result in understanding how any question of declaration within Paragraph 73 of the Guide to the Rules could arise.295 He said that unless he had misunderstood the requirement of the paragraph, and the rules on which it was based, there was an assumption that the Member was doing something to trigger the obligation to disclose; “debating legislation or making
292 WE 90, 00:23:36 293 WE 90, 00:19:42 294 WE 95 295 Paragraph 73 of the 2009 edition of the Guide to the Rules provides: “The rule relating to declaration of interest is broader in scope than the rules relating to the registration of interests in three important respects. As well as current interests, Members are required to declare both relevant past interests and relevant interests which they may be expecting to have. In practice only interests held in the recent past, i.e. those current within the previous twelve months, need normally be considered for declaration. Expected future interests, on the other hand, may be more significant. Where, for example, a Member is debating legislation or making representations to a Minister on a matter from which he has a reasonable expectation of personal financial advantage, candour is essential.”
Sir John Butterfill, Mr Stephen Byers, Ms Patricia Hewitt, Mr Geoff Hoon, Mr Richard Caborn and Mr Adam Ingram 87 representations to a Minister”.296 He said he had been listening to the views of officials as they sought to explain the British Government’s views.
372. Mr Hoon said that there was “one very pedantic point which arises from this for which I apologise but it is worth making.” He said that he had not been appointed to the Group of Experts as a Member of Parliament. “I was in fact the only member of the group to hold elected office; all of the others were appointed officials or Ministers. I did not attend the meetings with MOD and FCO officials as a Member of Parliament therefore. I voluntarily gave up a great deal of my free time to do this work.”
373. He said that he had made clear in his letter of 2 July297 that anything said by officials regarding the British Government’s position had been strictly confidential. Mr Hoon said that it was also difficult to see how the views of the British Government about a draft document that was likely subsequently to be amended by the NATO Secretary-General and Member States and then might or might not be put into practice could have any financial value.
374. Mr Hoon confirmed that, at the time and since, he had “no reasonable expectation of financial advantage arising out of these meetings.” That remained the position to date. He said he did not anticipate that that would change. He also noted that I had referred in my letter of 6 July298 to “possible job offers”. He said that, as he had made clear in his last letter to me, there had been no specific job offers, certainly none that could be described as “tangible” or creating “a reasonable expectation that a financial benefit will accrue”.
375. Mr Hoon said that the full transcript showed that he was interested in providing “strategic advice”, “the sort of practical understanding of how Government here and probably how Government in Brussels works”, “the advisory part”. He said that it was also clear from the interview that he had only been referring to the time when he had stood down from the House of Commons and was no longer a Member of Parliament. He said that he was “having some difficulty in understanding why the second sentence in Article Two of the Code of Conduct does not apply since I only referred to a time when I would be a private citizen.”299
376. Mr Hoon said that the transcript made clear that in his meeting with the undercover reporter he had been referring to being able to brief a client on strategic issues. He quoted from the transcript, noting that he had said that a private equity fund had asked him to talk to them: “About the relationship, if you like between NATO at the higher level and National Defence Policy, which is the strategic defence review, one down, and how it actually all fits together.”300 He said that he would be able to give such a briefing “because of my general knowledge and understanding of defence policy accumulated over many years of working in the area. At no stage was I given any specific briefing about progress in the Defence Review.”
377. Mr Hoon said he recognised that the quotation I had set out from the transcript seemed to contradict this. He said that he had been asked by the undercover reporter
296 See paragraph 32 above. 297 WE 93 298 WE 94 299 Article Two of the Code of Conduct for Members of Parliament provides: “2. The Code applies to Members in all aspects of their public life. It does not seek to regulate what Members do in their purely private and personal lives”. 300 WE 90, 00:22:52
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whether “after the election” he could give “a steer” about where “defence policy is going”.301 He had said that he could, “in my own mind referring to the general understanding of defence policy that I had developed over the years.” He had gone on to say that “I know some people on the team in the MOD who are working on this, because they brief me about. Because I mean I’m, I’m doing this NATO work as, as Geoff Hoon, not as a representative of the Government, but obviously the Government are quite interested in, in what I’m doing”.302 He noted that I had quoted from “the material originally supplied by Channel 4 which includes the word ‘it’ at the end of the first sentence.”303 He said that the word did not appear in the transcript that had been supplied by the Solicitor. He said he was unfortunately currently unable to gain access to the actual recording to establish which was the correct version.
378. Mr Hoon asked me “to accept that at no stage have I ever been briefed by officials from the MOD about the Defence Review. If necessary I am sure that they could verify this as a fact.” He said that it could not be a matter of opinion or view. Whether or not he had used the word “it”, the context showed that he was referring to the “NATO work”. He said that he went on to state during the meeting with the undercover reporter “So I do see them. So, so some of the people I ... see are doing both, they’re both advising me as to what the Government position is but also working separately on the ... defence review.”304 He had gone on to say to the undercover reporter that in respect of her bogus clients “if you want to give them practical advice, I think the best you could say at the moment is what I’ve just said to you, one, look at the Green Paper....”,305 which was of course a publicly available document.
379. As to the prospect of work with a US Investment bank, Mr Hoon said nothing had come of this. The Bank had discussed with him the idea of working with a banking expert to develop their European business. “I would have been a figurehead in the sense that I would have been the Chairman and would have led the business. There was no suggestion that I would have been doing any more or any less than the Chairman of any other company ... Once again this would only have been once I stopped being a Member of Parliament.”
380. I wrote to Mr Hoon on 13 July.306 I noted that he had made a number of points relating to the interpretation of the Code of Conduct and the Guide to the Rules and said that these give rise to some further considerations. In particular, I said it could be taken from his letter that he was arguing that the Code of Conduct did not apply to him at the time of his interview, either because he had been discussing only matters which related to his activities once he was no longer a Member of Parliament, or (in relation to his work on the NATO experts group) because the work was purely personal and had nothing to do with his being a Member of Parliament. I told Mr Hoon that, to make the latter argument, he would need to address the first sentence of paragraph 2 of the Code, which stated: “The Code applies to Members in all aspects of their public life.”
301 WE 90, 00:23:17 302 WE 90, 00:23:36 303 Not included in the written evidence. 304 WE 90, 00:23:54 305 WE 90, 00:24:10 306 WE 96
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381. I said that I understood that Mr Hoon was also arguing that he had been under no obligation to declare an interest (even if he had had one) because he had neither been debating legislation, nor making representations to a Minister (as referred to in paragraph 73 of the Guide to the Rules).307 I noted the sentence which he had quoted started with the words: “where, for example,” which might suggest this was not meant to be a comprehensive description of the obligation on declaration set out in the Guide to the Rules.308 On the face of it, therefore, I told Mr Hoon that it would be necessary for him to argue that the briefing meetings he had had with MOD and FCO officials were not “communications” within the terms of the resolution of the House of May 1974.309
382. I said that I might, therefore, need to address both of these issues of interpretation in the conclusions on this inquiry. I also said that there was an additional point about interpretation which he had raised, namely the omission of the word “it” in the certified transcript, that word having been included in the transcript of the Channel 4 Dispatches programme which had been produced by his lawyers and which he had enclosed with his letter to me of 30 March.310 As a general rule, I said that the evidence should be based on the certified transcript. But I said I would be content to add the word “it” if he would like me to do so. I asked him to let me know if he considered the omission of the word material.311
383. I said that I would take account of his responses and of his earlier points in coming to a view, among other matters, on whether he gave the interviewer an unreasonable or misleading impression that, in order to provide briefings to private companies, he was prepared to draw on information available to him from his work with NATO and his briefings from the MOD and FCO officials. I said that in relation to the possible job with a US investment bank, in the light of what he had said, I would need to come to a view on whether his statement that the bank wanted “to build a business around me” was an exaggeration.
384. Mr Hoon replied to me on 16 July.312 He told me that he accepted that as a Member of Parliament he was subject to the Code of Conduct and that as far as his public life was concerned until the Dissolution of Parliament he was bound by its terms in relation to his parliamentary and public duties. Mr Hoon said that it was a matter for me and the Committee “to decide whether in what was a secretly recorded private conversation about my future plans for life after Parliament the Code of Conduct should apply.” He said that “Even Members of Parliament are entitled to a private life as paragraph 2 of the Code makes clear. A private discussion about future employment plans after the dissolution of Parliament would appear to me to fall within the scope of private rather than public life.”
307 See paragraph 35 above. 308 See paragraph 32 above. 309 See paragraph 30 above. 310 WE 84 311 See paragraph 391 below. 312 WE 97
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385. Mr Hoon said the same issue arose in relation to the meetings with civil servants. They had been purely private meetings. “I was not attending as a Member of Parliament. I had been invited by the civil servants in a voluntary capacity to help them.”
386. Mr Hoon said that there were very similar issues in respect of the declaration of interests. He accepted that it was perfectly possible to interpret the 1974 resolution to mean that any conversation which a Member had with a civil servant might give rise to the need to make a declaration. Mr Hoon said that he had been arguing, consistently with what he had set out above, that the Code should apply to those areas where a Member was acting as a Member and that “since I had not been appointed to the NATO Group of Experts as a Member of Parliament and was not attending meetings with civil servants as a Member, it is straining the application of the Code to include meetings or activities that go beyond the scope of what could reasonably be described as the parliamentary and public duties of a Member of Parliament.”
387. He said that in relation to the meetings with civil servants he had previously made clear that these meetings had been an opportunity for the British Government to influence his thinking. He had not been trying to influence theirs. Mr Hoon said that as a result paragraph 74 of the Guide did not apply.313 He said that he had not been making any representations that “might reasonably be thought by others to influence the speech, representations or communication in question”.
388. Mr Hoon said that he was content to rely on the certified transcript. The inclusion of the word “it” would significantly alter the meaning of what he had said in a way that could not be justified by the facts. He had not been briefed by civil servants about the Defence Review. As to the question of drawing on information available from his work with NATO, Mr Hoon reiterated that this was a public process and he had not been privy to any information that would not have been available to any reasonably well informed student of defence policy. “At no stage did I suggest that I was willing to draw on briefings from MOD and FCO officials.”
389. Mr Hoon said it had been clear from the context of his remarks about work with a US investment bank that he had been talking about a possibility that was at the time still some way off. “It has not to date materialised.”
390. I replied to Mr Hoon on 20 July.314 I told him that, in the light of his argument about the scope of the Code, I would need to come to a view on the application of paragraph two of the Code315 to his discussion when I came to resolve this complaint. I said I would also consider whether I needed to come to a view on his arguments about the application of the declaration provisions to his meetings with FCO and MOD officials.
391. I told Mr Hoon that I had noted what he had said about the inclusion of the word “it” in the certified transcript.316 In view of the importance he attached to the words used I said
313 Mr Hoon’s letter said that “In relation to these meetings with civil servants I have previously made clear ... that these meetings were an opportunity for the British Government to influence my thinking. I was not trying to influence theirs. As a result paragraph 74 of the Guide applies.” This was a typing error: Mr Hoon had intended his letter to read, “As a result paragraph 74 of the Guide does not apply.” 314 WE 98 315 See paragraph 18 above. 316 See paragraph 388 above.
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I had listened again to the programme as broadcast. I said that it was clear that the word used was not “it”, which he had stated was wrong. The sound track appeared clearly to record Mr Hoon saying: “I know some people on the team in the MOD who are working on this, because they brief me about this.” I said it would appear, therefore, that Mr Hoon did suggest that officials had briefed him about “this” and, in the context of the question he was discussing, “this” would appear to have been a suggestion that the officials were briefing him about the defence review. I said that I took it from his evidence to me that there was no truth in this suggestion.
392. I told Mr Hoon that my inquiries of him about what he had said in the transcript in respect of his discussions with some US investment bankers was to find out whether what he had said about their wish to “kind of build a business around me” was an exaggeration; in other words, to find out whether it went beyond the facts of the matter and, if so, how far it went beyond those facts. I said that I had not used his phrase “showing off” because, of course, that term gave no indication whether the boast was based on reality or not. I told Mr Hoon that I would need to come to a conclusion about whether what he had told the undercover reporter at the meeting was wide of the reality, and, if so, whether it had brought Parliament into disrepute, taking account of the Nolan principles.
393. Mr Hoon replied to me on 23 July.317 He said that he had given further thought to the question of the application of the Code of Conduct to the meetings he had had with civil servants from the FCO and the MOD. “It seems to me that there is a fairness issue. It would be extremely unfair if I was to be criticised for undertaking meetings at the request of civil servants for the benefit of the British Government whilst engaged in a voluntary capacity in work that I was undertaking in my own time.”
394. Mr Hoon said that he had read and re-read in particular the relevant passage of the transcript marked 00.23.36.318 He said that he would not of course in any way challenge my conclusions about what he had seemed to say. He said that he hoped that I would accept that even if he had said “this”, taken as a whole “this passage is far from clear. I do not accept that it could be interpreted as suggesting that a second ‘this’ refers to briefing on the Defence Review because as I have made clear before no such briefing ever took place.”
395. Mr Hoon said that in his experience of reading transcripts, few people spoke in perfectly formed sentences and he was clearly no exception. “I know in my own mind that I was talking about the work that I was doing for NATO and the briefing relevant to that.” He said that trying his best to make sense of what he had said, he would suggest that the first part of the sentence; “some people on the team in the MOD who are working on this” referred back to the previous exchange about where “defence policy is going”. The second part, even accepting that it included the word “this” was part of an explanation of the way in which he was being briefed by some of the same people working on the Defence Review but actually on the NATO work. Mr Hoon said he had made this clear in the next passage. He said he was not in any way suggesting that they were briefing him on the Defence Review.
317 WE 99 318 “Yeah, no I mean it will take some time, but, but the team, and I know some people on the team in the MOD who are working on this, because they brief me about this.”
92 Sir John Butterfill, Mr Stephen Byers, Ms Patricia Hewitt, Mr Geoff Hoon, Mr Richard Caborn and Mr Adam Ingram
396. Mr Hoon set out the nature of the discussions he had had with a US investment bank. He had been introduced to them by a firm of “head hunters”. They had said that they were interested in employing him but before they could do so they wanted to recruit a senior and experienced figure to work with him. Mr Hoon said that the expression “build a business around me” was therefore an exaggeration. As far as he was aware, that person had never been recruited and he had heard nothing from the company since the conversation set out in the transcript. He said that he did not believe that such “preliminary conversations” fell within the Nolan principles. The discussions had been tentative, at an early stage and had not reached any particular conclusion. “We had no discussions about terms and conditions or remuneration or indeed what precisely my work would involve.” He said that, in any event, had these conversations led to an offer, it would only have been after he had left Parliament.
397. I wrote to Mr Hoon on 27 July, saying that I hoped I was right in having taken from his evidence that the FCO and MOD officials had briefed him face to face and they had not also briefed others at the same time.319
398. Having reviewed all the evidence relating to this inquiry, I wrote again to Mr Hoon on 29 September, telling him that there were two points which I needed to clarify with him.320 In his letter to me of 30 March,321 he had told me that a meeting with a private equity firm had been with a UK based fund and had taken place on the morning of the interview. In his letter of 6 April,322 he had apparently clarified the status of the private equity firm by noting that he had meetings with two American private equity firms in London, and that both maintained separate European operations. He had told me that he did not recall offering either of them a briefing, but he would have discussed defence policy in general terms. In his letter of 8 June,323 he had said that he gave no briefings to a private equity firm while he had been an MP or since. I noted that he had said that the reference to his briefing “across the road” on the day of his meeting with the undercover reporter was a reference to a lunch organised by the Latvian ambassador for other ambassadors.
399. I said I was having difficulty in reconciling these statements with each other and with what he had said to the undercover reporter recorded in the transcript. He had said there that “I saw someone in the city this morning…it was a private equity company, they’re floating off a business but they’re not going to do so for 18 months…in the meantime I might well go and talk to some of their people about Europe, about some of the regulator issues, some of the legal issues that I’m familiar with, as well as a defence policy more generally ... which is what I have just been doing across the road...”324 I asked Mr Hoon whether his evidence was that he did indeed have meetings with American private equity firms, but they were a UK fund because they had separate European operations; and that while he had had meetings with these firms which referred to his Defence experience, one of which took place in the morning of the meeting with the undercover reporter, he did not give
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Sir John Butterfill, Mr Stephen Byers, Ms Patricia Hewitt, Mr Geoff Hoon, Mr Richard Caborn and Mr Adam Ingram 93 them defence briefings similar to the defence briefings which he had given on the same day at the lunch with diplomatic guests of the Latvian Ambassador.
400. I also said I did not think I had received an answer to the question I had put to him in my letter of 23 March325 when I wrote that it would be helpful if he could confirm that he had said his rate for consultancy or similar services was £3,000 a day, and, if true, whether he had provided any such remunerated services to date for that or any other rate, and, if so, whether he had registered the payments in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.
401. Mr Hoon wrote to me on 30 September.326 He said that at 10am on the day of the meeting with the undercover reporter, 3 March, he had had a meeting with a UK private equity fund. This had been an introductory meeting arranged by a head hunter. It was not a briefing, although there had been some discussion about whether he would go back after the election to talk to them (the private equity fund) in general terms about the issues set out in the transcript, including Europe and defence policy. Mr Hoon said that in any event this further meeting did not take place. He said that the reference to two American private equity firms in London involved two quite separate meetings on other dates. Mr Hoon said that they had been in the nature of introductory meetings; they had not been briefings, and nothing had resulted from either meeting, before or after the election.
402. Mr Hoon said that at 1pm on that day he had attended a lunch at the Travellers’ Club on Pall Mall “across the road” from St James Square, where “the entrapment [meeting with the undercover reporter] later took place.” This had been a lunch organised by the Latvian Ambassador for Baltic and Scandinavian Ambassadors so that he could brief them on the work of the Group of Experts. “Such briefings were regarded as an important part of the role.” Mr Hoon said that at 3pm the meeting with the undercover reporter had taken place in St James’s Square, a short walk from Pall Mall. He said that he had made clear previously that he had always made all necessary entries in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. “I was asked about a daily rate by the undercover journalist. It is obvious from my reply that I did not have a clear answer to the question, not least because up until that date I had not done any consultancy or similar work, ‘Erm, I, I mean I've been offered three thousand pounds for a day’s work, erm and in, I mean I, that’s about right.’327 Ironically, given the circumstances, that referred to an offer made to me by Channel Four to do a television programme after the election. I did not provide any such remunerated services, at that or at any other rate, before the General Election.”
403. Mr Hoon wrote to me on 6 November commenting on the draft factual sections of this memorandum.328 The points he wished to emphasise were that:
x there was no evidence that he was referring in his discussion with the undercover reporter to employment opportunities whilst he was still a Member of Parliament. He considered that the transcript showed clearly that he was referring to a time, at the very earliest, after the Dissolution of Parliament or still later;
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94 Sir John Butterfill, Mr Stephen Byers, Ms Patricia Hewitt, Mr Geoff Hoon, Mr Richard Caborn and Mr Adam Ingram
x before becoming a Member, Mr Hoon has lived and worked in the United States and on the Continent, and as a barrister he had had previous experience in European law;
x Mr Hoon had taught European law at university in the United Kingdom and in the United States.
Findings of Fact 404. In February 2010 Mr Hoon’s office received an approach from the undercover reporter, claiming to represent Anderson Perry. During an initial telephone conversation, Mr Hoon and the undercover reporter agreed to meet.
405. Mr Hoon met the undercover reporter on 3 March 2010. Mr Hoon says that he had assumed that in his own time it would be permissible to participate in a general and private conversation about possible employment opportunities arising after the Dissolution of Parliament. He acknowledges that in the course of the interview there was an element of exaggeration and immodesty in his remarks as he sought to achieve a favourable outcome.
406. Mr Hoon believes that the Code of Conduct should not be applied to many of the statements and actions which are the subject of this inquiry.329 He argues that he was discussing the possibility of work after he had left the House, so that discussion was not subject to the Code. He argues that the discussion was about his private employment and so was a purely private matter not subject to the Code. And he argues that in his meetings with MOD and FCO officials he was not acting as a Member of Parliament but in a purely voluntary and personal capacity, and was therefore not subject to the Code.
407. Mr Hoon has argued that in each of the issues which have been the subject of this inquiry and which I identify in the following sections, it is clear from the transcript that he was referring to a period when he would no longer be a Member of Parliament, either after Dissolution or to an even later time.
Issues subject to inquiry i. Use of knowledge and contacts
408. Mr Hoon told the undercover reporter “indeed one of the challenges, I think which I’m really looking forward to is sort of translating my knowledge and contacts about the sort of international scene into something that, bluntly, makes money.”330
Relevant rule of the House: Paragraph 15 of the Code of Conduct: Disrepute.
409. Mr Hoon says that when he referred to using his knowledge and contacts around the international scene he was referring to the fact that over the past 25 years he has developed a good understanding of how international organisations operate, including from time spent before he became a Member working in the United States and on the continent, and
329 See paragraph 384 above. 330 WE 90, 00:30:15
Sir John Butterfill, Mr Stephen Byers, Ms Patricia Hewitt, Mr Geoff Hoon, Mr Richard Caborn and Mr Adam Ingram 95 as a barrister with expertise in European law. He says he has been led to believe that such experience might be of use in the commercial world. He accepts that some of his statements were embarrassing, but it was meant to be a private conversation.
ii. Offering to chair a company
410. Mr Hoon told the undercover reporter: “I’m in negotiation with quite a big company at the moment, and basically they’re going to pay me I think ... a salary over the year of 3 or 4 days a month ... Of an amount like I find frankly embarrassing, but I’m not going to say that.”331
Relevant rule of the House: Paragraph 15 of the Code of Conduct: Disrepute.
411. Mr Hoon says that the “embarrassing” amount of money referred to a figure suggested to him by a head hunter as being the likely amount on offer from an overseas company. Although the head hunter led Mr Hoon to believe that this offer was to be made shortly, it had not materialised when Mr Hoon wrote to me on 30 March. Mr Hoon says that in those circumstances he had not yet contacted ACOBA, since no firm offer of appointment or employment had been made. He says he would expect to do so only if he had a firm offer of an appointment or employment from the company itself. iii. Leading a delegation to a Minister
412. Mr Hoon said that “I am quite happy to give strategic advice … and in the right circumstances, I don’t mind leading a delegation in to seeing this Minister”.332
Relevant rules of the House: Paragraph 10 of the Code of Conduct: Paid advocacy. Paragraph 16 of the Code of Conduct: Registration and Declaration.
413. Mr Hoon says that there could be times when a director or a chairman of a company would meet a Minister. He indicated to the reporter that “in the right circumstances” he would be willing to help to arrange that, and he argues that this statement referred only to work he might undertake when he was no longer a Member of Parliament. But he made clear that he did not want to be “some sort of a lobbyist”.
iv. Access to Defence Ministers
414. Mr Hoon told the undercover reporter that “if a former Minister asks to see the defence Minister … I don’t think there would be any difficulty”. 333
Relevant rule of the House: Paragraph 15 of the Code of Conduct: Disrepute.
415. Mr Hoon says that he regrets that this was no more than him showing off and trying to impress. He says it was likely that as a former Secretary of State for Defence he could get to meet with whoever happened to be in the position at the time. But he would have to put
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forward a reason, and he does not believe that could be based on any kind of representation of a third party, unless that was in itself for legitimate reasons unconnected with his former position.
v. Strategic Defence and Security Review
416. Having suggested that one of her clients had raised the MOD’s Defence Review334 and after a wider discussion, the undercover reporter asked Mr Hoon how easy it would be, after the election, “to kind of get a steer ... on where ... defence policy is going? Because what’s, what clients always seem to want is a kind of heads up.” He answered, “Yeah, yeah.” The reporter then referred to “What they should be bidding for” and Mr Hoon said, “... it will take some time, but ... I know some people on the team in the MOD who are working on this, because they brief me about this.” He continued, “So ... some of the people I see are doing both, they’re both advising me as to what the Government position is but also working separately on the ... defence review.” 335
Relevant rules of the House: Paragraph 13 of the Code of Conduct: Confidential information for financial gain. Paragraph 15 of the Code of Conduct: Disrepute. Paragraph 16 of the Code of Conduct: Registration and Declaration.
417. Mr Hoon says that he understood the interviewer’s question about giving a steer on “where ... defence policy is going” to relate to the voluntary unpaid work that he was doing on behalf of NATO.336 Mr Hoon says that the only information he had about the Defence Review was from publicly available sources such as the recent Green Paper, which he suggested the clients should read, although it would not give them many clues. Mr Hoon also states that he was at no stage given any specific briefing by MOD officials or others about progress on the Defence Review. He denies that his statements were intended to give the impression that he was offering to give a steer on the defence review based on his contacts with MOD officials working on that review as well as on the NATO defence strategy.
418. Mr Hoon says that he did not have any financial interests to declare to anyone at the MOD because he was not, in terms of Paragraph 73 of the Guide to the Rules (2009 Edition) “making representations to a Minister”. His meetings at the MOD were an opportunity for the officials to make representations to him: the meetings were at their request and for their benefit. Mr Hoon also says that he was not appointed to the Group of Experts as a Member of Parliament. Mr Hoon says that in any event at the time he had no sufficiently tangible future financial benefit within the terms of Paragraph 73 to require any declaration.
vi. NATO defence policy
419. Mr Hoon told the undercover reporter: “I went to see a private equity fund this morning ... one of the things that they do want me to do is come back and maybe talk, in
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Sir John Butterfill, Mr Stephen Byers, Ms Patricia Hewitt, Mr Geoff Hoon, Mr Richard Caborn and Mr Adam Ingram 97 strategic terms ... About the relationship ... between NATO at the higher level and National Defence Policy, which is the strategic defence review, one down, and how it actually all fits together. So I would be quite happy to do that for your clients ... and I can actually talk about it from, I mean in a sense I’m devising, I’m developing this policy, so they will get a fairly accurate account of what’s going on.”337
420. Mr Hoon told the reporter that he had seen someone in the City that morning: “... it was a private equity company, they’re floating off a business ... I might well go and talk to some of their people about Europe, about some of the regulator issues, some of the legal issues that I’m familiar with, as well as defence policy more generally which is what I’ve just been doing across the road...”338
Relevant rules of the House: Paragraph 13 of the Code of Conduct: Confidential information for financial gain Paragraph 15 of the Code of Conduct: Disrepute.
421. Mr Hoon says that the meeting with a private equity firm was in the United Kingdom and was with a UK based fund and had taken place the morning of his meeting with the undercover reporter. He says he had not received any payment for attending the meeting nor had he discussed any particular amount of money for meeting them in the future. In his introductory meetings arranged by a headhunter with other private equity firms, which had taken place at other times, Mr Hoon says he was not in any way seeking to trade on knowledge or information that was obtained confidentially. Mr Hoon has noted that he was a qualified barrister and taught European law at universities in the United Kingdom and the United States before entering Parliament. Mr Hoon says that when he mentioned a meeting “across the road” he was referring to a lunch organised by the Latvian Ambassador at which he discussed the work of the NATO Group of Experts of which he was then a member. No fee for this was asked for or offered. vii. Private Equity Briefing
422. Mr Hoon told the undercover reporter, in relation to a private equity firm, that “I might well go and talk to some of their people about Europe, about some of the regulator issues, some of the legal issues that I’m familiar with, as well as a defence policy more generally ... So you know I might well go and spend a day with them and they’ll pay me a fee ...”339
Relevant rules of the House: Paragraph 15 of the Code of Conduct: Disrepute. Paragraph 16 of the Code of Conduct: Registration and Declaration.
423. Mr Hoon describes the language that he used here as clearly aspirational and he says that his introductory meetings with private equity firms have not led to anything specific. viii. Defence policy document
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424. Mr Hoon, referring to a document in his coat pocket, said to the undercover reporter: “… this is hot from the press, I’ve just got this from Washington. But it’s the kind of thing that I think if you had one or more defence clients who really wanted to kind of understand where things are going, then I’d be very happy to come and present that.” 340 Earlier in the meeting Mr Hoon had told the reporter: “I carry around with me a paper that we are working on now, and indeed I’ve just written a paper for the National Defense University of Washington, on how we see the development of [NATO] capabilities.”341
Relevant rules of the House: Paragraph 13 of the Code of Conduct: Confidential information for financial gain. Paragraph 15 of the Code of Conduct: Disrepute.
425. Mr Hoon says that the document referred to was the near final version of an academic paper that he helped to write with academics from the Washington National Defense University about NATO defence capabilities. He says that it was written for publication and has now been published online. He says that this academic paper was to be the basis for that section of the Experts’ report dealing with NATO capabilities, again showing the public nature of the process. Mr Hoon says that given that he had helped to write the paper it was obviously not supplied in confidence.
ix. Bank business
426. Mr Hoon told the undercover reporter of a possible job with a US investment bank, of which he said: “They want to kind of build a business around me, they want to expand into Europe.”342
Relevant rules of the House: Paragraph 15 of the Code of Conduct: Disrepute. Paragraph 16 of the Code of Conduct: Registration and Declaration.
427. Mr Hoon says that the bank had said that they were interested in employing him but before they could do so they wanted to recruit a senior and experienced figure to work with him. Mr Hoon said that the expression “build a business around me” was therefore an exaggeration. He says that nothing had come of this idea.
x. Daily rate for consultancy and other services £3,000 a day
428. Mr Hoon said to the reporter, in answer to a question about his “daily rate”: “ I mean I’ve been offered three thousand pounds for a day’s work ... and ... that’s about right”.
Relevant rule of the House: Paragraph 16 of the Code of Conduct: Registration and Declaration.
429. Mr Hoon says that this was a reference to an offer he received from a television company of work after the election.343
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Rt Hon Richard Caborn: My Inquiries 430. Following receipt of Mr Hands’ complaint,344 I wrote to Mr Caborn on 31 March.345 I asked Mr Caborn to give me a full account of the circumstances in which he had come to be interviewed by someone who turned out to be a journalist. I also asked Mr Caborn to confirm whether, as reported, he had said that:
x “There’s a number of ways in which you can influence or at least access Ministers, whether it’s a sector or an individual company, or what. And also on policy as well”;346 and if true, whether that should be interpreted as an offer to influence or access Ministers once he had left the House. I asked whether Mr Caborn had at any time influenced or accessed Ministers on behalf of a sector or an individual company and, if so, what the circumstances had been, and whether he had declared his interest;
x he might be elevated to the House of Lords and, if so, he would be able to help the fictitious company with “access to people ... getting information”.347 I asked whether, if true, this implied that he was offering to the company as a Member of the Lords access to his contacts and information;
x one of his clients, the Fitness Industry Association (FIA), had “direct access” to health Ministers;348 and if true, he had arranged that access and, if so, what the circumstances had been and whether Mr Caborn had declared his interest in so doing;
x in respect of another of his clients, AMEC, “I connect them in. If they want a reception in the House of Commons and if they want ... to get advice from government, then I get advice from government and I introduce them to people”.349 I asked, if that was true, what receptions and meetings Mr Caborn had set up for AMEC including any on the parliamentary estate and whether on each occasion he had identified his interest;
x that he would be willing to help build relations with civil servants after he had stood down and that it would not be a problem to set up meetings with civil servants.350 I asked, if that was true, the basis on which Mr Caborn had made these offers and whether he had at any time set up meetings with civil servants on behalf of a client, and if so, what the circumstances had been, and whether he had declared his interest;
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x that he charged £2,500 a day for his services. I asked Mr Caborn to confirm whether he had at any time been paid £2,500 a day for consultancy or other services and, if so, by whom and whether he had registered these payments.
431. I also asked what subsequent communications Mr Caborn or his legal advisers had had with the reporters; whether, if any of the allegations were true, Mr Caborn considered he had an obligation to make a Register entry or declaration, or both, and what action he had taken accordingly; and if any of what Mr Caborn had said had been untrue, why he had spoken as he had done. Finally, I told Mr Caborn that I was inviting the Channel 4 programme makers to let me have his full interview.
432. Mr Caborn replied on 19 April.351 He began by saying that in his 31 years in elected public office, he had never taken any remuneration above that which was paid for by the office he held. He continued, “It was only when I announced my retirement from public office that I was approached by a number of organisations enquiring what I would be doing when I left the House of Commons.” Mr Caborn said that he had accepted a number of positions both paid and unpaid, in preparation for his life outside Parliament. He said, “at no time did I engage in any lobbying activity on behalf of any organisation registered in my Declaration of Members’ Interests.”352 He also said, “For the record, all my activities that should be cleared by the House authorities, have been cleared and are fully recorded in the Members’ Declaration of Interest”. Mr Caborn said that all the positions not so recorded, including others referred to in the Sunday Times interview, were voluntary positions he had accepted once he had announced his retirement from Parliament.353
433. Mr Caborn said that in his 27 years service to the House and Government he had worked to develop a greater understanding between industry and government. He said that this was a point he had made to the House on 29 March354 and in his submission to the Public Administration Committee on 8 May 2008.355 Mr Caborn commented, “On re- reading my evidence, my answer to Question 585356 is particularly accurate with regards to the entrapment that the Sunday Times tried to lure me into.” His reason for serving as a Trustee of the Industry and Parliament Trust (IPT) for 14 years had been to promote a greater understanding and awareness of the activities of Parliament and industry. Mr Caborn also said that, in the role of Trustee of the IPT, he had given numerous talks to industry on the role of Parliament, its back benchers and its committee structure, and on how Government works with his experience of over 10 years as a Government Minister. He commented that this was “Information I naively thought the Sunday Times journalist was interested in, but went on to totally distort what I had said”.
434. Mr Caborn said that, following a number of calls to his office requesting a meeting with a representative from an American company, Anderson Perry, his secretary, having consulted him, had organised this. Mr Caborn said that the person arranging the meeting
351 WE 105 352 The Register of Members’ Financial Interests. 353 President of ABAE England; President of the YHA; President of the UK School Games; Trustee of the Football Foundation; the Prime Minister’s World Cup Ambassador. 354 See WE 106 355 See First Report of the Public Administration Committee, Session 2008-09, HC 36-II, Ev.79-92. WE 122 356 Ibid. Ev.85
Sir John Butterfill, Mr Stephen Byers, Ms Patricia Hewitt, Mr Geoff Hoon, Mr Richard Caborn and Mr Adam Ingram 101 insisted on having it outside the House of Commons. He commented, “I only became aware of this on the morning of the interview. Whilst no alarm bells rang, I did find it unusual as I normally have all the meetings in the House of Commons.” Mr Caborn said he still stood by his statement to the House on 29 March that what had appeared in the Sunday Times was “a fabrication of the information gained in the entrapment with the sole intention to deliberately mislead.”357 He continued, “I want to make it perfectly clear that from the very start of the entrapment interview I told the reporter that I was not making any decisions about my activities until after the General Election when I would have left the House of Commons.” Mr Caborn commented, “The Sunday Times made very serious allegations, which were not followed up in the published story, of contract fixing, and influencing legislation of which they said that they had evidence from the interview, which I emphatically denied.”
435. Mr Caborn said, in response to my question about subsequent communications with the reporters, that his lawyers had requested the information gathered from his interview, either in tape or transcript form, on two occasions without success. Mr Caborn said that he did not believe that any of the allegations in the Sunday Times were true.
436. I did not continue my inquiries during the Dissolution of the House. On the assembly of the new Parliament on 18 May, I resumed my inquiry. I wrote on the same day to Mr Caborn, asking him to help me further on the matters covered in his letter of 19 April, and in particular on the questions I had asked in my letter of 31 March.358
437. I asked Mr Caborn what the undercover reporter had originally told him (or his office) about the purpose of the interview and why he had accepted her invitation. I asked him to confirm the date of his interview. I also asked Mr Caborn what paid positions or employment he had accepted while still a Member of Parliament, with dates of acceptance and the dates when he had made any necessary registration in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I noted that Mr Caborn had given me a general answer to my questions, but that he had not addressed any of the specific questions which I had asked him about the interview. I asked him to provide me with specific answers to each of the points I had raised. I said that, if he preferred, it would be open to him to defer answering these questions until I had resolved the matter of my request for the full transcript.
438. I also asked Mr Caborn for a specific answer to my question as to whether he had at any time been paid £2,500 a day for consultancy or other services. I said that Mr Caborn’s reference to all his activities having been recorded in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests did not specifically answer that question. I noted that Mr Caborn had referred to the speech he had made in the House of Commons on 29 March 2010, and I said I would include the relevant sections of the Official Report in the written evidence.359 I asked him, if he wished me to take account of any information in relation to his evidence to the Public Administration Committee,360 to send me a copy of the relevant sections so that I could include them in the written evidence.
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439. Mr Caborn wrote to me on 21 May. 361 He asked me whether my request for his full interview included both the audio and film recording which had been referred to in the Sunday Times article, and he asked me to confirm that he would have access to this information.
440. Mr Caborn told me that he had understood that the meeting with Ms Claire Webster was on behalf of an American company, Anderson Perry, who were looking to locate and invest in the UK. He said that his secretary had “googled” the company and provided him with background briefing for the meeting, which had been held on 10 March 2010. He said that he believed the date to be accurate but “we have no means of checking back”. He said that his only paid position had been after he had announced his intention in 2007 not to stand at the next General Election. He had accepted two positions which had been cleared by the office of ACOBA362 and were recorded in his acceptance letter to them dated 29 February 2008,363 and a letter of 6 March 2008 to the Registrar of Members’ Financial Interests.364 He said that he preferred to defer providing any detailed answers until he received the tapes and film of the interview.
441. Mr Caborn told me that his notional daily rates were £2,500 per day for AMEC and £1,000 per day for the FIA. He said, “I say ‘notional’ as a significant amount of time is required in preparing for meetings, reading background papers and preparing reports”. This had all been “built into the daily rate.” He estimated that this was between two to three days per fee paid day, and said that this was covered in the declaration in the Registers of Members’ Financial Interests.
442. I wrote to Mr Caborn on 24 May.365 In response to his letter of 21 May, I said that I would show him anything I received from the production company in response to my request for material of the full interview. I told Mr Caborn that I remained unclear what the reporter had told him or his office about what they had wanted to discuss with him. I said that unless he provided me with further information, I would assume that he had agreed to the meeting solely on the information that there was an American company looking to locate and invest in the UK. I said that I would assume that there had been no suggestion at that stage that he would have any role in its activities.
443. I asked Mr Caborn to identify specifically the paid positions he had accepted, the dates when he had accepted them and when he had registered them, as I had requested in my earlier letter.366 I asked Mr Caborn to let me have copies of the letters to which he referred, including his exchange of correspondence with ACOBA, so that I could enter them into the evidence.
444. I also asked Mr Caborn to identify the parts of his evidence session with the Public Administration Committee which he wished me to consider. Without that, I said that I
361 WE 108 362 The Advisory Committee on Business Appointments 363 WE 115 364 WE 116 365 WE 109 366 WE 107
Sir John Butterfill, Mr Stephen Byers, Ms Patricia Hewitt, Mr Geoff Hoon, Mr Richard Caborn and Mr Adam Ingram 103 would need to come to my own view on whether the whole of his responses in that session, or any other part of those responses, were relevant to this inquiry.
445. On 27 May I received the certified transcripts of Mr Caborn’s conversations with the undercover reporter. The transcript of Mr Caborn’s meeting with the reporter had a paragraph in block capitals in the note provided by the solicitor stating:
“NB The sound quality of this recording was particularly poor with quite a lot of background noise (as the venue is a hotel café) and so the accuracy of this transcript is necessarily limited.”
This paragraph was not included in the notes covering the transcripts of other Members’ meetings.
446. I wrote to Mr Caborn on 2 June, attaching the transcripts of Mr Caborn’s conversations.367 I asked him to help me with some further points. I said first that Mr Caborn had referred in his initial telephone conversation with Ms Webster, and at various points in his interview, to his role as a non-executive director of Nuclear Management Partners.368 I asked him to confirm that appointment and to let me know whether he had considered registering it in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I also said that he had referred in a number of places to his proposals for restructuring health and wellness services in Sheffield, and to links with his friend who was Chair of the Health Authority.369 I asked him to let me know whether he had linked this work to his work as consultant to the Fitness Industry Association, and whether the members of that Association had been likely to benefit from those proposals. I also asked him to tell me whether, in his contacts with Ministers and officials on the proposals, he had made it clear that he was a paid consultant to FIA.
447. I drew Mr Caborn’s attention to his references, in various places in the transcript, to the work he had done with AMEC and in setting up a consortium to bid for, and win, a major contract.370 I asked him to tell me the dates when he had undertaken that work and whether it had involved representations to Ministers or officials, and if so, whether he had declared his interest. I referred Mr Caborn to his comments about the regeneration of the company when he said, “I revamped the whole structure.”371 I asked him to confirm that this was an accurate statement of the work he had undertaken for AMEC, and also to tell me how this major task had been structured. I asked Mr Caborn whether he was given
367 WE 110, WE 111, WE 112 368 WE 111 369 WE 112, 00:41:41–00:45:55. Mr Caborn had said “You’re (?) looking at a fairly big scheme changing. You’re looking at very, very much in its infancy. The Chairman of the Health Authority, who is a friend of mine who I have known for many years... So what we’re looking at is zoning the whole of Sheffield and asking the government there to give us much more freedom on how to expand. And whilst we try to work the Health service into all sorts of different structures ... we ought to look at whether we can actually move the whole cultural agenda to prevention rather than cure... But we need to have, a amendment on the legislation to give us, and we don’t want any more money... So that yes, I have been advising the FIA ...They are looking at using their private sector, they are looking to use their assets more effectively, because they are the peer groups of a new organisation(?). See if we can buy that then we could get referrals to the services from doctors, into that, then you can link that together ... well it’s improving their bottom line that’s what they’re in business for, if they can do that then, with a social aspect to it as well, then it’s a win-win situation.” See also 01:14:52–01:20:35. 370 WE 112, 01:05:51. This related to work at Sellafield. 371 WE 112, 01:05:51. Mr Caborn had said, “I set up the whole regeneration of the company, because they had a commitment to socio-economic development and I did not like the structure so I revamped the whole structure...”
104 Sir John Butterfill, Mr Stephen Byers, Ms Patricia Hewitt, Mr Geoff Hoon, Mr Richard Caborn and Mr Adam Ingram
assistance in the task, and how he had managed to achieve it given his parliamentary duties.
448. I noted that in response to the question about the kind of further expertise he would have been able to bring if he were to be elevated to the House of Lords, Mr Caborn had responded, “Well, access, access to people. You’re in the environment, you’re moving around, you’re doing it all the time. That would give you a much wider view … that would be a base … you’re there all the time … Got access all the time. Access to Ministers, you’ve got access to all the information that’s going around.”372 I asked Mr Caborn whether it was reasonable to interpret those statements as suggesting that as a Member of the House of Lords he could secure access to Ministers for the company which was retaining him on its advisory board.
449. I noted that, on getting a Minister to go out for dinner, he had said, “I did it with AMEC, Samir Brikho, their MD … he said to me: ‘Why don’t we bring academia, producers … [the] Secretary of State for Energy and the one for schools’ and so I set all that up … I’d do it at Westminster cos it’s easier for them.”373 I asked Mr Caborn whether he had set up for AMEC a dinner or dinners in the Palace of Westminster, and if so, what had been the arrangements, and whether he had declared a financial interest in booking the facilities and sending out the invitations. I said to Mr Caborn that he had implied that he had arranged a meeting with the Prime Minister and the Energy Minister for the Managing Director of AMEC. I asked him to confirm this and, if so, the arrangements which he had made, including whether he had declared his interest to the relevant Departments in setting up that meeting. Finally, I asked Mr Caborn to confirm the date of the interview with the undercover reporter.
450. Mr Caborn responded to me on 8 June.374 He said that he did appreciate my efforts in obtaining the “rough transcript”, but asked whether it would be possible to secure the tapes and the film referred to in the Sunday Times article. He said he was informed that “rough transcripts ... do not always give the true picture. I believe that this is the case in this instance and that for the sake of accuracy of the full interview access to the tape and film would be helpful.”
451. Turning to my questions in my letter of 24 May,375 Mr Caborn said that the issue of what the reporter had said about what they wanted to discuss with him had now been cleared up with the transcript of the telephone call to his office where “I made it very clear I would not take on any further commitments until after the General Election and then that would be conditional on what my circumstances were at that time.” 376 Mr Caborn said that I had therefore been right to conclude in my 24 May letter that that there was no suggestion at that stage that he would have any role in its activities.
372 WE 112, 01:09:23 373 WE 112, 01:36:45 374 WE 113 375 WE 109 376 Mr Caborn had told the undercover reporter in the telephone conversation: “What I’m waiting for is the election on ... the 6th of May because that will then release me but there’s a number of things ... which will possibly happen then which ... I ... really have to find out before I commit myself any further, er there’s a possibility I might go to the House of Lords, for example, or things like that. So I have got to wait for that to settle down so at the moment ... I really don’t want to take anything on that I would have to then either say I couldn’t do or ...you know, would look at other opportunities. “
Sir John Butterfill, Mr Stephen Byers, Ms Patricia Hewitt, Mr Geoff Hoon, Mr Richard Caborn and Mr Adam Ingram 105
452. Mr Caborn attached the information I had requested in my letter of 24 May377 in respect of the posts he had held. This included the clearance letters from ACOBA,378 his letter of 29 February 2008379 informing ACOBA that it was his intention to accept the appointments380 and a copy of his letter of 6 March 2008 to the Registrar of Members’ Financial Interests.381 Mr Caborn said that he had taken up the position of a non-executive Director of NMP in September 2008 and he had written to the Registrar to amend his entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. He attached a letter to the Registrar of 9 October 2008.382
453. In answer to my request in my letter of 24 May383 for him to identify the parts of his evidence session with the Public Administration Select Committee on 8 May 2008 which he wished me to consider, Mr Caborn had identified three areas: former Ministers taking up outside appointments, covered in Questions 542–543 and 544; how the business appointment system could be improved, Questions 548 and 585; and the difference between lobbying and consultants and the interaction of business and industry with Parliament and Government, Questions 554, 555, 560 and 562.384 He said that this gave his position on these issues which he believed were consistent “with the way I conducted the Sunday Times entrapment interview and are consistent with the Rules of House.”
454. Mr Caborn also provided answers to the questions in my letter of 2 June.385 On his role as non-executive director of Nuclear Management Partners (NMP), he said that this was covered in the documentation he had already submitted. On the proposals for restructuring of the health and welfare services in Sheffield, Mr Caborn said that no meetings or contacts had been made with Ministers or officials. The idea had been discussed with Mr David Stone, Chairman of the Sheffield Heath Authority,386 at his request, a couple of weeks before the Sunday Times “entrapment”. “I raised the issues with FIA at one of our regular meetings as I had with other organisations who might be interested in the proposed project. This was an idea very much in its infancy, but if in the future it was necessary to make a declaration with my association with the FIA, I would do so.”
455. In answer to my question about his work with AMEC, Mr Caborn said that from October 2007 to July 2008 he had advised AMEC and the other two partners in the consortium on “trade union relations/socio economics and local government issues surrounding the bid and AMEC on other issues.” He added that on no occasion had he spoken to or consulted with Ministers or government officials, or any of the directors or staff of the Nuclear Decommissioning Agency (the body awarding the contract), on this issue.
377 WE 109 378 WE 114 379 WE 115 380 The consultancy with AMEC and another with the FIA 381 WE 116, WE 117 382 WE 118 383 WE 109 384 WE 119 385 WE 110 386 Mr Stone is now Chairman of Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
106 Sir John Butterfill, Mr Stephen Byers, Ms Patricia Hewitt, Mr Geoff Hoon, Mr Richard Caborn and Mr Adam Ingram
456. On the regeneration of AMEC, Mr Caborn said that he had been asked by the Board of NMP to look at the delivery of socio economic policies. “I reviewed the existing proposals and with other interested partners at Sellafield and the wider community of West Cumbria proposed a new structure which after discussions with all the parties was accepted and is now operational in West Cumbria.” The work had been carried out on behalf of the Board of the NMP and not just AMEC; it had been undertaken by staff of the NMP and consultants under his direction. As to how he had been able to do this work, given his parliamentary duties, Mr Caborn said that, as he had just stepped down from being a Government Minister, this released time which he used to take a number of appointments both paid and unpaid. He said that his involvement with the nuclear industry was of great importance and benefit to his constituency, Sheffield Central, and that this was borne out in letters he had submitted to me from the past Master Cutler and the Director of Forgemasters.387
457. Mr Caborn also noted that at the dinner of 23 June 2008 to which he had referred during his interview,388 both the Managing Director of Forgemasters and the Vice Chancellor of Sheffield University had been present and the issue of advanced manufacturing and forging capacity had been discussed. He said that in 2010, announcements were made on major investments by the Government and Rolls Royce into the University-led Nuclear Advanced Manufacturing Park in Sheffield. This was followed by a Government announcement on a major investment into “what possibly could be the world’s largest forging press” at Forgemasters in Sheffield. He said that his involvement at a number of levels in the nuclear/manufacturing sector had had a beneficial effect for his constituency and Sheffield.
458. As to the kind of further expertise he would have been able to bring if he were to be elevated to the House of Lords Mr Caborn said it would be wrong to interpret his statements “as suggesting that as a Member of the House of Lords you could secure access to Ministers for the company who retained you on an advisory board.” He said that he had neither been offered nor accepted any position on an advisory board. “If I had I would work as I have always done within the rules laid down by the House.” He had also made it clear from the outset that if he was in the House of Lords he would spend time on public policy areas of green energy/manufacturing and sport and physical activity and the wellbeing agenda. Mr Caborn said that this was borne out on a number of references in the transcript.
459. Mr Caborn said that the dinner of 23 June 2008 had not been set up for AMEC: “it was set up to facilitate a discussion with academia, industry and government Ministers on how they could work together to maximise the UK’s advantage on the building of the new nuclear power stations. AMEC were one of the five industrialists present. AMEC paid for the dinner and I declared on the booking form of the House of Commons, my financial interest with AMEC, and all attending were told that AMEC had paid for the dinner. ”
460. Mr Caborn confirmed his statement as recorded in the transcript about access to the Prime Minister by the Managing Director of AMEC, Samir Brikho. 389 He said that he was making the point that Chairmen of major companies get access “as of right” to both the
387 Letters not included in written evidence. 388 WE 112, 01:36:45 389 WE 112, 01:38:54
Sir John Butterfill, Mr Stephen Byers, Ms Patricia Hewitt, Mr Geoff Hoon, Mr Richard Caborn and Mr Adam Ingram 107
Prime Minister and other Ministers. He said that he had never arranged one to one meetings for Samir Brikho or any other industrialists with the Prime Minister or any other Ministers.
461. I wrote to Mr Caborn on 9 June.390 I noted that he had asked if I could secure for him the tapes and the film referred to in the Sunday Times article. I said that the production company had provided a certified transcript of both his telephone conversation on 16 February 2010 and of his meeting with Claire Webster. I also noted that at the start of the transcript, following the preparation of a rough transcript from the production company, a solicitor had listened to the audio recordings, corrected the transcript and certified that to the best of their knowledge, information and belief, the transcript was accurate. As the statement had made clear, there had been parts where a word or words had been inadudible, and these parts had been identified.
462. I told Mr Caborn that I considered that the production company had satisfactorily met my request. They had provided evidence in a way which was appropriate for my inquiry. I said that it was, of course, open to him to identify any part of the transcript which he believed to have been inaccurately transcribed. But given that I had received a certified transcript, which I had shared fully with him, I did not believe it was necessary for me to have the original audio or video in order to be able fairly to conduct this inquiry.
463. I said that although some of Mr Caborn’s responses touched on the same issues, he had not yet responded to the specific questions which I had put to him in my letter to him of 31 March.391 I had referred to these again in my letter to him of 18 May.392 I asked Mr Caborn, therefore, if he could let me have a response to these points, taking account as necessary of the transcript of his interview.
464. Mr Caborn responded to me on 16 June.393 He said that he had concerns that major parts of the transcript were missing, and he pointed out that the transcript time sequence went from 00.55.51 to 00.54.26 on the next page. He said that while the transcript had recorded his comments at 01.34.33 as “INAUDIBLE”, he had said at the beginning of that paragraph that he was speaking as the former Minister of Trade and Industry, which he said “totally changed the meaning of the paragraph.”394
465. Mr Caborn said that at 01.40.12 in the transcript, following the undercover reporter’s comment, “I’m sure we can work something out ...”, the transcript rendered his reply as “Alright INAUDIBLE”. Mr Caborn said that he had said, “Alright would you please put it down in writing so that I can consider any proposition after the Election.” Mr Caborn said that “Again this puts the script into a totally different context”.
466. On his statements about the number of ways to influence or at least access Ministers, Mr Caborn said that, in respect of his time as a Minister, he endorsed the FIA’s statement to the Sunday Times that they had gained access to all types of people, including Ministers,
390 WE 120 391 WE 104 392 WE 107 393 WE 121 394 The transcript at 01.34.33 reads “(INAUDIBLE) ... I’m open to bringing investment into the country, you know, that’s what you really want.”
108 Sir John Butterfill, Mr Stephen Byers, Ms Patricia Hewitt, Mr Geoff Hoon, Mr Richard Caborn and Mr Adam Ingram
as an organisation. During his time as a Minister, Mr Caborn said that he had met many organisations, including the FIA. He said that the second part of this section of the transcript, if the inaudible sentences had been transcribed, would have been a reference to the workings of the Select Committees and how they influenced both Ministers and policy. Mr Caborn said that his statement was an explanation of how the system worked, not an offer to influence or access Ministers either before or when he had left the House, and that he had never accessed Ministers or influenced Ministers through lobbying.
467. As to whether he was offering access to Ministers if he became a Member of the House of Lords, Mr Caborn said that he had answered this question in his letter to me of 8 June.395 Mr Caborn also said that he had never arranged access to Health Ministers or any other Ministers for the FIA. In response to my question about his statement “I connect them in”, Mr Caborn referred me to the relevant parts of the transcript, where he had said, “Oh, AMEC... (...INAUDIBLE...) when I go down to South Africa, I know the Minister of Energy there people there, I fix their people together and we met the Minister of Energy out there cause they’ve got one nuclear power station. (...INAUDIBLE...) And so I connect them in, if they want a reception in the House of Commons and if they want erm to get advice from Government then I get advice from Government and I introduce them to people.”396 He said that he had been referring to the South African Government and the South African Minister for Energy. This was part of the inaudible part of the transcript.
468. Mr Caborn said that he had always declared receptions and meetings with AMEC and other organisations within the rules laid down by the House Authorities. As to his statement that he would be willing to help build relations with civil servants after he had stood down and that it would not be a problem to set up meetings with civil servants, Mr Caborn said that he was speaking about the time when he was a Minister. He said, “The transcript is very confusing and it moves from 55.55.51 to 54.26 of which there is no continuity in the transcript. But ... I have not set up any meetings with civil servants on behalf of any clients.”
469. Mr Caborn said that the allegations made by the Sunday Times were untrue and unfounded, as he had told the House on the 29 March;397 and that the allegations of lobbying by Mr Greg Hands MP in his letter to me were also untrue.398 He said that he had made entries in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, and that he had sent me all the evidence relating to this in previous correspondence. He said that all his statements as set out in the transcript supplied were true and if a full transcript were provided, this would show the correct context in which they were made.
470. I wrote to Mr Caborn on 23 June, seeking more factual information about the receptions, dinners and meetings he had arranged on behalf of AMEC and the FIA when he had been paid by them.399 In particular I noted that he had said in his letter of 16 June400
395 WE 113 396 WE 112, 00:51:30 397 WE 106 398 WE 10 399 WE 122 400 WE 121
Sir John Butterfill, Mr Stephen Byers, Ms Patricia Hewitt, Mr Geoff Hoon, Mr Richard Caborn and Mr Adam Ingram 109 that “regarding receptions and meetings with AMEC and other organisations, I have always declared them within the rules laid down by the House.” I said I had noted from the parliamentary website that Mr Caborn had sponsored receptions or dinners on the parliamentary estate for the FIA on 5 July 2007 and 3 December 2008, and for AMEC on 23 June 2008 and 11 May 2009. I attached the relevant extract from the published list of events and functions bookings.401 I asked him to tell me the form in which he had declared his interest in these events and in any others which he had sponsored on behalf of any organisation which had provided him with remuneration, noting that declaration was a separate requirement from registration. I also asked, in respect of these events, whether he had, or could ask the funding organisation to produce, copies of the invitations. I noted that Members were required to identify their interest on the invitation and I said that I needed to check on this.
471. Mr Caborn replied to me on 1 July.402 He told me that he had not arranged any meetings or receptions for AMEC and the FIA whilst he was being paid by them. He had arranged dinners paid for by both the organisations. The reception on 5 July 2007 for the FIA, listed in the enclosure to my letter of 23 June,403 had taken place before he had become a consultant for the FIA. He told me that he had registered his interest in the FIA in February 2008 after it had been cleared by the office of the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments.
472. Mr Caborn said that the AMEC dinner at the House of Commons on 23 June 2008 had been his initiative “designed to bring industry, academia and Government together to discuss the New Build Programme for Nuclear Power Stations.” He said he had asked AMEC to sponsor that dinner; his office had arranged the guest list with the universities and industry and had sent out the invitations. Mr Caborn said that his interest in AMEC had been registered in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests and he had declared his interest in AMEC in the booking form of the Banqueting Department of the House. He told me that he had thanked the eleven people who had attended the dinner in his winding up remarks and AMEC had been thanked for hosting the dinner.
473. Mr Caborn said that the invitations to the dinner for the FIA on 3 December 2008 had been sent out by the FIA and had named him as the sponsor for the event. He said that his interest in the FIA had been recorded in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. Mr Caborn attached a copy of an invitation sent by another Member to an FIA event which was similar in type to the one used for the event.404 He said that he had checked the banqueting form in the House of Commons and noted that the form did not record his financial interest. He said that his office might have thought that the FIA sending out the invitation covered this: “Clearly this was an oversight on my part and if it is a mistake, I take full responsibility.”
474. Mr Caborn said that guests at the AMEC dinner of 11 May 2009 had been invited by him from among those who had attended the AMEC Terrace Reception. His interest in AMEC had been declared in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests and he made a
401 WE 123 402 WE 124 403 WE 122, WE 123 404 Not included in the written evidence.
110 Sir John Butterfill, Mr Stephen Byers, Ms Patricia Hewitt, Mr Geoff Hoon, Mr Richard Caborn and Mr Adam Ingram
declaration on the booking form. He said that the eleven people who had attended the dinner had been mentioned in his winding up remarks and thanked for attending, as were AMEC for sponsoring the evening.
475. I wrote to Mr Caborn on 6 July.405 In relation to the FIA reception of 5 July 2007, I noted that he had not registered his position as a consultant to the FIA until February 2008. I asked him whether, at the time of the reception in July 2007, he had had a reasonable expectation that he would be appointed a consultant and, therefore, that a financial benefit would accrue to him from the FIA. I referred him to paragraph 73 of the Guide to the Rules.406
476. In respect of the FIA dinner on 3 December 2008 I said that I had noted that, for the reasons he had given me, he had not declared his interest on the booking form. I said that I noted, too, that the FIA invitation, which I understood followed the format of the invitation he had sent me from another Member, did not identify the Member as a paid consultant to the association. I said that I would need in due course to check this with the House authorities.
477. I also raised with Mr Caborn questions concerning the AMEC dinners of 23 June 2008 and 11 May 2009. I said that I noted that he had declared his interest on the booking form for both occasions, and that he had thanked AMEC for hosting the event. I asked Mr Caborn to confirm that, to the best of his knowledge, there had been no reference to his paid consultancy for AMEC on any invitation which had been sent out for either event. I also asked him to confirm that he did not refer to his paid consultancy in his winding-up remarks at either event.
478. I said that I noted that the guests invited for dinner for 11 May 2009 had attended an AMEC Terrace reception. I told Mr Caborn that I had not identified this from the published list of events and function bookings made by him and noted that he had told me in his letter of 1 July407 that he had arranged no such reception for AMEC when he was being paid by them. I asked Mr Caborn whether he had in fact sponsored and booked this reception and, if so, the date of the event, whether he had declared his interest on the booking form, and whether his interest had been noted on the invitation. I also asked Mr Caborn to confirm that he had arranged no receptions, meetings or dinners with or for any other body or organisation which had also provided him with remuneration.
479. Mr Caborn replied on 9 July.408 He said that before he had resigned as a Minister on 27 June 2007, and between 27 June and 5 July 2007, he had had no discussions with any person or organisation, including the FIA, about any paid position.
480. Mr Caborn said that he had nothing further to add to the information he had given me before in respect of the FIA dinner of 3 December 2008, except to reiterate that he had registered his financial interests with the FIA and that he had clearly stated on the booking form that the event had been for the FIA. He told me that he had sent out invitations with
405 WE 125 406 See paragraph 35 above. 407 WE 124 408 WE 126
Sir John Butterfill, Mr Stephen Byers, Ms Patricia Hewitt, Mr Geoff Hoon, Mr Richard Caborn and Mr Adam Ingram 111 his name as the sponsor and that his mistake on the booking form was an oversight. He said, “in no way was I trying to deceive.”
481. Mr Caborn told me, in respect of the AMEC dinner on 23 June 2008, that his registration of his financial interest, declaration on the House of Commons Booking Form and the thanks he had given to AMEC for sponsoring the dinner were “sufficient to comply with the House Rules.” No formal invitations had been sent out. He had not referred to his paid consultancy once, as “I believed I had complied with both the spirit and intention of the House Rules.”
482. Mr Caborn said that I was correct in believing he had not arranged the 11 May 2009 reception for AMEC. He told me that he understood that this had been arranged by another MP. Mr Caborn said that he had taken the opportunity to invite to the dinner a number of guests who had attended the reception. No formal invitations had been sent out for the dinner and some of the guests had been invited on the night.
483. Mr Caborn confirmed that he had not arranged meetings, receptions or dinners for any other bodies or organisations, as there had been no other bodies that had remunerated him. He said that he had arranged many other functions for charitable and sporting bodies for which he had received no payment.
484. On 14 July I wrote to the Director of Catering and Retail Services at the House.409 I asked her to let me have a copy of the booking form for the dinner for the FIA sponsored by Mr Caborn on 3 December 2008. I asked the Director to confirm whether Mr Caborn had been in breach of the rules in not identifying on that form that he had been paid by the FIA. I also asked her whether in her opinion the House of Commons Banqueting Terms and Conditions had required Mr Caborn to identify his financial interests on the invitation, or whether the format he had used was acceptable within the rules.
485. I noted that Mr Caborn had also sponsored dinners on 23 June 2008 and 11 May 2009 for the construction company AMEC, for whom he was a paid consultant. I asked the Director for copies of the booking forms for the two AMEC dinners and sought her advice on whether the identification of AMEC as the sponsor in Mr Caborn’s speech at each event had been sufficient to meet his obligations in identifying his financial interests under the banqueting rules of the House, or whether Mr Caborn should have drawn to attendees’ attention his financial interest in AMEC.
486. The Director of Catering and Retail Services wrote to me on 27 August.410 She attached a copy of the Private Dining Confirmation forms for the FIA dinner on 3 December 2008.411 The Director noted that the Department had received two booking forms, each of which was only partially completed. One form had been completed and returned directly to the House’s Banqueting Office by FIA as organiser of the event, clearly naming the event as “Fitness Industry Association Vanguard Dinner” and advising contact and billing details. The Director said that, on that form, the Sponsor’s section was marked “already completed” and “N/A”, and although the questions for the sponsor had been
409 WE 128 410 WE 129 411 Not included in the written evidence.
112 Sir John Butterfill, Mr Stephen Byers, Ms Patricia Hewitt, Mr Geoff Hoon, Mr Richard Caborn and Mr Adam Ingram
answered, this had been crossed out prior to FIA forwarding the form to the Banqueting Office. She said that the second form left blank the section headed “Organiser to Complete”, so made no reference to the name of the event, and the Sponsor’s section clearly stated “no” in response to the question “do you have a declarable interest relating to your sponsorship of this function?” The Director said that this form was signed by Mr Caborn.
487. The Director noted the requirements in respect of declaration of Members’ interests which were among the terms and conditions of booking for the House banqueting service.412 The Director continued that if Mr Caborn was paid by the FIA, she would have expected him to respond “Yes” to the relevant question on the booking form. She also said that the Private Dining Confirmation Form specifically stated that, if applicable, “Relevant registered interest declared” must be stated on the invitation to the event. This was also clearly stated in the banqueting terms and conditions.413 She told me, “In my opinion, it is not adequate to merely display the organiser’s logo on the invitation, as this in itself gives no indication of whether or not the sponsoring MP has any declarable interest in the event.”
488. The Director also attached copies of the Private Dining Confirmation Forms for the two dinners hosted by Mr Caborn on 23 June 2008 and 11 May 2009 for AMEC.414 She noted that both forms were signed and dated by Mr Caborn, who had clearly confirmed that he did have a declarable interest relating to his sponsorship of the function. The Director said that the Note to Sponsors printed on the booking form instructing that “Relevant registered interest declared” must be stated on the invitation to the event had, thus, been applicable in both instances. If no formal invitations had been issued for these events, that did not remove the responsibility of Mr Caborn, as sponsor, to overtly and specifically declare to attendees that he had a relevant interest relating to his sponsorship of the dinner.
489. I replied to the Director on 2 September.415 I noted from the confirmation forms for the FIA dinner on 3 December 2008 Mr Caborn had signed but not dated the form he submitted and there was no signature or date on the one from the FIA, although there was a fax line which suggested that it was sent on 31 December 2006. I asked the Director whether the Department had any record of when these forms were received by it.
490. The Director of Catering and Retail Services wrote to me on 6 September, confirming that her Department had recorded receipt of the signed event confirmation form in respect of the Fitness Industry Association dinner from Mr Caborn on 23 October 2008 and the completed form for the same dinner from the Fitness Industry Association on or around 4 November 2008.416 Thus both forms had been received prior to the event. She said that the fax date of 31 December 2006 printed on the form sent by the FIA could not be correct, as the Department did not accept bookings for events more than 18 months in advance.
412 See paragraph 39 above. 413 See paragraph 39 above. 414 Not included in the written evidence. 415 WE 130 416 WE 131
Sir John Butterfill, Mr Stephen Byers, Ms Patricia Hewitt, Mr Geoff Hoon, Mr Richard Caborn and Mr Adam Ingram 113
491. On 7 September I wrote to Mr Caborn.417 I said that I had now heard back from the Department. I asked him, since I understood from his evidence that no written invitations had been sent out for either of the AMEC dinners, to address the implication of the Department’s advice, which was that he should have made a specific reference to his registrable interest in the speeches which he gave at both events.
492. Mr Caborn wrote to me on 10 September.418 He said that he had little to add in respect of the AMEC dinners to the comments he made in the letter of 1 July.419 No invitations had been sent out, and the dinners for AMEC referred to were small. He said that he had thanked AMEC for sponsoring the dinners; most if not all attendees knew of his consultancy with AMEC but he could not recall specifically spelling that out at either of the two dinners.
493. On the FIA Dinner on 3 December 2008, he noted the information sent from the Facilities Department. He said that “Unlike the AMEC dinners, where both the single booking forms were sent through my office in the House of Commons, for some reason the FIA Dinner had two booking forms, one sent by my office and the other by the FIA. Why that was, I do not know, but may go some way in explaining why my office thought all the relevant information had been sent by the FIA to the banqueting department clearly that did not give the correct information to the banqueting office and for which I take full responsibility.”
494. Mr Caborn said that on the question of notifying those present at the FIA dinner of his consultancy with them, “I thought that my registration in the Members’ Register of Interest, my name on the invitation, my thanks to the FIA for sponsoring the dinner in my closing speech, covered the House rules. Clearly now that it is brought to my attention, I should have made specific reference to it, to have totally complied with the rules.”
495. I wrote to Mr Caborn on 13 September.420 I asked him whether his office sent out invitations to the AMEC dinner held on 23 June 2008. I noted that in his letter of 1 July,421 he said that he thought at that stage that his office had sent the invitations for that dinner. But I said that Mr Caborn had told me in his letter of 10 September,422 as he had also said in his letter of 9 July,423 that no invitations had been sent out since they were small dinners.
496. Mr Caborn wrote to me on 15 September.424 He said that no formal invitations were sent out for the dinner on 23 June 2008 sponsored by AMEC. “My office sent out letters to some of the invitees and that is the reference in the 1 July letter. The letter was as much to inform those invitees of the reason for the dinner ie in discussions about nuclear new build, as the arrangements for the dinner. Some invites were sent out by the Sheffield University Vice
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Chancellor who selected the University invitees. Industry representatives at the dinner were similarly invited, some by my office, some by other invitees.”
497. I wrote to Mr Caborn on 16 September.425 I said I had noted that letters of invitation for the AMEC dinner on 23 June 2008 had been sent out to some of those he had invited (presumably orally) and some invitations were sent out by the Vice Chancellor of Sheffield University. I asked Mr Caborn to confirm that none of the letters or Sheffield University invitations declared his registered interest.
498. Mr Caborn wrote to me on 20 September.426 Mr Caborn said that he initiated and organized the dinner for industrialists, academics and Ministers which was sponsored by AMEC at his request. He confirmed that I was correct to assume that these invitations did not declare his registered interest.
Findings of Fact 499. In February 2010 Mr Caborn’s office received an approach from the undercover reporter claiming to represent Anderson Perry. During an initial telephone conversation, Mr Caborn and the undercover reporter agreed to a meeting, which took place on 10 March 2010.
500. Mr Caborn has expressed serious concerns about the method used to produce the interview and about the extent of what he believes to be missing and inaudible sections of the transcript. Mr Caborn has pointed out that the transcript nevertheless shows that he made it clear throughout his discussion with the undercover reporter that he was not making any decisions about his activities until after the General Election, when he would have left the House of Commons. He explained to the undercover reporter that he was uncertain about his activities, since he did not know if he would be elevated to the House of Lords in the Dissolution honours.
501. Mr Caborn has drawn attention to the statement he made in the House on 29 March 2010427 and the evidence he gave to the Public Administration Select Committee on 8 May 2008.428 In his evidence to that Select Committee, he explained why he thought it desirable for Members to have outside employment in order to help bring industry and Parliament together. He told the House on 29 March 2010 that, in his 27 years in Parliament, including the 14 years he spent as a Trustee of the Industry and Parliament Trust, he had worked to bring together universities, Government and industry in the best interests of the United Kingdom.
Issues subject to inquiry i. Accessing Ministers
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502. Mr Caborn told the undercover reporter: “There’s a number of ways in which you can ... influence or at least access Ministers, whether it’s a sector or an individual company, or what. And also on policy as well.”429
Relevant rules of the House: Paragraph 10 of the Code of Conduct: Paid advocacy.
Mr Caborn says that his comments represented an explanation of how the system works, not an offer to influence or access Ministers on behalf of clients either before or after he left the House. He says that he never accessed Ministers or influenced Ministers through lobbying.
ii. House of Lords
503. Mr Caborn told the undercover reporter: “there’s a possibility I will be in the House of Lords...” Asked by the reporter what kind of further expertise he would bring if he were to be in the Lords, Mr Caborn said, “Access to Ministers, you’ve got access to all the information that’s going around ...”430
Relevant rules of the House: Paragraph 15 of the Code of Conduct: Disrepute.
504. Mr Caborn says that if he were to be elevated to the House of Lords he would work as he always had done within the Rules laid down by the House. iii. Fitness Industry Association: Ministerial Access
505. Mr Caborn told the undercover reporter in respect of one of his clients, the Fitness Industry Association (FIA): “like the FIA, I mean we get direct access to Ministers, particularly Health Ministers. I was a Minister when I was working with them, I was Minister of Sport and I worked with the FIA to try to encourage them to get on board much more”.431
Relevant rules of the House: Paragraph 16 of the Code of Conduct: Registration and Declaration
506. Mr Caborn says that he has never arranged any access for Health Ministers or any other Ministers for the FIA. Mr Caborn says that when he was a Minister he met many organisations, including the FIA.
iv. AMEC
Mr Caborn told the undercover reporter, in respect of one of his clients, AMEC, that “when I go down to South Africa, I know the Minister of Energy there people there, I fix their people together and we met the Minister of Energy out there cause they’ve got one nuclear power station. (...INAUDIBLE...) And so I connect them in, if they want a reception in the
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House of Commons and if they want erm to get advice from Government then I get advice from Government and I introduce them to people.” 432
Relevant rules of the House: Paragraph 10 of the Code of Conduct: Paid advocacy. Paragraph 15 of the Code of Conduct: Disrepute.
507. Mr Caborn says that he was referring to the South African Government and the South African Minister for Energy. He says that the statement was true about South Africa, and a meeting with the South African Energy Minister. AMEC access to the House of Commons is referred to below.
v. Relationships with civil servants
508. Mr Caborn told the undercover reporter, in answer to her question whether it would be a problem to set up meetings with civil servants: “Oh no. I mean I set loads of meetings up when I was Minister”.433
Relevant rules of the House: Paragraph 15 of the Code of Conduct: Disrepute. Paragraph 16 of the Code of Conduct: Registration and Declaration.
509. Mr Caborn says that he was speaking about the time he was a Minister. He says that he has not set up any meetings with civil servants on behalf of any clients.
vi. Health and wellness services: Sheffield
510. Mr Caborn told me in evidence that he had a meeting with the Chairman of the Sheffield Health Authority about proposals for restructuring health and wellness services in Sheffield.434 He told the undercover reporter: “You are looking at a fairly big scheme changing. You’re looking at very, very much in its infancy. The Chairman of the Health Authority, who is a friend of mine who I have known for many years ... So what we are looking at is zoning the whole of Sheffield ... to look at whether we can actually move the whole cultural agenda to prevention rather than cure ... I have been advising the FIA ... They’re looking to use their assets more effectively, because they are the peer groups of a new organisation.”
Relevant rules of the House: Paragraph 16 of the Code of Conduct: Registration and Declaration.
511. Mr Caborn says that no meetings or contacts on this issue were arranged with Ministers or officials. The idea had been discussed with the Chairman of the Sheffield Heath Authority at his request a couple of weeks before the meeting with the undercover reporter. Mr Caborn says that he raised the issues with FIA at one of their regular meetings as he had with other organisations who might be interested in the proposed project. He says that this was an idea very much in its infancy, but that if in the future it was necessary to make a declaration regarding his association with the FIA, he would do so.
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512. Mr Caborn referred in the meeting with the undercover reporter to the work he did with AMEC in setting up a consortium to bid for, and win, a major contract to clean up and to look at all reprocessing of the fuel at Sellafield. He said: “AMEC said to me, when I had finished he came to me and he said would I advise them what to do, with a consortium, so I said fine, yeah I advised them ... we won it, we won the contract.” 435
Relevant rules of the House: Paragraph 10 of the Code of Conduct: Paid advocacy. Paragraph 16 of the Code of Conduct: Registration and Declaration.
513. Mr Caborn says that from October 2007 to July 2008 he advised AMEC and the other two partners in a consortium bidding for a contract to be awarded by the Nuclear Decommissioning Agency. He gave advice on trade union relations/socio economic and local government issues surrounding the bid. He also advised AMEC on other issues. On no occasion did he speak to or consult with Ministers or government officials on this issue and neither did he contact any of the Directors or staff of the Nuclear Decommissioning Agency. viii. AMEC structural revamp
514. Mr Caborn told the undercover reporter in respect of his work for AMEC: “I set up the whole regeneration of the company, because they had a commitment to socioeconomic development and I did not like the structure so I revamped the whole structure...”436
Relevant rules of the House: Paragraph 15 of the Code of Conduct: Disrepute. Paragraph 16 of the Code of Conduct: Registration and Declaration
515. Mr Caborn says that his statement to the undercover reporter was accurate but the work was carried out on behalf of the Board of NMP and not just AMEC. Mr Caborn says that he was asked by the Board of Nuclear Management Partners to look at the delivery of the socio economic policies associated with the company. He says that the task was undertaken by staff of the NMP and consultants under his direction. He also says that his involvement with the nuclear industry, especially manufacturing, was of great importance and benefit to his constituency of Sheffield Central.
ix. Fitness Industry Association reception in the House on 5 July 2007
516. Mr Caborn booked a reception in the House on behalf of the Fitness Industry Association (FIA). The event was funded by the FIA. Mr Caborn did not declare an interest in the FIA on the booking form.
Relevant rules of the House: Paragraphs 14 and 16 of the Code of Conduct: Use of Facilities and Registration and Declaration. Terms and conditions of the House banqueting service.
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517. Mr Caborn says that the 5 July reception took place before he became a consultant for the FIA. He was a Minister until the end of June 2007 and he had no expectation of being appointed by the FIA. He first registered his interest in the FIA in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests in February 2008 after his consultancy had been cleared by the office of the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments.
x. AMEC dinner in the House on 23 June 2008
518. Mr Caborn told the undercover reporter in answer to a question about how easy it was to get a Minister to go out for dinner, “I did it with AMEC, Samir Brikho, their MD … he said to me: ‘Why don’t we bring academia, producers … the Secretary of State for Energy and the one for schools’ … and so I set all that up … I’d do it at Westminster because it’s easier for them.”437
519. Mr Caborn’s evidence is that AMEC funded this dinner. Mr Caborn declared his interest in AMEC on the booking form. No formal invitations were sent out, although some letters were sent out to invitees to inform them of the reasons for the dinner; these did not declare Mr Caborn’s paid consultancy with AMEC. Mr Caborn thanked AMEC for sponsoring the dinner in his winding up remarks, but made no reference to his paid consultancy for them.
Relevant rules of the House: Paragraphs 14 and 16 of the Code of Conduct: Use of Facilities and Registration and Declaration. Terms and conditions of the House banqueting service.
520. Mr Caborn says he initiated the dinner of 23 June 2008 to facilitate a discussion with academia, industry and Government Ministers on how they could work together to maximise the UK’s advantage on the building of the new nuclear power stations. He says that AMEC were one of the five industrialists present.438
521. The Director of Catering and Retail Services says that if no formal invitations were issued for this event, this did not remove the responsibility of Mr Caborn, as Sponsor, overtly and specifically to declare to attendees that he had a relevant interest relating to his sponsorship of the dinner.
xi. FIA dinner in the House on 3 December 2008
522. Mr Caborn booked a dinner in the House on 3 December 2008 on behalf of and funded by the FIA. The booking form did not record Mr Caborn’s financial interest as a paid consultant to the FIA. The FIA sent out the invitations for the dinner, and these did not record Mr Caborn’s paid consultancy. Mr Caborn did not tell guests at the dinner that he was a paid consultant with the FIA, although he thanked the FIA for sponsoring the event.
437 WE 112, 01:36:45 438 Mr Caborn says that he thanked AMEC for sponsoring the dinner, which was small, and that most if not all of those attending knew of his consultancy for AMEC but he cannot recall specifically spelling that out.
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Relevant rules of the House: Paragraphs 14 and 16 of the Code of Conduct: Use of Facilities and Registration and Declaration. Terms and conditions of the House banqueting service.
523. Mr Caborn said that the mistake on the booking form was an oversight. He was not trying to deceive. For reasons which are not now clear, one booking form was sent to the Refreshment Department by the FIA. Mr Caborn considers that that might explain why his office thought all the relevant information had been sent by the FIA to the banqueting department. Mr Caborn says that his office may have thought that the FIA sending out the invitation satisfied the requirement to declare his financial interest. Mr Caborn accepts that this was clearly an oversight on his part and if there was a mistake, he takes full responsibility.
524. Mr Caborn says that he thought that his registration in the Members’ Register of Interests, his name on the invitation, and the thanks he gave in his closing speech to the FIA for sponsoring the dinner, satisfied the House rules. Now that the omission has been brought to his attention, he considers that he should have made specific reference to the sponsorship, to have complied totally with the rules. xii. AMEC dinner in the House on 11 May 2009
525. Mr Caborn booked a further dinner in the House on behalf of AMEC; this dinner took place on 11 May 2009. He declared his interest on the booking form for this dinner. There was no formal invitation for this dinner. Mr Caborn thanked AMEC for sponsoring the dinner in his winding up remarks, but made no reference to his paid consultancy for them.
Relevant rules of the House: Paragraphs 14 and 16 of the Code of Conduct: Use of Facilities and Registration and Declaration. Terms and conditions of the House banqueting service.
526. Mr Caborn says that guests at the dinner were invited by him from those who had attended an AMEC Terrace Reception on the same day. He says that he thanked AMEC for sponsoring the dinner, which was small, and that most of those attending knew of his consultancy for AMEC but he cannot recall specifically spelling that out.
527. The Director of Catering and Retail Services says that if no formal invitations were issued for this event, this does not remove the responsibility of Mr Caborn, as Sponsor, to declare to attendees that he had a relevant interest relating to his sponsorship of the dinner. xiii. AMEC meeting with Prime Ministers
Mr Caborn told the undercover reporter, “If Samir Brikho wants to see the Prime Minister, Samir Brikho sees the Prime Minister.”439 In answer to the question from the reporter “And do you help him arrange that or does he do that?” Mr Caborn answered: “Yes I do it ...”440
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Relevant rules of the House: Paragraph 15 of the Code of Conduct: Disrepute. Paragraph 16 of the Code of Conduct: Registration and Declaration.
528. Mr Caborn says that he was making the point that chairmen of major companies get access as of right to both the PM and Ministers. He says he never arranged one to one meetings for Samir Brikho or any other industrialists with the Prime Minister or any other Ministers. xiv. Payments
Mr Caborn told the undercover reporter that his current clients “pay me two and a half thousand pounds a day.”441
Relevant rule of the House: Paragraph 16 of the Code of Conduct: Registration and Declaration
529. Mr Caborn says that the notional daily rate for his work with AMEC was £2,500 per day and £1,000 per day for the FIA. He says that he uses the word “notional” as a significant amount of time is required in preparing for meetings, reading background papers and preparing Reports—this was all built into the daily rate. Mr Caborn estimates that these days amounted to between two to three days per fee paid day. He says that all this was fully covered in his entry in the Registers of Members’ Financial Interests.
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Rt Hon Adam Ingram: My Inquiries 530. I wrote to Mr Ingram, who was also the subject of Mr Hands’ complaint,442 on 31 March.443 I asked Mr Ingram to give me a full account of the circumstances in which he had come to be interviewed by someone who turned out to be a journalist. I also asked Mr Ingram to confirm a number of particular statements he had been reported as having made during that interview, and whether each such statement had been true. The statements concerned were:
x that Mr Ingram had said, “There’s going to be a lot of ex-Ministers … and they then become a point of contact in the political network. ‘Who do you know in that Department? Who can you suggest to talk to?’ And that becomes a point of contact. So all of that can be established”444 and, if true, what he had meant in apparently suggesting a network of former Ministers who could be used to arrange contacts;
x that Mr Ingram had said that “It’s worth it, sometimes cultivating a Minister … but decision-makers really … are the civil service structure, because they do all the definition of how you’re going to deliver on a particular project. They draw up invitations to tender, they then make all the recommendations which may not cross the Minister’s desk”;445
x that he had said that he had good contacts with civil servants from his time as a Minister446 and, if true, what Mr Ingram had had in mind in making this statement; if he had ever had contacts with civil servants on behalf of a client; and if so, what the circumstances had been and whether he had declared his interest;
x that Mr Ingram was helping to put together a consortium to bid for work that the Ministry of Defence outsources to private companies447 and, if true, whether he had been paid for these services and whether they had involved him in contacts with Ministers or civil servants and, if so, what the circumstances had been and whether Mr Ingram had declared an interest;
x that Mr Ingram had been involved in two British firms which were helping to create a defence academy in Libya448 and, if true, what the circumstances had been, whether he had been paid or expected to be paid for these services, and whether they had involved him in meetings with Ministers or civil servants on behalf of the clients and, if so, what the circumstances had been and whether Mr Ingram had declared his interest;
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x whether Mr Ingram had arranged for another firm to supply the Libyan academy’s teachers449 and, if so, what the circumstances had been, whether he had been paid for these services, whether they had involved meetings with Ministers and civil servants on behalf of his client and, if so, whether Mr Ingram had declared an interest; and
x that Mr Ingram had said that he was paid £1,500 a day for his consultancy work450 and, if so, what payments Mr Ingram had received from his clients at this level and whether he had registered all of those payments.
531. I also asked Mr Ingram to confirm what subsequent communications he or his legal advisers had had with the reporters; whether, if any of the allegations were true, Mr Ingram considered he had an obligation to make a Register entry or declaration, or both, in respect of any financial interest he had in these alleged activities and what action he had taken accordingly; and if any of what Mr Ingram had said had been untrue, why he had spoken as he had done. Finally, I told Mr Ingram that I was inviting the Channel 4 programme makers to let me have his full interview.
532. I did not continue my inquiries during the Dissolution of the House. On the assembly of the new Parliament on 18 May, I resumed my inquiry. On 27 May I received the certified transcripts of Mr Ingram’s conversations with the undercover reporter. I wrote to Mr Ingram on 2 June, attaching the transcripts.451
533. I asked Mr Ingram to provide me with a list of the companies which he had worked for in 2009–10, and for confirmation that these had been fully registered in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I noted that in the transcript Mr Ingram referred to his work for EDS. He said that “my arrangement with them is that I would only do work on an MP and then it would probably come to the end of the arrangement.”452 I noted that he had suggested that he was meeting the “new people” shortly to talk through whether they wanted him to continue. I asked Mr Ingram why he had expected to stop this work once he was no longer a Member of Parliament, and whether that was an appointment linked to his membership of the House. If so, I asked him to confirm that he had taken the appropriate steps in registering that in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.
534. I noted that during the meeting with the undercover reporter he had discussed the identification of former civil servants who, I assumed, might join the proposed advisory board.453 I asked Mr Ingram to explain how, as a Member of Parliament, he had maintained his relationships with civil servants, and whether he had done so in order to recommend them for future employment opportunities once they had left the civil service. I also noted that in the transcript he was recorded as confirming that he would work with the company to help them develop relationships with Ministers and civil servants.454 I asked Mr Ingram what he had in mind in making that undertaking.
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535. I said that the transcript recorded Mr Ingram’s comment that he would be talking to a Conservative colleague whom he believed was likely to become the Defence Minister in a future Conservative administration.455 I asked whether the implication of that was that he would use that contact to the benefit of a company which might employ him on its advisory board. Finally, I asked Mr Ingram to confirm the date of his interview with the undercover reporter.
536. Mr Ingram wrote to me on 28 June.456 He noted that in his letter to me of 28 March Mr Hands457 had quoted Mr Ingram as admitting to using his contacts and experience to help a construction company he worked for carry out a defence project in Libya. Mr Ingram also noted Mr Hands’ allegation that, when asked if he could use his experience to develop relationships with ministers and civil servants, Mr Ingram had said, “I’d do that”.
537. Responding, Mr Ingram said that it was “clearly stated” in the Guidelines of Business Appointments System for Former Ministers, under Annex A, that: “It is in the public interest that former Ministers with experience in Government should be able to move into business....” Mr Ingram maintained that all of his actions and activities, since leaving Ministerial office in 2007, were wholly consistent with that guidance. “Furthermore, I have fully complied with the requirement to seek advice and to properly register my business interests with the appropriate House authorities, at all times.”
538. Mr Ingram said that it had been made clear to the undercover reporter that “I did not believe it appropriate to carry out lobbying activities while I remained a Member of Parliament nor have I ever done so since leaving Ministerial office in 2007. The Sunday Times article accepted this in their report.”
539. Mr Ingram said that in the run-up to the interview, a Freedom of Information (FOI) request had been submitted to the Ministry of Defence in relation to the companies with which he had a registered relationship. He attached a copy of the FOI request and the MOD’s response.458
540. Mr Ingram said that the record was clear on this point, and that he did not lobby on behalf of any companies he was considering working with after he had left Parliament. He said that he did not accept that his conduct during the interview was contrary to the rules. Mr Ingram said that if the public had been made aware by the Sunday Times that it was perfectly acceptable, indeed in the public interest, for former Ministers to move into business that might have helped their readership better understand the nature of his engagement in seeking employment after he had left Parliament. “In working within the spirit and meaning of that guideline, I do not accept that I brought the House of Commons ‘into disrepute’.”
541. He said that Mr Hands claimed that he (Mr Ingram) had “admitted” to using his “contacts and experience” to help a construction company he worked for “carry out a defence project in Libya”. Mr Ingram responded: “Libya is a country of strategic and
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economic importance to the UK.” Mr Ingram said that he was “at a loss to understand what he [Mr Hands] is insinuating. It is in the UK’s national interest to engage with Libya. My work for these companies, which are part of a consortium bringing valuable business to the UK, was fully and properly registered. The efforts of these companies were fully supported by the UK Embassy in Libya. The transcript shows that I did not ‘admit’ to what Mr Hands alleges.”
542. Mr Ingram said that he had no points of contact in Libya gained through his time as a Minister or as a Member of Parliament. He had never visited the country nor met with any representatives of the country during his time as a Minister or as a Member of Parliament. He said the point he had been making was that people in the companies with which he was associated had good points of contact in Libya.
543. Mr Ingram said that Mr Hands had quoted a statement “I allegedly made to the undercover reporter, viz. ‘I’d do that’ in relation to using my ‘experience to develop relationships with Ministers and civil servants’.” Mr Ingram said, “I did not make that statement, as the transcript shows”.459
544. In answer to my letter of 31 March460 Mr Ingram said that his researcher in his office had been contacted by Claire Webster, the undercover reporter, purporting to be acting on behalf of a company which wanted to discuss with him the prospect of his taking on a paid role as a member of an Advisory Board which was being set up. Mr Ingram said that he did not initially return the call. A further call had been made to his researcher and the information had been passed to him and he had done a preliminary check on the internet and with Companies House on the company’s name—“Anderson Perry”. Mr Ingram said that “On the face of it, the company appeared to be a bona fide organisation.” Arrangements had been made for the meeting.
545. Mr Ingram confirmed that, to the best of his recollection, he had made the statement that “There’s going to be a lot of ex-Ministers … and they then become a point of contact in the political network .... So all of that can be established.” Mr Ingram said that given the fact that under the guidelines of the Appointments System for Former Ministers it was in the public interest that “former Ministers with experience in Government should be able to move into business...”, it would not be unusual for former Ministerial colleagues to maintain points of contact if they had mutual interests to pursue. He said that this statement had been made in the context of his being asked possibly to give advice “outside of my knowledge base.” He said he did not think there was “anything remiss in contacting former Ministerial colleagues for advice on personalities and structures within a particular Department.” He said that he did not accept that he was in any way suggesting that a formal network be set up to be used “to arrange contacts”.
546. Mr Ingram said that, in using the words “It’s worthwhile sometimes cultivating a Minister … but decision-makers really … are the civil service structure, because they do all the definition of how you’re going to deliver on a particular project. They draw up invitation to tender, they then make all the recommendations which Ministers may accept/go across a
459 Mr Ingram said, “I could work at that yeah.” WE 141, 00:29:10 460 WE 138
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Minister’s desk”,461 he had been expressing a statement of fact that it was the civil service structure which brought together particular procurement decisions. He said that it was “therefore desirable for companies to make themselves known to civil servants and to Ministers. This is normal practice and one adopted by companies involved in a procurement process. Many of those who do this on behalf of companies may indeed be former civil servants or Ministers.” Mr Ingram said that he did not have contact with civil servants on behalf of clients and did not lobby on their behalf. If he had done so he would have declared an interest as appropriate.
547. Mr Ingram said that he had not claimed that he was helping to put together a consortium to bid for work which the MOD outsourced to private companies.462 The transcript merely confirmed his knowledge of what was being put together, “not that I was at that stage actively part of it or instrumental in it.” He had been contacted by a business acquaintance outlining what he was putting together and enquiring as to whether he would be interested in becoming involved after he had left Parliament. Mr Ingram said the he had done no work for the project and “I have no knowledge of its maturity.” He had received no payment and had had no contact with Ministers or civil servants about the project. It was a short discussion about a possible future appointment after he had left Parliament.
548. Mr Ingram said that he had two registered interests with companies which had been successful, as part of a wider UK consortium, in winning a contract for the design and planning phase of an Engineering/Defence Academy for the Libyan Government. He had provided advice on the range of activities undertaken in the UK in this area. The payments he had received were properly registered. “I was never involved in meetings with Ministers or civil servants on behalf of the clients. If I had been, these would have been registered, as appropriate.” Mr Ingram said that the “Academy” had not been built and it therefore had not been populated by the students or instructors/teachers. “There is a future prospect that another company with which I am involved and in which my interest has been registered, is likely to have an interest in obtaining contracts in this area.” He said that he had never been involved in meetings with Ministers or civil servants on behalf of his clients in this regard.
549. He said that he had registered all companies with which he had been involved. All potential earnings had also been properly registered as required. “I maintain that I have, at all times, properly registered all companies with which I have a financial interest. I have not undertaken any other registrable work, paid or unpaid, outside of those companies listed in my Register of Interests.”
550. Mr Ingram said that he had said nothing untrue in the meeting with the undercover reporter.
551. Mr Ingram provided me with a list of the companies he had worked for in 2009–10.463 They had all been fully registered in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. He said that he wished to make it clear that he had been working with EDS as a consultant, not in his capacity as a Member of Parliament. He said he had agreed with the company that the
461 WE 141, 00:24:38 462 WE 141, 00:11:24 463 Argus Libya UK LLP; Electronic Data Systems (EDS); Argus Scotland Ltd; Ingram Advisory Ltd; Signpoint Secure Ltd; International School for Security and Explosives Education (ISSEE).
126 Sir John Butterfill, Mr Stephen Byers, Ms Patricia Hewitt, Mr Geoff Hoon, Mr Richard Caborn and Mr Adam Ingram
best mutual date to review his ongoing contract was when he was standing down as a Member of Parliament. It had been a natural review date because he was looking at his retirement options in terms of the amount of time he would be in London. EDS had been acquired by Hewlett Packard during this time. He had continued to provide consultancy advice to EDS. New senior executives had been appointed with whom he met almost immediately prior to the Dissolution of Parliament. Mr Ingram said that he continued to be available to give advice to the company when requested to do so.
552. Mr Ingram said that after he had stood down as a Minister in June 2007, he had been asked by the Prime Minister to lead a study into “Defence’s Contribution to Counter- Terrorism and Resilience.” This had been in an unpaid capacity. During that time, he had had extensive contact with civil servants across Whitehall. He had presented his Report to the Prime Minister in the autumn of 2008. From October 2009, he had undertaken an Audit of his Report which, again, had brought him into contact with civil servants, and had reported to the Prime Minister in March 2010. Mr Ingram said that he had also undertaken a range of unpaid activities at the request of the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), the Royal College of Defence Studies (RCDS) and the Defence Academy at Shrivenham. He said that civil servants would have been involved in those events. In addition, he had spoken to PhD students at Kings College, London, on his role and time as a Defence Minister. “I have not maintained any other relationships, formal or informal, with senior civil servants, and certainly not in order to recommend them for future employment opportunities once they had left the Civil Service.” Mr Ingram said he had provided references, on a limited number of occasions, at the request of individuals who were seeking employment after leaving Government service.
553. Mr Ingram said that the interview with the undercover reporter had been set up to discuss his possible engagement as a member of an advisory board. Despite having no experience of doing what he was being asked to do on a paid basis, he said he could envisage seeking to speak to ministers or civil servants or to participate in meetings about a client’s interests. “My failure to elaborate further, as the transcript bears out, was probably because I was considering the practicalities of such an approach. I do not accept the emphasis put on it by the undercover journalist or by Greg Hands, and, in any event, it would have been undertaken after I left Parliament. The words I used —‘I could work at that’464—have a very different meaning to the fabricated quote by the undercover journalist—‘I’d do that’. The subsequent exchange with the undercover journalist involved my making non-committal responses to her leading suggestions.”
554. Mr Ingram said that the discussion about contacts with the likely Defence Minister in a Conservative government was about providing advice, on request, on his experience as a Defence Minister. “I would have been prepared to do so because I care about good governance and about the Ministry of Defence. I was not suggesting that such a contact would be used in the way phrased in your question.” Mr Ingram said that the individual concerned had not in the event been appointed as a Coalition Government Minister.
555. Mr Ingram said that he could not confirm the exact date of the interview.
464 WE 141, 00:29:10
Sir John Butterfill, Mr Stephen Byers, Ms Patricia Hewitt, Mr Geoff Hoon, Mr Richard Caborn and Mr Adam Ingram 127
556. In conclusion, Mr Ingram reiterated the points he had made earlier that “I have complied with the rules and regulations laid down by the House authorities, in relation to my business appointments. I always erred on the side of caution in all of my dealings. The evidence of the FOI request465 clearly shows that I did not breach the rules and regulations relating to lobbying. I participated in the interview on the basis that I was being considered as a member of an advisory board although clearly there was an underlying agenda of entrapment. I do not believe I offered to do anything as a Member of Parliament which would have required me to register an interest. There was no formal follow-up to the initial interview and no formal offer made of employment in any capacity relating to my time as a Member of Parliament. As a consequence, I believe that the complaint made by Greg Hands is unfounded and should be dismissed.”
557. Mr Ingram attached to his letter the Ministry of Defence’s response of 26 February 2010 to a Freedom of Information request which had sought “details of meetings, communications and contracts” between Mr Ingram and the following companies, during various periods from 2001 onwards: a) Signpoint Secure Ltd b) International School for Security and Explosives Education (ISSEE) c) Argus Scotland Ltd d) Argus Libya UK LLP e) Electronic Data Systems (EDS) f) Ingram Advisory Ltd 466
558. The response said that records relating to meetings and correspondence had only been held from 2004 onwards. It said that between 1 January 2004 and 29 June 2007 there had been no meetings or correspondence between Adam Ingram MP or his office and the companies referred to.
559. The response also said that there had been no communications or meetings between Adam Ingram MP and Departmental Ministers since 29 June 2007 regarding any of these companies. It continued that “Any communications between the Ministry of Defence (MOD) and those companies not involving Ministers could only be identified at disproportionate cost.”
560. The Ministry’s response also said that since 29 June 2007 one MOD contract had been placed with ISSEE and that the value of the contract had been less than £10,000. The response said that the Ministry was withholding further details of the contract under s.43
465 See paragraph 557 below and WE 143. 466 WE 143
128 Sir John Butterfill, Mr Stephen Byers, Ms Patricia Hewitt, Mr Geoff Hoon, Mr Richard Caborn and Mr Adam Ingram
of the FOI Act (Commercial interests); as this was a qualified exemption it was required to carry out a public interest test.
561. I wrote to Mr Ingram on 1 July.467 I asked him what advice he had sought from whom about his business interests, and whether that advice related to the nature of his outside employment when he had been a Member of Parliament. In relation to the alleged network of former Ministers, I asked Mr Ingram whether he had used his contacts with Ministers, former Ministers or civil servants in order to advise any of his clients about structures and people in a government department. I noted that he said that he did not accept that he had in any way suggested that a formal network be set up. I told Mr Ingram, in the light of that, that I was having some difficulty in interpreting the point he had made in the transcript, when he said, “some are going to lose their seats and they’re become a point of contact in the political network … so all of that … can be established … it can take a bit of time to build those blocks …”468 I asked Mr Ingram why it should not be inferred from this that he had been suggesting a network of contacts of former MPs (and in particular ex-Ministers) which he would build over time.
562. I noted that Mr Ingram said that he “did not have contact with civil servants on behalf of clients”. I noted also that the FOI request to the Ministry of Defence about Mr Ingram did not identify any contact he had had with Ministers. I recalled that my original question was about contacts with Ministers as well as civil servants, and I said I would be grateful if he could let me know whether he had had any contact with Ministers from 2007 on behalf of any of his clients or on matters which might be of assistance to those clients.
563. I said that Mr Ingram had stated that the payments he had received from the company in a contract for the engineering/defence academy for the Libyan Government were properly registered, and asked him to confirm that this statement related to Argus Libya UK, which appeared in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. Similarly, I asked him to identify the Register entry in respect of his interest in the company providing instructors/teachers for the Libyan engineering/defence academy.
564. I noted that Mr Ingram said that he had worked with EDS as a consultant and not in his capacity as an MP. I told Mr Ingram that I had consulted the Registrar of Members’ Financial Interests about this and that she had told me that he had registered a salary band and deposited an agreement for the provision of services for EDS. I attached a copy of the relevant Register entry and agreement, and noted that these fulfilled the requirements of the rules for those undertaking work in the capacity of an MP.469 I asked Mr Ingram to explain how he reconciled this with his statement that he had not been working in his capacity as an MP, and asked him to give me a little more detail about the work he had carried out for EDS. I noted that the agreement he had deposited contained only the information required by the rules of the House, and asked him whether he also had a contract with EDS, and if so whether I could see it. I also asked Mr Ingram whether he was currently paid a retainer by EDS so that they could draw on his services, and whether he continued to have a contract with them.
467 WE 144 468 WE 141, 00:23:20 469 Not included in the written evidence.
Sir John Butterfill, Mr Stephen Byers, Ms Patricia Hewitt, Mr Geoff Hoon, Mr Richard Caborn and Mr Adam Ingram 129
565. I referred Mr Ingram to his statement that he had not maintained any other relationships, formal or informal, with senior civil servants, and certainly not in order to recommend them for future employment. I asked him to help me in reconciling that statement with his statement in the meeting with the undercover reporter, where he said, during a discussion on civil servants who might be approached for the fictional advisory board: “I think I know all of them and … some of them are very good strategic planners, good thinkers, and well-trained in command and control … and just think logically.” And: “There’s a lot [of] duffers in there but I’ve got some there [MOD] in mind”.470 I asked Mr Ingram whether that did not suggest that he had offered to identify possible members for the advisory board from recently retired civil servants whom he had known in a Government department, which I took to be the Ministry of Defence.
566. I asked Mr Ingram whether it would be reasonable for me to draw from his letter of 28 June that, now that he had left Parliament, he would be ready to use the contacts he had built up as a Member of Parliament and former Minister to contact and maintain relations with current Ministers and civil servants on behalf of his clients.
567. I noted, in relation to Mr Ingram’s answers to my questions about contacts with the likely Conservative Defence Minister, that he had said that he was “not suggesting that such a contact would be used in the way phrased in your question”. I explained that my original question had been whether he had been offering to the company as a contact the Member who might become a Conservative Defence Minister (but in the event had not). I said that I had some difficulty in otherwise interpreting what he had said in the meeting with the undercover reporter. I said that the question had been whether a Conservative Government would affect Mr Ingram or the things he could deliver. I noted that in his answer, he referred to the person whom he had thought then was likely to become a Defence Minister who, once he became a Minister, wanted to come and talk to him because “I’ll give him good advice”.471 I noted that he had said then that he tended to talk to people and that he talked to “Tory Opposition Members”.472 He had concluded this section by saying, “So I don’t know if that’s of interest to you.”473 I asked Mr Ingram whether it would not be a reasonable inference from those exchanges that he had thought that his contacts with Conservative Members, in particular the individual he had identified, might be of interest to Anderson Perry, and that that interest would stem from the contact he might create between that company and the putative Conservative Defence Minister.
568. Finally, I noted that Mr Ingram did not have the exact date of the interview. I asked him whether he had been able to check his diary for earlier this year and, if so, whether an entry had been made in his diary for this interview, and, if not, why no entry had been made for this appointment.
569. Mr Ingram wrote to me on 7 July.474 He told me that he had sought advice from the appropriate House authorities about the procedures and rules applicable to obtaining clearance to take up outside employment and the way in which those interests should be
470 WE 141, 00:20:04 471 WE 141, 00:04:58 472 WE 141, 00:05:25 473 WE 141, 00:05:42 474 WE 145
130 Sir John Butterfill, Mr Stephen Byers, Ms Patricia Hewitt, Mr Geoff Hoon, Mr Richard Caborn and Mr Adam Ingram
registered. He said that he had not used any contacts with Ministers, former Ministers or civil servants to advise his clients about structures and people in a Government Department. He had used his own knowledge in this regard to provide such advice.
570. Mr Ingram noted that in my original question to him in my letter of 31 March,475 I had asked him to explain his comments about the possible establishment of a network of former Ministers who could be used to “arrange contacts”. He had explained that he could see nothing wrong in contacting former colleagues to obtain advice on personalities and structures within a particular Department. That would take place only after he had left Parliament, and would not contradict advice in the Appointments System for former Ministers which stated that former Ministers with experience in Government should be able to move into business. Mr Ingram said: “Political and business networking is perfectly legitimate and a common feature of business interface with Government.”
571. Mr Ingram said that the response to the Freedom of Information (F0I) request from the Ministry of Defence made it clear that there had been “no communications or meetings between Adam Ingram MP and Departmental Ministers since 29 June 2007 regarding any of those companies”.476 He confirmed that Argus Libya UK had been the company involved in a contract for the engineering/defence academy for the Libyan Government from whom he had received and properly registered payments. He reiterated his former response that the Libyan academy had not been built and that therefore there was no company with which he was currently involved which was “providing instructors/teachers” to the academy. He had explained that the academy was a future business prospect. The company to which he had referred was the International School for Security and Explosives Education (ISSEE).
572. Mr Ingram said that I had asked him how he could reconcile his entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests in relation to EDS with his statement that he was not providing services to the company in my capacity as a Member of Parliament. He told me that in his response of 28 June, he had advised me that “I always erred on the side of caution in all my outside employment dealings.” He said his understanding of the rules was that service in the capacity of a Member of Parliament was usually taken to mean advice on any parliamentary matter or services connected with any parliamentary proceedings or otherwise related to the House. Mr Ingram said “I did not provide such services to EDS although the registered entry would have allowed me to do so.” He attached a copy of his contract with EDS, pointing out that the contract was between EDS and “Adam Ingram, Director, Adam Ingram Advisory Ltd”.477
573. In response to my request for more detail about the work he had carried out for EDS, Mr Ingram said that initially he had been engaged in familiarising himself with the company’s structures and key project managers. He told me that he had provided them with analysis on the structure of Government and the role of Ministers; the interface between Ministers and senior civil servants and his assessment of developments in Government thinking based on his political analysis. In the main, those meetings had been “of a strategic nature.” He had not been paid a retainer by EDS during that time, nor did he receive such payment now. Mr Ingram said that the contract had not been formally
475 WE 138 476 WE 143 477 Not included in the written evidence.
Sir John Butterfill, Mr Stephen Byers, Ms Patricia Hewitt, Mr Geoff Hoon, Mr Richard Caborn and Mr Adam Ingram 131 terminated and he believed that he would continue to be bound by it if asked to provide future services to the company.
574. Mr Ingram told me that his comments on civil servants who could be suitable for future employment should be taken in conjunction with the comments he had made in response to the undercover reporter’s request for suggested names of former civil servants. He had stated then that he could not provide such names “off the top of my head”. He said he believed “this clearly indicates that I did not maintain a checklist of individuals whom I would be prepared to recommend for future employment.”
575. Mr Ingram said he had said before that he could envisage seeking to speak to Ministers or civil servants about a client’s interest. “That remains my position which I believe to be wholly consistent with the view of the House authorities that it is in the public interest for former Ministers to move into business. I have not maintained such a contact list and instead would use publicly-available information if I was trying to establish contact for a particular purpose.”
576. Mr Ingram said that the interview with the undercover reporter took place in the context of his suitability to become a member of an advisory board of a company. “It is hardly surprising that I tried to show my breadth of experience, the respect in which I was held across the political spectrum and the willingness of others to trust my objective advice and judgement.” He said that his use of the phrase “So I don’t know if that’s of interest to you”,478 fell within the category of setting out his “wider attributes” and in the context of his wish to see “good governance irrespective of which party is in office.”
577. Mr Ingram said that the reason he could not give me the exact date of the interview was simply because he had not kept the diary details. The arrangements for the interview had been made with him and not through his constituency office. From memory, Mr Ingram said that it had been held on either 9 or 10 March.
578. I wrote to Mr Ingram on 15 July, asking him to clear up a number of points.479 I said that I had noted that he had consulted “the appropriate House authorities” about rules for clearance and registration. I asked him to identify the officials he had consulted and when, so that I could consider approaching them.
579. I told Mr Ingram that I noted that he had used his own knowledge to advise his clients about structures and people in government Departments. I asked him whether I would be right in assuming that that knowledge had drawn on his experience as a Minister and his continuing contacts as an MP with Ministers and civil servants. If that was not so, I asked Mr Ingram to let me know on what his knowledge was based and how it had been kept up to date.
580. I said to Mr Ingram that I assumed from his response that he did intend to use his network of contacts which he had built up as a Member and Minister to assist his current and any future clients now that he had left Parliament. I noted, however, that he did not have a specific (and, I assumed, separate) list of such contacts and that he did not intend to imply in the discussion with the undercover reporter that he would be setting up a formal
478 WE 141, 00:05:42 479 WE 146
132 Sir John Butterfill, Mr Stephen Byers, Ms Patricia Hewitt, Mr Geoff Hoon, Mr Richard Caborn and Mr Adam Ingram
network to arrange contacts. I said that I had not myself formed a view on the propriety of his contacting former colleagues to get advice for his clients on personalities and structures in Departments, and noted that he saw nothing wrong in this. At this stage I was simply asking him to confirm my understanding of his intentions.
581. I asked Mr Ingram whether he had specifically taken advice from the Registrar of Members’ Financial Interests about his Register entry in relation to EDS, and, in particular, his decision to register his salary band and the agreement for services. I said I was now consulting the Registrar about this. I told Mr Ingram I had noted the terms of his contract, including that he was paid a daily rate of £1,500 and that the contract included the provision about advocacy which he had submitted to the Registrar.
582. I noted that “in the main” the meetings Mr Ingram had had with EDS were of a “strategic nature”. I asked Mr Ingram whether the advice he had provided for EDS had been exclusively oral advice at meetings, or whether he had prepared papers for them. I asked him to whom his advice was given, and whether he had provided more specific and less strategic advice at any time. If so, I asked him what it covered.
583. I told Mr Ingram that I had noted that he had not maintained a “checklist” of people to recommend for appointments to boards. I said that the question I had asked in my letter of 1 July was whether he had been offering to identify possible members for the advisory board from recently retired civil servants whom he knew in a Government Department, which I had taken to be the Ministry of Defence. I had noted that he had not given names at the meeting with the undercover reporter. I said that he had appeared to suggest that he had names in mind. In any event, I asked him to confirm that he had indeed been offering to identify such people. I said that I should make clear that at this stage I was not suggesting that there had been an impropriety in his doing so. That would be a matter for me to consider once my inquiries were concluded.
584. I noted that Mr Ingram could envisage speaking to Ministers or civil servants about a client’s interest and that he would use publicly available information, as he did not have a “contact list”. I said I was finding this argument a little difficult to follow. It would be unusual for someone in public life not to keep the names and numbers of their contacts in an address book or its electronic equivalent. I asked Mr Ingram whether he was suggesting that he did not keep details of such contacts, and that, even if he had kept such a contact list, he would not consult it if he wished to contact a Government Minister or a senior civil servant. Again, I said that I was not suggesting at this stage any impropriety in such actions. That would be a matter for me to consider once my inquiries were completed.
585. I said I noted Mr Ingram’s point about setting out his wider attributes and the references to good governance which he had made at this point in the interview. But I said that in that part of the interview which was specifically about whether a Conservative Government would change his role on the advisory board, it appeared that Mr Ingram was making clear that he had had good contacts with Conservative Members, including the particular Member whom he thought at that stage might become a Defence Minister, and that, in the interests of good governance, he expected to give advice to that Minister. As a result, I said that it might seem that he had suggested that he would be able to bring to the advisory board his contacts with Conservatives, on the assumption that there would be a Conservative Government. Again, I said I was not suggesting at that stage any impropriety,
Sir John Butterfill, Mr Stephen Byers, Ms Patricia Hewitt, Mr Geoff Hoon, Mr Richard Caborn and Mr Adam Ingram 133 which I would need to consider at the conclusion of my inquiries. I simply wanted to be clear on the implications of what he had been saying in the discussion. If I was wrong to draw these inferences from what he appeared to have been saying, I asked him to let me know, and why.
586. Mr Ingram wrote to me on 27 August.480 He said that prior to taking up a role with the companies concerned, he had sought clearance from the Office of the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments. He had received clearance from Lord Mayhew, the Committee Chairman, in a letter dated 14 January 2008, advising him that “it would be proper” for him to take appointments with three companies about which he had enquired, namely, Signpoint Secure Ltd, Argus Scotland Ltd and Argus Libya UK Ltd. He had received a further letter from the Committee, dated 27 March 2008, signed by the Secretary to the Committee that they could “see no reason” why he should not take up appointments with EDS Inc. and the International School for Security and Explosives Education (ISSEE). Following receipt of those letters and after consultation with the Registrar for Members Interests about the most appropriate listing for those appointments, he had duly registered his interests and notified the Secretary to the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments that he had taken up the appointments.
587. On the question whether he had drawn upon his experience as a Minister in providing advice to the companies with which he had been involved, Mr Ingram confirmed that he did so, and said he believed that to be consistent with the guidelines for former Ministers.
588. As to whether he had used his continuing contacts as a Member of Parliament with Ministers and civil servants in the interests of those companies, Mr Ingram told me that he believed it had been established that he had not lobbied on behalf of those companies despite having clearance from the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments to do so, if he had so wished, any time after one year of leaving office.
589. In response to my question how he had kept his “knowledge” up to date, Mr Ingram noted that, “with the exception of my appointment with EDS, I had taken on the role of director with the other companies. That required a range of skills and attributes not necessarily connected to my previous role as a Minister.”
590. Mr Ingram said that he could “envisage” using contacts made during his time as a Minister. “Many companies engage former Ministers and civil servants for that very purpose. The capacity to ask people for advice is not unique to me and is recognised as part of the guidelines for former Ministers that it is in the public interest for them to move into business.”
591. Mr Ingram said that he had taken advice from the Registrar of Members’ Financial Interests about his Register entry in relation to EDS. All advice given to EDS had been oral; he had not made any written submissions to them. The advice had been given to a range of account executives and their senior staff. He had had regular meetings with the senior personnel responsible for the company’s public affairs. “The only non-strategic advice I would have given would have been about the role and responsibilities of a Member of Parliament, stressing the importance of keeping good relations between company
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134 Sir John Butterfill, Mr Stephen Byers, Ms Patricia Hewitt, Mr Geoff Hoon, Mr Richard Caborn and Mr Adam Ingram
representatives and local Members of Parliament in the areas where the company had a presence.”
592. In answer to my question whether he would be prepared to suggest names of civil servants for possible employment, Mr Ingram said that “I was not offering myself as a head- hunter, for payment or otherwise. I would be prepared, however, to offer my best advice on the qualities of people I knew in Government. ” Mr Ingram reiterated that he did not have a “contact list”, in either address book or electronic form, of Ministers or civil servants. He said that he had made no offer to bring to the bogus advisory board his contacts with Conservatives on the assumption that there would be a change of Government. What he had said in response to the direct question posed to him by the bogus company representative was that “I had credibility as a Defence Minister which I believed could transcend a change of Government. I believe that my credibility and knowledge was recognised across the political spectrum, based on my service as a Defence Minister for over six years. There can be no question that this would allow me to talk to Members of Parliament of parties other than my own, in Government or not, from a position of strength, an attribute which would have been available to the bogus advisory board.”
593. I wrote to Mr Ingram on 2 September.481 I noted that he had addressed the question in my letter to him of 15 July about the basis for the knowledge he had used to advise his clients on the structures and people in government departments. I had not been suggesting that he had lobbied such people, but was simply seeking to clarify whether he had used his continuing contacts with Ministers and with civil servants to advise his clients about structures and people in government departments. I said I was assuming that he had done so. If he had rejected that assumption, then I was asking how he managed to keep up to date the advice he had given to his clients about structures and people in government departments. I said I had not been asking how he had kept up to date his knowledge on wider issues. I asked Mr Ingram, therefore, to confirm whether he had used his continuing contacts with Ministers and civil servants to keep up to date the advice he gave his clients about structures and people in government departments. I told him that this would be consistent with the more general account he had given that he would envisage using contacts made during his time as a Minister. Again, I said I would need to come to my own view on what he had said about this, and I said that he should not draw from this that I was suggesting there was any impropriety in the way he advised his clients on these matters.
594. I told Mr Ingram that I had noted that he did not have a “contact list” of Ministers or civil servants, either in address book or electronic form. But what I had been asking was whether he had kept the details of Ministers and civil servants in some form, either in hard copy or electronically, and whether he would refer to it if he had wished to identify or contact such people. I said I was not sure whether he wished me to take from his reply that he did not have any names, addresses, or contact numbers of Ministers, former Ministers or civil servants in any list of personal contacts kept by him and, if he wished to contact such people, relied only on public records.
595. Meanwhile, I had written to the Registrar of Members’ Financial Interests on 15 July.482 I summarised the relevant evidence given me by Mr Ingram. In the light of this, I
481 WE 148 482 WE 149
Sir John Butterfill, Mr Stephen Byers, Ms Patricia Hewitt, Mr Geoff Hoon, Mr Richard Caborn and Mr Adam Ingram 135 asked the Registrar whether Mr Ingram had at any time consulted her about his registration entries for his remunerated employment and, if so, when and what those discussions had been about. I also asked, in respect of Mr Ingram’s employment with EDS, the Registrar’s view, in light of the information provided to me by Mr Ingram, as to whether he had been required within the provisions of the Guide to the Rules to register his payment band and lodge with her his agreement for services.
596. I wrote again to the Registrar of Members’ Financial Interests on 2 September, telling her that I had now heard back from Mr Ingram with further information about his contacts with her.483 I asked the Registrar if she could take this into account in preparing her response to my letter of 15 July.
597. The Registrar wrote to me on 9 September.484 She first addressed the issue of whether at any time Mr Ingram had consulted her about his registration entries for his remunerated employment and if so when and what those discussions were about. She said she had gone back in Mr Ingram’s file to the point at which he had ceased to be a Minister in July 2007. She attached relevant correspondence.485
598. The Registrar said that on 12 July 2007 she had written to Mr Ingram noting that he no longer held ministerial office, saying that it might be that he was now thinking of taking up outside employment, pointing out that the rules might have changed since he was last in a position to do this and offering advice should he require it. She had indicated that general guidance was available in the Code of Conduct and in the procedural and advice notes. On 10 March 2008 Mr Ingram had sent the Registrar’s office a copy of an agreement with a company called SignPoint and asking for the employment to be registered. The file contained a draft e-mail from the Executive Officer in her office, including a draft entry.486
599. Mr Ingram had written again on 27 June 2008 with copies of agreements with Argus Libya and Argus Scotland, asking for them to be registered. The Registrar said that Mr Ingram must have telephoned the Executive Assistant on 9 July,487 as her draft e-mail suggested she had e-mailed back “Further to our conversation earlier I attach below your revised entry for the Register. I would be grateful if you could also let me know what the business of the two companies is; I am afraid I forgot to ask you that when we spoke”.
600. The Registrar said that Mr Ingram must have telephoned again,488 as there was a draft e-mail in the file from the Executive Assistant dated 22 July and saying, “Thank you for your call letting me know the description of the two companies. I attach below a revised entry for the next updated internet version of the Register”.
601. The first mention of EDS occurred on 21 August 2008 when Mr Ingram had written enclosing an agreement with the company and asked for it to be registered. The Registrar said that this time Mr Ingram had told her office what the company did. Mr Ingram having
483 WE 150 484 WE 151 485 Not included in the written evidence. 486 Not included in the written evidence. 487 Not included in the written evidence. 488 Not included in the written evidence.
136 Sir John Butterfill, Mr Stephen Byers, Ms Patricia Hewitt, Mr Geoff Hoon, Mr Richard Caborn and Mr Adam Ingram
supplied an agreement with a salary band, the Registrar’s office assumed that Mr Ingram had been providing services in the capacity of an MP, since it was only when this was the case that a band and agreement were required. They inserted that salary band in the Register entries.
602. The Registrar said that a draft e-mail to Mr Ingram from the Executive Assistant in her office, dated 2 September 2008, read, “Thank you for your call. I attach your entry for the next updated edition of the Register, which will be produced later this week”.489 Mr Ingram’s secretary replied the same day saying, “Thank you [name]. The entry is OK”.490
603. The Registrar said that the file did not suggest discussions of any length between her office and Mr Ingram. She said that had there been any such lengthy discussions, the Executive Assistant or she would have recorded them, either in a file note or in an e-mail response to Mr Ingram. “It appears that on each occasion including the one relating to EDS we simply complied with his request to make an entry: we did not give him any substantive advice and none was requested.”
604. The Registrar then gave her view, in the light of the information provided by Mr Ingram, as to whether he had been required, within the provisions of the rules, to register a salary band and lodge an agreement for the provision of services.
605. The Registrar said that “the rules of the House require that Members undertaking to provide services in the capacity of a Member of Parliament shall obtain a written agreement to that effect, including a standard clause stating that the Member will not be asked to engage in advocacy, and deposit it with the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, and register their payment by £5,000 bands. By giving a salary band and providing an agreement, Mr Ingram was informing the reader that he was providing services in the capacity of a Member of Parliament.” The Registrar noted that Mr Ingram said that he had not provided services in the capacity of a Member of Parliament but that his Register entry would have allowed him to do so. He had also said that the entry had stated that EDS had expected him to provide advisory services and certain other work as directed by the contract with the company; in fact it was the agreement not the Register entry which referred to project work. The Registrar also noted that Mr Ingram had said that his understanding of the rules was that “services in the capacity of a Member of Parliament is usually taken to be advice on any parliamentary matter or services connected with any parliamentary proceeding or otherwise related to the House”. These words were a quotation from the 2009 edition of the Guide to the Rules.
606. The Registrar said that the Guide to the Rules in force at the time Mr Ingram took up the appointment had made no attempt to define or describe “services in the capacity of an MP”, though the foreword to the Register of 2005 made illustrative reference to “making representations to a government department, providing advice on parliamentary or public affairs or sponsoring functions in a parliamentary building”. She said that had Mr Ingram consulted her in 2008 she would have given him the then-current advice; this had been
489 Not included in the written evidence. 490 Not included in the written evidence. The Registrar said she had referred to “draft e-mails” from the Executive Assistant. This is because it was her practice to print off e-mails for filing before she actually sent them. Evidence (for instance, responses) suggests that they were indeed sent.
Sir John Butterfill, Mr Stephen Byers, Ms Patricia Hewitt, Mr Geoff Hoon, Mr Richard Caborn and Mr Adam Ingram 137 codified in the 2009 edition of the rules from which Mr Ingram quoted, which had then been in preparation.
607. The Registrar said that neither the agreement deposited by Mr Ingram nor the longer contract with which he had supplied me and which I had sent her gave sufficient detail of the actual work Mr Ingram was carrying out for EDS for her to be able to say that he had indeed been providing services in the capacity of an MP. She noted that in my first letter to her, however,491 I had told her that Mr Ingram had said to me that “he provided them with an analysis of the structure of government and the role of Ministers; the interface between Ministers and senior civil servants and [his] assessment of developments in Government thinking based on his political analysis”. In my second letter I had told her that Mr Ingram had written to me that “the only non-strategic advice I would have given would have been about the role and responsibilities of a Member of Parliament, stressing the importance of keeping good relations between company representatives and local Members Parliament in the areas where the company had a presence”. The Registrar said that these two statements, and particularly the second, led her to the conclusion that it had indeed been right that Mr Ingram should have given a salary band and have provided an agreement “because he was providing what I would regard as services in the capacity of a Member of Parliament.”
608. The Registrar made two further observations. She noted that Mr Ingram said that he wished to make it clear that he worked for EDS as a consultant and not as an MP. “I should say that the two are not mutually exclusive and the form of his Register entry gave the opposite impression.” Secondly, she noted that there was no relationship between the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments and the work of the Registrar’s office, though the Registrar said that she would always ask an ex-Minister registering an appointment if s/he had checked with that Committee.
609. I wrote to Mr Ingram on 9 September, saying that I had now heard back from the Registrar and attaching relevant correspondence.492 I said I would welcome any comments he may wish to make on the Registrar’s advice. I said that I might need to note that he had registered that he was providing services in the capacity of a Member of Parliament in the context of what he had told the interviewer including: “I have been doing advisory work, done a lot initially, not so much recently, with the EDS, which is now part of HP, and actually just talking to them about, really just about Government relations and what to look for in Government…There’s a kind of standard way in which Governments tend to operate…my arrangement with them is that I would only do work on an MP and then…it would probably come to the end of the arrangement...”493
610. Mr Ingram wrote to me on 14 September494 in response to my letter to him of 2 September.495 To my question whether he had used continuing contacts with Ministers and with civil servants to advise clients about structures and people in government
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138 Sir John Butterfill, Mr Stephen Byers, Ms Patricia Hewitt, Mr Geoff Hoon, Mr Richard Caborn and Mr Adam Ingram
departments, he responded, “Throughout our correspondence, you have consistently referred to ‘clients’. With the exception of EDS and Argus Libya(UK) LLP, I have no other ‘clients’ ... I did not maintain a continuing contact with Ministers and with civil servants in order to advise ‘clients’. The point I was making in ... my letter of 27 August496 was that I could envisage making contact with people I knew in government after I left Parliament ... I responded in the future tense since that was the context in which you had sought my response in your letter of 15 July. I have made no such contact since leaving Parliament.”
611. On the question whether he had kept the details of Ministers and civil servants in some form, either hard copy or electronically, and whether he would refer to it if he wished to identify or contact such people, he said that he had advised me in earlier correspondence that he did not have a comprehensive list of Ministers, past or present, or civil servants. “I have a small circle of friends, built-up over my twenty-three years in Parliament and in government. I maintain contact details of those friends whom I occasionally meet socially. I do not view them as contacts in the context of your enquiry.”
612. In a further letter to me of the same day, 14 September, Mr Ingram responded to my letter and enclosures of 9 September about the Registrar’s advice.497 He said he did not have details of when he had contacted the Registrar’s office or any notes relating to the advice he had received. “My recollection is that I sought general advice on what was required in the registration of outside financial interests ... The first company I registered was Signpoint Secure Ltd which provided the framework for subsequent entries. When it came to registering subsequent interests, I recollect telephone discussions about the categorisation of the registered interest. I believe that applied to the action I took on the registration of EDS.”
613. He said I would note that he provided an agreement for services and a salary band for each of the registered interests. He said that he had noted the comments of the Registrar and “respected” her version of events.
614. With regard to the consultancy services he had provided to EDS, “I maintain that I did not provide advice as a Member of Parliament, either in terms of the pre- or post-2009 guidance as set out in the Registrar’s letter to you of 9 September.” He said that he appreciated that both I and the Registrar took a different view, “although, as I understand it, you accept that I had properly complied with the relevant registration requirements to allow me to give advice in my capacity as a Member of Parliament.”
615. He said that he was clear in his own mind that the understanding he had with EDS was that “I would provide services to them while a Member of Parliament and not as a Member of Parliament ... the natural review of my continuing relationship with the company was at the point of my standing down as a Member of Parliament. The relationship has also changed in part because of the new company structure and new senior executives at EDS.”
616. I wrote to Mr Ingram on 20 September.498 In respect of his response to my letter of 2 September,499 I said that I was not intending for him to answer whether he had maintained
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Sir John Butterfill, Mr Stephen Byers, Ms Patricia Hewitt, Mr Geoff Hoon, Mr Richard Caborn and Mr Adam Ingram 139 his contacts in order to advise his clients—in other words those whose employment by him he had registered—but whether he used those continuing contacts (among other things) to keep up to date the advice he gave to those who employed him. I said that in his letter, he had told me that he had made no such contact since leaving Parliament, but he had made no comment on the position while he was still a Member. I said that unless he wished to clarify the situation, I would simply record that he had not given me an answer about whether, while he was a Member of Parliament, he drew on his continuing contacts with Ministers, former Ministers and civil servants when he gave advice to those who employed him during that time. I said I would then come to my own conclusions on that matter.
617. Similarly, I said I would note that, in the context of my inquiry, he maintained contact details only of those whom he regarded as his friends, built up over 23 years in Parliament and in government. I said that he had not told me if any of those were Ministers, former Ministers or civil servants and that he had also not told me whether he would use that list if he wished to contact any of them on behalf of those who employed him now that he had left Parliament. I said that again, subject to any points of clarification he wished to make, I would need to come to my own conclusions on this.
618. In respect of the registration question, I said that I should make clear that I had sent him the advice of the Registrar. I said I had not yet come to my own conclusion on this and would not wish to do so until I had given him an opportunity to comment on the Registrar’s advice. I said I saw from his comment that he respected her version of events about the advice he had sought from her office. I said I assumed that the use of the word “respect” means that he fell short of accepting fully that version.
619. I noted that despite registering his work for EDS as if he were providing services in his capacity as a Member of Parliament, he did not accept that he was in fact doing so— arguing that he was providing services while a Member but not as a Member. I said I would of course note the distinction he had drawn and would need to come to my own conclusions on that.
620. Mr Ingram wrote to me on 28 September.500 He said, “I can confirm that I did not draw upon any contacts I may have had with Ministers, former Ministers or civil servants to give advice to those who employed me while I was a Member of Parliament.”
621. He said he believed it was implicit in his response set out in his letter of 14 September that amongst his “circle of friends” would have been Ministers, former Ministers and civil servants. “I further stated that I did not view them as ‘contacts’ in the context of your inquiry. You now ask whether I would use that list to contact them on behalf of those who now employ me. I have not done so and I cannot envisage any circumstances in which I would.”
622. Finally, in respect of the registration question, he said that he was satisfied that he had received sufficient information from the Registrar’s office to assist him in properly registering his various interests in terms of the rules and regulations applicable at that time.
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Findings of Fact 623. In February 2010 Mr Ingram’s office received an approach from the undercover reporter, claiming to represent Anderson Perry. During an initial telephone conversation, Mr Ingram and the undercover reporter agreed to meet.
624. Mr Ingram met the undercover reporter on 9 or 10 March 2010. His view is that he participated in the meeting on the basis that he was being considered as a member of an advisory board although he says that there was an underlying agenda of entrapment. He does not believe he offered to do anything as a Member of Parliament which would have required him to register an interest. Mr Ingram says that there was no formal follow-up to the initial interview and no formal offer made of employment in any capacity relating to his time as a Member of Parliament.
Issues subject to inquiry i. Network of former Ministers
625. Mr Ingram told the undercover reporter: “There’s going to be a lot of ex-Ministers … and they’re become a point [of] contact in the political network ... So all of that can be established.” 501
Relevant rules of the House: Paragraph 15 of the Code of Conduct: Disrepute.
626. Mr Ingram says that, given the fact that under the ACOBA guidelines for former ministers it is in the public interest that “former Ministers with experience in Government should be able to move into business...”, it would not be unusual for former Ministerial colleagues to maintain points of contact. That would have taken place only after he had left Parliament. He does not think there is anything remiss in contacting former Ministerial colleagues for advice on personalities and structures within a particular Department, and he does not accept that he was in any way suggesting that a formal network be set up to be used “to arrange contacts”.502
627. Mr Ingram says that he has not maintained a contact list of Ministers and civil servants and instead would use publicly-available information if he was trying to establish contact for a particular purpose. He says he has some Ministerial and civil service contacts among his personal friends, but he would not envisage contacting them for anyone employing him.
ii. Contacting civil servants
628. Mr Ingram told the undercover reporter that “It’s worth it, sometimes cultivating a Minister … but decision-makers really … are the civil service structure, because they do all the definition of how you’re going to deliver on a particular project.”503 Asked by the reporter
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Sir John Butterfill, Mr Stephen Byers, Ms Patricia Hewitt, Mr Geoff Hoon, Mr Richard Caborn and Mr Adam Ingram 141 whether he had good contacts with them from when he was a Minister, Mr Ingram replied, “Oh yeah”.
Relevant rules of the House: Paragraph 10 of the Code of Conduct: Paid advocacy. Paragraph 16 of the Code of Conduct: Registration and Declaration.
629. Mr Ingram says that it is a statement of fact that it is the civil service structure which brings together particular procurement decisions. It is therefore desirable for companies to make themselves known to civil servants and to Ministers. This is normal practice and one adopted by companies involved in a procurement process. Many of those who do this on behalf of companies may indeed be former civil servants or Ministers. He says he did not have contact with civil servants on behalf of clients and did not lobby on their behalf, and that if he had done so he would have declared an interest as appropriate. iii. Consortium to bid for MOD work
630. Mr Ingram told the undercover reporter: “there are two other companies that have come to me ... one’s in the energy sector ... the other, the other one is ... A lot of departments in defence, one of them will have to be going to outsource ... and the main consortium is now just being put together.”504
Relevant rules of the House: Paragraph 15 of the Code of Conduct: Disrepute. Paragraph 16 of the Code of Conduct: Registration and Declaration.
631. Mr Ingram says that did not claim that he was helping to put together a consortium to bid for work which the MOD outsources to private companies. He says that the transcript merely confirms his knowledge of what was being put together, not that he was at that stage actively part of it or instrumental in it. He had been contacted by a business acquaintance outlining what he was putting together and enquiring as to whether Mr Ingram would be interested in becoming involved after he had left Parliament. He says he has done no work for this project. Mr Ingram says he has received no payment and has had no contact with Ministers or civil servants about the project; it was a short discussion about a possible future appointment after he had left Parliament.
iv. Defence academy in Libya
632. Mr Ingram told the undercover reporter of employment including a company which had an interest in Libya, saying, “Gaddafi wanted a defence academy built and people I’m with have got very good points of contact in the Libyan regime ...”505
Relevant rules of the House: Paragraph 15 of the Code of Conduct: Disrepute. Paragraph 16 of the Code of Conduct: Registration and Declaration.
633. Mr Ingram says he had two registered interests with companies which had been successful, as part of a wider UK consortium, in winning a contract for the design and planning phase of an Engineering/Defence Academy for the Libyan Government. He says
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he provided advice on the range of activities undertaken in the UK in this area and the payments he received were properly registered. Mr Ingram says that he was never involved in meetings with Ministers or civil servants on behalf of the clients, and that if he had been, these would have been registered, as appropriate. He says he never visited the country nor met with any representatives of the country during his time as a Minister or as a Member of Parliament. Mr Ingram says that the point he was making in the meeting with the undercover reporter was that people in the companies with which he was associated had good points of contact in Libya.
v. Teachers for the Libyan defence academy
634. Mr Ingram told the undercover reporter that “once the defence academy is built, they did, have been able to get the defence academy here to become engaged with that, so we would populate it with our teaching”.506
Relevant rules of the House: Paragraph 16 of the Code of Conduct: Registration and Declaration.
635. Mr Ingram says the Academy has not been built and it therefore has not been populated by the students or instructors/teachers. There was a future prospect that a company with which he was involved and in which his interest has been registered (ISSEE), is likely to have an interest in obtaining contracts in this area.
vi. EDS
636. Mr Ingram told the undercover reporter, about his work with EDS: “my arrangement with them is that I would only do work on an MP and then it would probably come to the end of the arrangement.”507 He suggested that he was meeting the “new people” at EDS shortly to talk through whether they wanted him to continue.
Relevant rules of the House: Paragraph 16 of the Code of Conduct: Registration and Declaration.
637. Mr Ingram says that was working with EDS as a consultant, not in his capacity as a Member of Parliament. He says that he had agreed with the company that the best mutual date to review his on-going contract was when he was standing down as a Member of Parliament. He says that he continues to be available to give advice to the company when requested to do so. This involved him providing them with an analysis of the structure of government and the role of Ministers; the interface between Ministers and senior civil servants and his assessment of developments in Government thinking based on his political analysis. He also advised EDS on the role and responsibilities of a Member of Parliament, stressing the importance of keeping good relations between company representatives and local Members Parliament in the areas where the company had a presence. He does not accept that he was required to lodge an agreement for services, since he did not consider he was providing such services in his capacity as a Member of
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Sir John Butterfill, Mr Stephen Byers, Ms Patricia Hewitt, Mr Geoff Hoon, Mr Richard Caborn and Mr Adam Ingram 143
Parliament. He had registered the agreement because, in registration as with other House rules, he had always erred on the side of caution.
638. The Registrar of Members’ Financial Interests says that Mr Ingram registered with the House a salary band and deposited an agreement for the provision of services for EDS. She notes that these actions fulfill the requirements of the rules for those undertaking work in the capacity of an MP. She concludes that it was indeed right that Mr Ingram should give a salary band and provide an agreement because he was providing what she would regard as services in the capacity of a Member of Parliament. vii. Identifying former civil servants
639. Mr Ingram discussed with the undercover reporter the possibility of identifying former civil servants who might be able to serve on boards of companies. He said, “some of them are very good strategic planners, good thinkers, and well trained in command and control, ah, and just think logically....”508 Mr Ingram continued, “there’s a lot [of] duffers in there but I’ve got some there [the MOD] in mind...”
Relevant rules of the House: Paragraph 15 of the Code of Conduct: Disrepute.
640. Mr Ingram says that he has had a number of contacts with civil servants since he left office as a Minister, but that he certainly did not do so in order to recommend them for future employment opportunities once they had left the civil service. Mr Ingram says that he did not maintain a checklist of individuals whom he would be prepared to recommend for future employment. He said he was not offering himself as a head-hunter, for payment or otherwise, although he would be prepared to offer his best advice on the qualities of people he knew in Government. viii. Relationships with Ministers and civil servants
641. In answer to a question from the undercover reporter, “so you would be able to help us develop our relationship with the ministers and civil servants?”, Mr Ingram said, “I could work at that. 509
Relevant rules of the House: Paragraph 15 of the Code of Conduct: Disrepute.
642. Mr Ingram says that despite having no experience of doing what he was being asked to do on a paid basis, he could envisage seeking to speak to ministers or civil servants or to participate in meetings about a client’s interests. He says his failure to elaborate further was probably because he was considering the practicalities of such an approach. In any event, it would have been undertaken after he had left Parliament.
ix. Contact with a possible Conservative Defence Minister
643. The undercover reporter asked Mr Ingram whether the advent of a Conservative administration would change his role on the advisory board at all, or affect him or the
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things he could deliver. He replied: “there’s one person who’s likely to become the defence Minister in the Tory administration, says once you (?) become Minister wants to come and talk to me because I’ll give him good advice.”
644. Mr Ingram said: “I want to see the department well run, I don’t care who’s running it... good governance... So I don’t know if that’s of interest to you.” 510
Relevant rules of the House: Paragraph 15 of the Code of Conduct: Disrepute.
645. Mr Ingram says that the discussion on this point was about providing advice, on request, on his experience as a Defence Minister. Mr Ingram says that in using the words “I don’t know if that’s of interest to you?” he was not suggesting that such a contact would be used to the benefit of a company which might employ him on its advisory board. He was seeking to show that he had credibility as a Defence Minister which he believed could transcend a change of Government. He believes that this was an attribute which would have been available to the advisory board.
x. Payments of £1,500–£2,000 a day for consultancy work
646. Mr Ingram responded to the undercover reporter’s question about his “day rate”: “one of my directorships, it’s a thousand pounds for a meeting, and another it’s fifteen hundred pounds a day, and you know that’s what consultancy (...INAUDIBLE...) charge ... I have two/three (?) companies associated with Libya, and they’re each two thousand pounds.”511
Relevant rules of the House: Paragraph 16 of the Code of Conduct: Registration and Declaration.
647. Mr Ingram says he registered all companies with which he had been involved. All potential earnings were also properly registered as required. The figure of £1,500 a day is contained in Mr Ingram’s contact with EDS.
Findings of Fact: General 648. All of the former Members who are the subject of these complaints were approached in February 2010 by an undercover reporter who claimed to represent Anderson Perry, described as “a United States communications company” which had recently set up an office in the UK. Anderson Perry was a fictitious company. Each of the former Members agreed to a meeting with the undercover reporter following the approach. The undercover reporter told all of the former Members that Anderson Perry was planning to set up an advisory board and she asked them whether they would be interested in joining the board. The reporter also asked all of the former Members whether they would be interested in working as consultants for companies retaining Anderson Perry.
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Conclusions 649. The question I am to resolve is whether any of the former Members subject to this inquiry was in breach of the Code of Conduct for Members of Parliament and its associated rules, either because of the nature of the statements they made to the undercover reporter when they were Members of Parliament, or because of actions taken when Members of Parliament to which some of those statements appeared to refer. While none is any longer a Member, for the purposes of these conclusions, I shall refer to them as Members since that is what they were at the time.
Application of the rules of the House 650. Each of the Members believed that they were attending a meeting with a prospective employer who was looking to employ them after they had left the House of Commons at the end of the last Parliament. They did not suspect that the person they were meeting was an undercover reporter, apparently with a brief to identify the lobbying activities of senior Members of Parliament. They did not know that their initial telephone conversation and the meeting itself would be secretly recorded. They did not know that some of their statements would be published.
651. The tone and manner of some of what these Members said are on occasions, to quote one Member, “embarrassing”. But as another Member has pointed out, this was not intended to be a broadcast interview. It was thought by each of the Members to be a preliminary conversation where they discussed the nature of the jobs being offered and were given the opportunity to set out their stalls. The manner of their speaking needs to be understood in that context. And while what some said appears nevertheless misjudged and sometimes ill-advised, it does not follow that Members were necessarily in breach of the rules of the House on that account.
652. I have, therefore, considered each of the statements I have examined against the specific rules of the House to identify whether any of these statements or any of the actions reported constituted a breach of one of those specific rules. I have identified for each Member the principal statements which appeared to suggest the potential for a breach of the rules. But to keep the inquiry manageable and proportionate, I have not pursued every statement made by the Member in the course of their conversations with the undercover reporter. Nor, for the same reason, have I always sought corroboration of the Member’s explanation of their statements, in particular where that explanation appeared to be clear and unambiguous.
653. The principal paragraphs of the Code of Conduct and associated rules which I believe relevant to this inquiry are as follows:
i. Paragraph 16 of the Code of Conduct and part 1 of the Guide to the Rules. This relates to the registration of Members’ financial interests. If one of the Members identified in the statements they made to the undercover reporter that they were working for a business or organisation, and I subsequently established that they were paid for that work but had not registered their employment in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, then that Member would be in breach of the rules of the House.
146 Sir John Butterfill, Mr Stephen Byers, Ms Patricia Hewitt, Mr Geoff Hoon, Mr Richard Caborn and Mr Adam Ingram
ii. Paragraph 12 and 16 of the Code of Conduct and part 2 of the Guide to the Rules. This relates to the declaration of Members’ interests. If one of the Members identified in their statements to the undercover reporter any transactions or communications with other Members, or with Ministers or servants of the Crown, which was relevant to a financial interest which they had or were expecting to have, and I found that they had indeed had such a transaction or communication and that they had a relevant financial interest which they had not declared to the Member, Minister or official, then that Member would be in breach of the rules of the House.
iii. Paragraph 10 of the Code of Conduct and part 3 of the Guide to the Rules. This relates to the prohibition on paid advocacy. If one of the Members identified in their statements to the undercover reporter any actions which amounted to paid advocacy because it sought to confer benefits exclusively on a particular individual or body in which they had a financial interest, and I found that such paid advocacy had taken place, then the Member would be in breach of the rules of the House. The Member would not be in breach if that Member’s advocacy was not in support of a remunerated interest (they had not been paid) or was intended to support a sector or interest which would benefit others as well as the individual or organisation in which they had a financial interest. In the latter case, such support would not be a breach of the rules of the House as long as the relevant financial interest was both registered if necessary in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests and declared at the time.
iv. Paragraph 13 of the Code of Conduct. This relates to the Member’s use of confidential information. If one of the Members identified in their statements to the undercover reporter that they had received information in confidence in the course of their parliamentary duties and that they had passed it to others for financial gain, then, if they had indeed done so, the Member would be in breach of the rules of the House.
v. Paragraph 14 of the Code of Conduct and any relevant rules of the House. This relates to the Members’ use of House of Commons facilities. If one of the Members identified in their statements to the undercover reporter any use of House facilities, which was contrary to the rules on their use, then that Member would be in breach of the rules of the House. So, in respect of one Member (Mr Caborn), if that Member had used House banqueting facilities, on behalf of or with the support of an organisation or individual who was employing that Member for payment, and I found that the Member had not made the declaration of their financial interest required by the rules, then the Member would be in breach of the rules of the House. I shall consider in respect of another Member (Mr Byers) whether his offer to use House refreshment facilities to meet the fictitious American employers was a breach of paragraph 14 of the Code because the Member offered the use of House facilities for a non-parliamentary purpose.
vi. Paragraph 15 of the Code of Conduct. This relates to the requirement that Members should conduct themselves in a manner which will tend to maintain or strengthen the public’s trust and confidence in the integrity of Parliament, and never to undertake actions which would bring the House of Commons, or its
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Members generally, into disrepute. Successive Parliamentary Commissioners have interpreted this provision in a way which distinguishes between a Member undertaking actions which may bring him or her into disrepute, and bringing the House and its Members generally into disrepute. I have therefore considered whether any of the statements made by any of the Members to the undercover reporter, whether true or untrue, constituted an action which brought the House, or its Members generally, into disrepute.
General considerations 654. I have examined statements made by each of the Members which I have identified, against the rules relevant to those statements. Each Member spoke differently. I have considered each Member’s conduct separately and on its own merits, against the relevant rules. I have come to an overall conclusion on each of their cases, taking account of the overall interview as well as the individual issues identified.
655. There are, however, some points of general application raised during the course of my inquiry to which I now turn. I will in my concluding section make some general observations on some wider lessons which might be drawn from this inquiry. My observations of general application to each of the cases I have considered are:
i. I have considered only the conduct of the former Members who were the subject of the complaints which I accepted (or in Sir John Butterfill’s case, his self-referral). I have not considered the conduct of the reporter, the production company, the broadcaster or the press. If there are any questions as to the conduct of any of those individuals or bodies, that is a matter for others. I am satisfied, however, that each of the Members had the opportunity to take part in the conversation and respond to the reporter’s questions as they saw fit. On occasions, the reporter might be thought to have asked leading questions, and, where relevant, I have taken account of that in coming to my conclusions. Otherwise, the words they spoke and the responses they gave were their own. I am satisfied that it is reasonable for each Member to be judged against the rules of the House on the basis of what they said.
ii. I am grateful to the production company for having provided me with transcripts of the initial telephone conversations and of the meetings with the undercover reporter, certified by a solicitor. Of course, the recording was made surreptitiously and it appears that some of what was said was inaudible. Other words were indistinct. I accept that, as specifically identified in the solicitor’s certificate, the recording of Mr Caborn’s meeting was particularly poor: its accuracy is therefore limited. I have also identified one point in the transcript for Mr Hoon’s meeting where a word clearly audible on the broadcast interview was transcribed as another word.512 Each Member had the opportunity to challenge the transcript. Where the words were inaudible, or the sense less than clear, where there were gaps in the transcript or changes in the recorded timings, I have taken that into account in coming to my conclusions. Otherwise, I am satisfied that the transcript provides a sufficient basis for asking Members to explain and if necessary interpret what they were recorded as having said.
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iii. Each of these meeting was clearly held on a false premise. There was no American company. There were no clients of that company. There were no directors. There was to be no advisory board. There was no opening for consultants. There was no British person setting up a branch of the company in Europe. The meetings were conducted by an undercover journalist. They were surreptitiously recorded. The Members were duped. In hindsight, the flaws in the cover story given by the undercover reporter are no doubt more transparent than they clearly were to these Members at the time. I have not inquired into the mechanics of the subterfuge, or whether the Members should have spotted it. I have formed my conclusions on the basis of what the Members thought they were discussing: namely the possibility of joining the European advisory board of an American communications company and also the separate possibility of acting as a consultant to the clients of that company. I have judged the impact of the statements which each of the Members made against what they believed to be the case, not against what was in fact the case—that they were giving to an undercover reporter an interview which might subsequently be broadcast and published in the press.
iv. I have taken each meeting, therefore, at its face value. I consider that it was clearly a preliminary discussion between the person answerable to the American parent company for drawing up a shortlist of candidates who might be considered by that company for appointment to the European advisory board, and the Member who wanted to find out more about the jobs on offer. I do not accept that the meeting was a confidential discussion only between the interviewer and the Member (as suggested by Mr Byers in his interview513). Each Member knew that they were discussing the possibility of employment after they had left the House. They should have expected that what they said would be relayed back to the fictitious employers. In many cases the undercover reporter made that clear during the meeting. Nor was it, in my judgement, just an informal chat (as suggested to me by Ms Hewitt). It was not, of course, a fully structured job interview, but it was clearly a discussion with a purpose. And the purpose, to which each Member responded in their own way, was to discover whether the Member wished to be considered for one or both of the jobs on offer and to give the Member the opportunity to demonstrate their suitability (or otherwise) for appointment. None of the Members turned down the job opportunity during the course of the meeting (although Mr Byers did so later). Each Member accepted that they would be considered for shortlisting and for moving on to the next stage of the appointments process. This is a process which I believe is followed for many appointments. No Member had any reason or justification for thinking that what they said to the person they were meeting would go no further. They must have known—or should have known— that what they said was going to go back to the American employers. But they had no reason to know that what they said would be published.
v. One Member (Mr Hoon) suggested that the Code of Conduct and its associated rules could not apply to this meeting, since he was discussing the prospect of employment when he was no longer a Member of the House. I accept only one aspect of this argument. I accept Mr Hoon’s argument that the Code cannot apply
513 WE 27, 00:02:08, and WE 29
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to actions which the Member may have suggested they would carry out once they were no longer a Member of Parliament. But where the Member referred to activities undertaken when he or she was a Member of Parliament, then clearly, in my judgement, the Code must apply to those activities. And I consider that it must also apply to each Member’s conduct during the interview. If the Member were to have conducted him or herself during the interview in a way which was contrary to the Code of Conduct and its associated rules—for example, by making statements which had the effect of bringing the House of Commons or its Members generally into disrepute—then I consider that the Member must be held subject to the Code and its rules.
vi. One Member (Mr Hoon) suggested that the Code of Conduct could not apply, since he was discussing a personal appointment which formed no part of his parliamentary duties. I accept that the job was not linked to any Member’s parliamentary duties. In that sense, they were not acting for their constituents, nor were they holding the Government to account, nor were they undertaking any of the other recognised duties of a Member of Parliament. They were acting for themselves. But the Code goes wider than just providing guidance on the conduct of a Member’s parliamentary duties. It provides guidance “on the standards of conduct expected of Members in discharging their parliamentary and public duties”514: the Code covers public as well as parliamentary duties. The scope of the Code is set out as applying to Members “in all aspects of their public life.” It adds that it does not seek to regulate “what Members do in their purely private and personal lives.”515 I consider that the discussion about a possible appointment to the advisory board of a company is an aspect of the public life of those who were, at the time of the discussions, Members of Parliament. It would strain the definition beyond any reasonable interpretation to suggest that interview was part of a Member’s “purely private and personal life”. It was not. It is, after all, the basis on which the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments operates: they consider public appointments and, had any Member been subject to ACOBA at the time, they would have needed to clear this appointment with that Committee. Appointments to the board of commercial companies are, therefore, in my judgement, parts of a person’s public life. The meeting was about their public life, both in respect of their past experience and their future aspirations. I conclude, therefore, that because the Member was self-evidently a Member of Parliament when they had this discussion, and the discussion was relevant to their public life, they were subject to the Code of Conduct and its associated rules in what they said. I understand the distinction which Mr Hoon sought to make to the interviewer between “Hoon work” and his work as a Member of Parliament. But in my judgement the Code applies to all aspects of a Member’s public life, not just the conduct of their parliamentary duties. I conclude that Mr Hoon, and the other Members, were therefore subject to the Code of Conduct for Members of Parliament when he and the other Members met the undercover reporter.
514 Paragraph 1a of the Conduct of Conduct for Members of Parliament 515 Paragraph 2 of the Code of Conduct for Members of Parliament
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656. I turn now to my conclusions on the statements made by each of the former Members during their meetings with the undercover reporter. I have considered each Member’s meeting separately. I have come to a judgement on whether the statements identified during the course of my inquiry, and summarised in the factual sections of this report, and taking account of the full transcript of each meeting, constituted a breach of the Code of Conduct for Members of Parliament and its associated rules.
Sir John Butterfill i. Introductions to Ministers. Sir John offered to make introductions to Ministers for the supposed clients of the company.
657. I accept Sir John’s evidence that he did not make such arrangements when he was a Member of Parliament. It is open to a former Member to make such arrangements on behalf of a paying client. I conclude that Sir John was not in breach of the rules in what he said. ii. Advice on Government contracts. Sir John told the undercover reporter that he had in the past acted as a consultant giving advice on Government contracts.
658. I accept Sir John’s evidence that this work was unremunerated. The rules do not prevent a Member of Parliament from giving advice on such matters, as long as any remunerated work is registered in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. My conclusion is that Sir John was not in breach of the rules of the House in what he said. iii. Possible Membership of the House of Lords. Sir John noted that if he were to go to the House of Lords it would give him “another string to my bow as far as you are concerned.” And he noted that a member of the House of Lords might be involved in matters of interest to Anderson Perry.
659. Sir John was clearly unwise to raise his possible elevation to the House of Lords with a prospective employer. The implication of his statement that he could use that position to help Anderson Perry’s interests was even more unwise. It reflected poorly on him. But I do not consider that, taken overall, the imprudence and unacceptability of his statement reached the level at which it could be held that he had brought the House of Commons and its Members generally into disrepute. My conclusion, therefore, is that this statement did not breach the rules of the House. iv. Meetings with a future Conservative Government. Sir John told the undercover reporter that it would be easy enough to arrange a meeting for their clients with Ministers in a future Conservative Government “provided there’s something genuine that is likely to interest them and that depends on how I present things.”
660. This reference was clearly to actions which Sir John suggested he could take in future, if there were to be a Conservative Government in the new Parliament. By then, he would no longer be a Member of Parliament. I conclude that his statement, which I believe was couched in terms which reinforced the case for his employment by Anderson Perry, was not in itself a breach of the rules of the House.
Sir John Butterfill, Mr Stephen Byers, Ms Patricia Hewitt, Mr Geoff Hoon, Mr Richard Caborn and Mr Adam Ingram 151 v. Serving MPs acting as consultants. Sir John said that it was “now quite difficult for a serving MP” to act as a consultant, but once retired, they could do as much of it as they liked.
661. I accept Sir John’s evidence that he believed it was harder for a serving MP to act as a consultant because of the public reaction. I conclude that there was no breach of the rules in what he said. vi. Kvaerner Pension Fund. Sir John described how he had “blackmailed” the Kvaerner group to make payments he considered justified to the Kvaerner Pension Fund.
662. I accept Sir John’s judgement that the use of the word “blackmailed” was colourful language. I accept, too, Sir John’s evidence of the leading role he played. That role was, in my judgement, an entirely appropriate action for a Member of Parliament, in particular given that he, like many other Members, had constituents affected by this issue. I conclude, therefore, that he did not breach the rules of the House in the statements he made. vii. Private Members’ Bills. Sir John said that “all my private Members’ Bills are pro bono”.
663. I accept Sir John’s evidence that he did not intend to imply by his statement that other Members’ Bills were not pro bono, although, taken out of the overall context of the meeting, it was, in my view, a phrase which could have carried that implication. But, in the context of the interview, I conclude that the statement did not have the effect of bringing the House and its Members generally into disrepute. In my judgement, therefore, the statement did not breach the rules of the House. viii. Entertaining Ministers and civil servants. Sir John confirmed that he could arrange for clients to meet Ministers, although civil servants were quite difficult, since they did not like being taken out to lunch.
664. I accept Sir John’s evidence that as a Member of Parliament he had not arranged meetings for paying clients. I believe that the context of the discussion at that stage was about what Sir John could do for the company, which, in the context, would have been after he had left the House. It is open to any former Member of Parliament to seek to arrange meetings with Ministers or civil servants. I conclude, therefore, that Sir John was not in breach of the rules of the House in the statements he made. ix. Informal consultancy while still a Member. Sir John said that he would be available for an informal consultancy before the Election, although he would need to look at each one to ensure that there was no conflict of interest.
665. While I accept Sir John’s evidence that he neither agreed nor disagreed to this proposition, I think it is clear from the context that he agreed to consider such an informal consultancy. But he gave no undertakings, and, as he has pointed out, the idea was unlikely to be practical given the imminence of the General Election. In my judgement, Sir John was not in breach of the rules of the House in agreeing to consider this possibility. x. Paid-for board/consultancy work. Sir John told the undercover reporter that he thought that the going rate for sitting on a board might be something like £30,000 or £35,000.
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666. I accept Sir John’s evidence that he was responding to a question about what the going rate was, and that he has never been paid this rate for consultancies or other services. I accept, therefore, that there was no failure by him in the registration of his interests in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I conclude, therefore, that Sir John was not in breach of the rules of the House in respect of the registration of Members’ interests in making this statement.
Overall conclusion: Sir John Butterfill 667. Overall, therefore, I do not consider that any of the statements made by Sir John Butterfill during the course of his meeting with the undercover reporter, or any of the actions he took as a Member referred to in his statements, were in breach of the rules of the House. I do not, therefore, uphold the allegations against him.
Rt Hon Stephen Byers i. Confidential information. Mr Byers said that he got a lot of confidential information because he was linked into Number 10 and knew very well someone in the office of Rt Hon David Cameron MP.
668. I accept Mr Byers’ statement to me that he was not in receipt of confidential information from Number 10 and that he did not know very well someone in Mr Cameron’s office. His statements to the undercover reporter were therefore false. I consider at the end of this section whether making those statements was in breach of the rules of the House. ii. Accessing civil servants. Mr Byers suggested that a General Election period was a good time to meet civil servants about the need to get any regulation changed or law amended.
669. I accept Mr Byers’ statement that he had not sought to gain access to civil servants on behalf of clients in this way. It would not, in my judgement, be in breach of the rules of the House for a Member of Parliament to give such advice to a client. I conclude, therefore, that Mr Byers was not in breach of the rules of the House in making this statement. iii. Securing removal of a regulation. Mr Byers suggested that he could facilitate paying clients in removing a regulation or other restriction standing in the way of a business commercial opportunity.
670. I accept Mr Byers’ statement that he had not performed such a service for clients. It would not be a breach of the rules of the House for a Member of Parliament to give advice to a commercial company about how best to lobby to remove a regulation. It would be a breach if the facilitation involved the Member personally in paid advocacy to bring an exclusive benefit to a client. I conclude, therefore, that Mr Byers was not in breach of the rules of the House in making this statement. iv. Ways around the Enterprise Act. Mr Byers implied that, as the architect of the Enterprise Act, he knew ways around it if the Office of Fair Trading suggested a company was operating a restrictive practice or price fixing.
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671. I accept Mr Byers’ statement that he is not in fact aware of ways around the Enterprise Act. I will consider at the end of this section whether making this false statement was in breach of the rules of the House. v. Food labelling regulations. Mr Byers referred to discussions with a senior representative of Tesco who wanted a proposed food labelling regulation stopped, and a subsequent discussion with Lord Mandelson to get him to take the matter up with Rt Hon Hilary Benn MP, the then Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and get the regulation amended.
672. I accept Mr Byers’ statements that he had no discussion or contact with Tesco representatives about food labelling regulations, nor with Lord Mandelson, nor with Rt Hon Hilary Benn MP. I will consider at the end of this section whether Mr Byers was in breach of the rules of the House in making these false statements. vi. National Express. Mr Byers said that he worked for National Express. They had approached him in June 2009. He had had a meeting with Lord Adonis, the then Transport Secretary, to choreograph the Secretary of State’s decision about the East Coast rail franchise and to avoid National Express paying a penalty.
673. I accept Mr Byers’ statement that he was not paid by National Express. I accept, therefore, that there was nothing for him to register in the Register of Members Financial Interests. It is a matter of record, however, that Mr Byers did have a meeting with Lord Adonis in June 2009. And I have found that Mr Byers had had a prior meeting with the then Chief Executive of National Express and that a separate telephone briefing from a representative of National Express took place, probably after Mr Byers’ meeting with Lord Adonis. I accept that Mr Byers had a constituency interest, though I believe that he must also have been aware of the National Express concerns in at least very general terms when he met Lord Adonis, on account of his earlier discussion with the Chief Executive of National Express. But I accept the clear statement made by Lord Adonis in the House of Lords on 22 March 2010 that his meeting with Mr Byers did not follow the lines as described by Mr Byers to the undercover reporter. I accept, too, Mr Byers’ confirmation of Lord Adonis’s statement. I will consider at the end of this section whether the false statements made by Mr Byers to the undercover reporter were in breach of the rules of the House. vii. Rio Tinto. Mr Byers stated that he worked for Rio Tinto in Kazakhstan.
674. I accept Mr Byers’ statement that he had not worked for Rio Tinto. I accept, therefore, that there was nothing for him to register in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I will consider at the end of this section whether the false statement he made was a breach of the rules of the House. viii. Ofwat. Mr Byers suggested that, having spoken to Rt Hon Hilary Benn MP, he had talked to Ofwat and relevant civil servants to influence Ofwat’s five year investment programme to the benefit of his clients.
675. I accept Mr Byers’ statement that he had no discussions or contact at all on water matters with Rt Hon Hilary Benn MP, or with his officials, or with Ofwat. I accept his
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statement that he made no approach to any of those concerned. I will consider at the end of this section whether this false statement constituted a breach of the rules of the House. ix. Mediating in a dispute. Mr Byers described mediating in a dispute on an oil pipeline between BP and contractors.
676. I accept Mr Byers’ evidence that he assisted the contractor concerned (Consolidated Contractors International) in negotiating a settlement on this matter. I accept, too, that he was not paid an additional fee for this work above payments which he included in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests for his employment by Consolidated Contractors International. I conclude that Mr Byers was not in breach of the rules of the House in making this statement. x. Influencing manifesto implementation. Mr Byers said he would go through a manifesto with a water company, identifying any problems, and “we” would go to talk to a civil servant to convince them of the difficulties with the proposal.
677. This statement needs to be considered against the fact that Mr Byers was paid as the non-executive Chairman of a water treatment company—an interest which he registered in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I accept Mr Byers’ statement that what he said was not accurate in respect of any General Election. The implication of his statement, had it been true, could have amounted to paid advocacy exclusively on behalf of the water treatment company which he chaired. If so, that would have been a breach of the rules of the House. Had the interest benefited other water companies, then it could have been within the rules as long as Mr Byers had declared his financial interest to the civil servant. I will consider at the end of this section whether the false statement Mr Byers made was itself a breach of the rules. xi. Use of House facilities. Mr Byers offered to meet the American employers in a bar in the Palace of Westminster.
678. I accept Mr Byers’ statement that he was not aware that entertaining people in a House of Commons bar for private business purposes was a breach of the rules of the House. The May 2010 Handbook for Members makes it clear that House refreshment facilities should not be used for “private business activity”. But that related to the current Parliament. The previous edition of the Handbook simply said that Members might bring guests to the facilities. I consider, however, that it is a longstanding expectation that Members should use House facilities only in the course of their parliamentary business. But in my judgement, this needs to be operated with a sense of proportion. It may be a kind gesture to invite friends or family to a House of Commons bar or restaurant. It may also be most convenient for a Member to make use of parliamentary facilities in meeting others not strictly for the purpose of parliamentary business. This is because it keeps the Member near at hand so that they can continue to conduct parliamentary business if necessary. But the use of House facilities simply as a way of boosting a Member’s employment prospects would, in my judgement, be a misuse of those facilities. I think that it is clear that Mr Byers’s suggestion was indeed intended to boost his employment prospects (he said, “the Americans love it by the way”). Had Mr Byers used House facilities for this purpose, I consider that that would have been a breach of the rules of the House, although, given the uncertainty in the rules before May 2010, I would not consider it a
Sir John Butterfill, Mr Stephen Byers, Ms Patricia Hewitt, Mr Geoff Hoon, Mr Richard Caborn and Mr Adam Ingram 155 serious breach. But his offer was never taken up. I conclude, therefore, that it would be unfair to conclude in all the circumstances that Mr Byers was in breach of the rules of the House for having made this suggestion. xii. Cab for hire. Mr Byers told the undercover reporter that he was like “a sort of cab for hire I suppose at the moment.”
679. I agree with Mr Byers that he should not have used this phrase. I accept his explanation that “in a clumsy way” he was referring to his wish to have a number of different jobs once he had left the House, to add to the three he already had. While this statement was clearly ill-judged, I do not consider that he was offering himself to work for anyone prepared to pay for him while still a Member of Parliament. I consider that it was a reference to how he would approach future job opportunities once he had left the House. I conclude, therefore, that his statement was not in breach of the rules of the House. xiii. Exaggerated or untrue statements. I have identified in the previous paragraphs those statements which were made by Mr Byers to the undercover reporter and which, on the basis of Mr Byers’ own evidence, I have accepted to be untrue. I had no reason to doubt that Mr Byers was accurate in his evidence to me. The question I need to resolve is whether these untruths were such that they brought the House of Commons and its Members generally into disrepute and failed to meet the guiding Nolan principle of honesty.
680. I consider that some of the statements which Mr Byers made did breach paragraph 15 of the Code of Conduct by bringing the House of Commons and its Members generally into disrepute. The statements which I consider breached this rule were his statement about knowing ways around the Enterprise Act; his statements about amending food labelling regulations on behalf of Tesco; his statements about his discussions with Lord Adonis and others on behalf of National Express; his statements about influencing Ofwat’s investment programme; and, to a lesser extent, his statement that he worked for Rio Tinto and that he contacted civil servants to argue against the impact of manifesto commitments on water companies. His statements about his links with Number 10 are not in my judgement sufficiently developed to reach the paragraph 15 threshold.
681. Mr Byers had no inkling that the person he was speaking to was an undercover reporter. He believed that he was talking to somebody who would be reporting her conversation with him to her American employers with a view to employing him. It was reasonable for that person to expect that a Member of Parliament would speak the truth. The experiences he recounted, which I have identified above, could only suggest to that interviewer—and to her American employers—that this was the way that Members of the United Kingdom Parliament normally behaved or were allowed to behave. The actions which Mr Byers said he had taken were both unethical and, in some cases, possible examples of paid advocacy on behalf of a particular client. They also reflected badly—and unfairly—on the other politicians he identified and on the companies he referred to. The impression given to the interviewer by Mr Byers of his conduct in these cases was such, in my judgement, as to bring the House of Commons and its Members generally into disrepute.
682. In responding to this inquiry, it is to Mr Byers’ credit that he has offered his sincere and unreserved apologies to the House for making the statements which he did. It is also in
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my view some mitigation that Mr Byers recognised within 24 hours of his meeting with the undercover reporter that he could not let his statements stand. But it took three e-mails, and some weeks, before Mr Byers recognised the proper response to such conduct was to withdraw his name from the list. This was not about him overstating the part he had played in trying to secure changes in the way Government deals with issues (as covered in his initial e-mail of 24 February). The retraction in his first e-mail that he had not been engaged in lobbying Ministers in the UK, and in his second naming the three Ministers he said he had not in fact spoken to, was not in my judgement a wholly clear or comprehensive retraction of the false statements he had made. Had Anderson Perry been who he thought they were, they would have continued to have had, at best, a confused picture not just of Mr Byers’ conduct, but of the way in which Members of Parliament were able, in Mr Byers’ words, “to secure changes in the way in which Government deals with issues.” Mr Byers’ untrue statements about his actions as a Member of Parliament were, in my view, a particularly serious breach of the Code of Conduct because they reflected on Members of Parliament generally and cast aspersions on the behaviour of Government Ministers and commercial companies. xiv. Charges for his services. Mr Byers told the undercover reporter, who asked about his fees, that the scale was usually between £3,000 to £5,000 a day, although sometimes he could charge more.
683. I accept Mr Byers’s statement that the sum of £3,000 to £5,000 a day was the level of fee he had charged in making speeches to commercial organisations; and that he had charged a lower fee for consultancy and advisory services. I accept, too, his statement that his fees had been properly registered in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I conclude, therefore, that Mr Byers was not in breach of the rules of the House in respect of the registration of Members’ interests in making this statement.
Overall conclusion: Rt Hon Stephen Byers 684. My overall conclusion, therefore, is that Mr Byers was in breach of the rules of the House in making false statements during the course of his meeting with the undercover reporter in relation to how he managed to change Government policies for the benefit of paying clients, because these statements at the time brought the House of Commons and its Members generally into disrepute, contrary to paragraph 15 of the Code of Conduct. This was a particularly serious breach of the rules. His subsequent retractions went some, but not the full, way to undoing the damage he had caused to the reputation of Parliament. To this extent, therefore, I uphold the complaint against him.
Rt Hon Patricia Hewitt i. Five ways to meet a Minister. Ms Hewitt told the undercover reporter that people had to be “quite careful” about putting business clients in touch with a Minister, but then listed five ways in which it could be done.
685. I accept Ms Hewitt’s statement that she had never used any of these methods on behalf of a paying client, although she may have been subject to some of them as a Minister. Her statements gave unintentional publicity to lobbying techniques which I accept she believed were used to connect business clients with Ministers. None are of
Sir John Butterfill, Mr Stephen Byers, Ms Patricia Hewitt, Mr Geoff Hoon, Mr Richard Caborn and Mr Adam Ingram 157 themselves contrary to the rules of the House on lobbying. A Member of Parliament can give such advice to a paying client. If a Member of Parliament were to be engaged in any of these activities, they would need to declare their interest to the Minister and any civil servants. They would need to be careful not to engage in paid advocacy. But Ms Hewitt did not imply otherwise—rather the reverse. I conclude, therefore, that Ms Hewitt was not in breach of the rules of the House in this statement. I shall draw some wider lessons from her statements at the end of these conclusions. ii. Removing a regulation. In response to a question about the Conservatives winning the then forthcoming General Election, Ms Hewitt explained that “we can often” package a client’s wish to remove a particular regulation which was attractive to the new Government.
686. I accept Ms Hewitt’s evidence that she was referring to action which could be taken with a new Conservative Government in the new Parliament. By then she would no longer have been a Member of Parliament. There is no reason to believe that she acted in this way when she was a Member of Parliament. No question of registration, declaration or adherence to the lobbying and advocacy rules therefore arises. I conclude that Ms Hewitt was not in breach of the rules of the House in making this statement. iii. Changes to directives or legislation. In talking of future legislation, Ms Hewitt told the undercover reporter that it was “easy” to try to change or influence legislation—“but you have to put a lot of effort into it”.
687. I accept Ms Hewitt’s statement that this was a discussion about future actions and, as such, she would no longer be a Member of Parliament and would not therefore be subject to its rules. I conclude, therefore, that Ms Hewitt was not in breach of the rules of the House in making this statement. iv. Contacts with civil servants. In answer to a question about whether it was easy to have meetings with civil servants to speak on behalf a client, Ms Hewitt said that she had regular lunches and coffees with civil servants and “we’re all mates really”.
688. I accept Ms Hewitt’s statement that, while she had regular informal lunches or coffee with some civil servants about once a month, she only raised a matter in which she had a registered interest on one occasion, and she declared that interest and put her case on behalf of the whole sector and not exclusively for her client. There is not sufficient evidence to suggest that Ms Hewitt implied to the reporter that she had regularly raised matters relating exclusively to her paying clients when she was a Member of Parliament. But it seems to me reasonable to conclude that in making this statement she was suggesting that she had the contacts base which she could draw on for the benefit of her new client once she was no longer a Member of Parliament. I conclude, however, that Ms Hewitt was not in breach of the rules of the House in making this statement. v. to vii. PiC and the Bradley report. Ms Hewitt suggested (v) that she had been instrumental in putting Partnerships in Care, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Cinven to whom she acted as a paid consultant, in front of the Bradley inquiry into mental health in prisons; (vi) that she had got PiC into the mental health system, by implication so that they could bid for contracts; and (vii) that she had secured their involvement in the Department’s advisory group on the Bradley report.
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689. Having taken account of the evidence I have received from Lord Bradley, and the evidence Ms Hewitt provided from the Department of Health, I consider that Ms Hewitt exaggerated her influence in engaging Partnerships in Care and the private health sector in the work of Lord Bradley’s inquiry and its follow up. But she had no reason to know that she was so exaggerating her involvement at the time when she spoke to the undercover reporter. And the evidence is that, when speaking to Lord Bradley, the senior Departmental official responsible for the programme board, and at a Ministerial meeting, she properly declared her interest. She also avoided breaching the prohibition on paid advocacy by connecting her lobbying to a wider involvement of the private health sector generally and not just PiC. It has to be said, however, that PiC, as a major player in that field, could expect to be a major beneficiary of Ms Hewitt’s efforts to engage the private sector more in mental health provision. I shall address the implications of this in my concluding section. I do not consider, however, that Ms Hewitt breached the rules of the House in making the statements she did. viii. Carbon reduction. Ms Hewitt said that she had spoken both to officials and Ministers about a carbon reduction regulation which, in her view, disproportionately affected private equity firms, for one of whom, Cinven, she acted as a paid consultant.
690. I accept Ms Hewitt’s evidence, supported by the then Minister Rt Hon Joan Ruddock MP, that Ms Hewitt properly declared her interest in speaking to Ms Ruddock briefly about these regulations. I accept also that she spoke on behalf of the whole sector, and so did not engage in paid advocacy for the exclusive benefit of Cinven. I accept, too, that her reference to speaking to officials (which she did not do) was a minor slip. I conclude, therefore, that Ms Hewitt was not in breach of the rules of the House in what she said. I shall reflect on the operation of the paid advocacy rule in my concluding remarks. ix. Payments from clients. Ms Hewitt told the undercover reporter that her day rate for Cinven was a bit over £3,000.
691. I accept Ms Hewitt’s statement that the payments she received had been at the level she told the undercover reporter and were properly registered in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I conclude, therefore, that Ms Hewitt was not in breach of the rules of the House in respect of the registration of Members’ interests in making this statement.
Overall conclusion: Rt Hon Patricia Hewitt 692. My overall conclusion, therefore, is that Ms Hewitt was not in breach of the Code of Conduct and its associated rules in the statements she made to the undercover reporter. Accordingly, I do not uphold the complaint against her. In my view, however, some of her statements raise wider issues, which I shall address in the concluding section.
Rt Hon Geoff Hoon i. Use of knowledge and contacts. Mr Hoon told the undercover reporter that he was looking forward to translating his knowledge and contacts about the international scene into “something that, bluntly, makes money.”
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693. I accept Mr Hoon’s statement that he had developed a good understanding over the past 25 years of how international organisations operate. I accept that what he said to the undercover reporter related in terms only to his international work. His statement that he wanted to use this international experience to make money was a prime example of what he described to me as an embarrassing phrase. But it was an informal meeting and he had less reason, therefore, to pick his words. The policy, articulated by the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments, is that it is in the public interest that former Ministers with experience in Government should be able to move into business or other areas of public life. The clear implication of that statement is that, in doing so, they would receive remuneration. It is no breach of the rules for a former Minister to put his or her knowledge and even his or her contacts at the service of a paid business interest, provided he or she meets any requirements of the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments. Nor is there any such prohibition on former Members of Parliament, many of whom must also be expected to seek alternative means of employment once they leave the House. I shall reflect on the possible implications of this for former Members of Parliament in the concluding section. But I conclude that while the tone and choice of words may have been ill-judged, Mr Hoon was not in breach of the rules of the House in making this statement. ii. Offering to chair a company. Mr Hoon said that he was in negotiation with “quite a big company” and that they were going to pay him an amount of money that “I find frankly embarrassing”.
694. I accept Mr Hoon’s evidence that he believed that he was about to be made such an offer at the time of his meeting, although in the event nothing came of it. Again, while the tone may now seem embarrassing, I conclude that there was no breach of the rules of the House in Mr Hoon’s statement. iii. Leading a delegation to a Minister. Mr Hoon said that he did not mind leading a delegation in to see a Minister. He made clear that he wanted to give strategic advice and not act as some sort of lobbyist.
695. I accept Mr Hoon’s evidence that he recognised that there could be times when, once he was no longer a Member of Parliament, he might be asked to lead a delegation in to see a Minister on behalf of a company. That was action he envisaged taking once he was no longer a Member of Parliament. No question of a breach of the rules can therefore arise. I conclude, therefore, that Mr Hoon was not in breach of the rules of the House in making this statement. iv. Access to Defence Ministers. Mr Hoon said that if a former Minister asked to see the Defence Minister, he did not think that there would be “any difficulty”.
696. I accept Mr Hoon’s evidence that he was “showing off” in making this statement and trying to impress. Mr Hoon was right to point out to me that this would only be possible if there was a good reason for such a meeting. I conclude that Mr Hoon was not in breach of the rules of the House in making this statement. v. Strategic Defence and Security Review. The reporter told Mr Hoon that one of the company’s clients had mentioned this defence review at the MoD. Having referred to the Green paper not saying very much, and the need for the review to identify challenges arising from defence cuts, Mr Hoon referred to the work he was doing on NATO having to
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fit with that. He offered to talk to Anderson Perry’s clients about how the NATO policy fitted together with the national defence policy, which he identified in terms as the strategic defence review. The reporter followed up by asking Mr Hoon about giving clients of the company a “steer ... on where ... defence policy is going”. The reporter then implied that they would like this so that they would know “what they should be bidding for”. Mr Hoon said that, while it would take some time, he knew “some of the people on the team in the MoD who are working on this, because they briefed me about this.” He continued that some of the people he was seeing “are doing both, they’re both advising me as to what the Government position is, but also working separately on the ... defence review.” 516
697. Mr Hoon has sought to explain his statement by suggesting that he was referring only and at all times to the UK Government officials briefing him on what the UK Government wanted to see from the NATO review of defence policy. He said that the only insights he had about the Defence Review were ones based on his own experience and judgement. His evidence is that he was not holding out the prospect of briefing the company about the UK’s defence policy and the strategic defence and security review based on his discussions with officials involved in that review.
698. I do not accept Mr Hoon’s interpretation of what he said. I find wholly unconvincing Mr Hoon’s explanation that, in his statement that he knew “some of the people in the team in the MoD who are working on this, because they briefed me about this”, the first “this” did indeed refer to the defence review, but the second referred only to the NATO briefing. In the context of the discussion, what he said could only have been understood as an offer to brief Anderson Perry’s clients on the strategic defence and security review, drawing on briefings he received from MoD officials. I have no reason to doubt Mr Hoon’s statement that he would never do such a thing. But in my judgement, that was not the impression he gave during the meeting. I consider that a Member of Parliament, who had had close links with the MoD, suggesting that he would act in this way brought the House of Commons, if not its Members generally, into disrepute. Mr Hoon had no reason to believe that the person he was speaking to was an undercover reporter. He should have recognised that that person would be reporting back his conversation to her American employers so that they could consider whether to employ him on the advisory board. To have offered to act in this way, or even to have given the impression that he might act in this way, however misleadingly, was in my judgement a serious breach of the rules of the House because it brought the House of Commons into disrepute.
699. Mr Hoon has also argued that there could be no question of him needing to consider whether to declare a financial interest to the officials who briefed him, since his meeting was not, in effect, a “communication” which he was having with servants of the Crown. I find this argument unconvincing. The fact that the officials were communicating to him (and not he to them) does not, in my judgement, make it any less of a communication. And paragraph 86 of the 2009 Guide to the Rules refers specifically to the requirement to declare a relevant interest during meetings with Ministers and public officials.517 Mr Hoon’s briefings were self-evidently meetings with public officials. And I do not accept that
516 WE 90, 00:23:54 517 The first sentence of paragraph 86 reads, “The requirement to declare a relevant interest at the appropriate time covers almost every aspect of a Member’s parliamentary duties extending to correspondence and meetings with Ministers and public officials.”
Sir John Butterfill, Mr Stephen Byers, Ms Patricia Hewitt, Mr Geoff Hoon, Mr Richard Caborn and Mr Adam Ingram 161 he was absolved from this responsibility by defining his NATO work as not being a parliamentary duty. The purpose of the provision is transparency. Had Mr Hoon had a financial interest in the information he was receiving, it would have been right for him to have told that to the officials, since that might have affected the briefing they were providing. But there is no evidence that at that stage Mr Hoon had such a financial interest, or that he had a sufficiently strong expectation of having such an interest, to require its declaration. Whatever impression he sought to give the interviewer, it had not in my judgement passed beyond “vague hopes and aspirations”, in the words of paragraph 73 of the 2009 Guide to the Rules. I conclude, therefore, that Mr Hoon was not in breach of the rules in not declaring a financial interest to officials briefing him in relation to the NATO review, since he had, at that stage, no such interest to declare. vi. NATO defence policy. Mr Hoon appeared to hold out the prospect of briefing a private equity fund about the relationship between the NATO and National Defence Policy which he said was “the strategic defence review, one down” and which he said he was developing, and “how it actually all fits together”. 518
700. I recognise that Mr Hoon was engaged in supporting NATO in the development of its defence policy. I have no reason to doubt his statement that that was a public process. And I accept that his reference to the policy he was developing was to the NATO defence review and not the UK strategic defence review. But Mr Hoon’s offer appears to go beyond a briefing about some public process. I consider that the clear implication of what he was saying was that he would give the private equity firm a briefing about the NATO policy which he claimed to be devising and developing, and its relationship to the UK’s strategic defence review. I consider that the clear impression he gave went beyond offering an informed outsider’s analysis, to suggesting that he could draw on his access to information about the NATO defence review and the UK’s Strategic Defence and Security Review for the benefit of the private equity fund. The impression he would have given to the interviewer was that he was offering an inside track on defence strategy to the fund (a track which would also be available to Anderson Perry’s clients). While I consider this less clear- cut than his offer to draw on his contacts with MoD officials to brief Anderson Perry’s clients on the strategic defence review, I conclude that holding out the prospect of this briefing for private equity fund was a breach of the rules of the House because it brought the House generally into disrepute. vii. Private equity briefing. Mr Hoon said that he might go and talk to a private equity firm about, among other things, defence policy more generally.
701. I note Mr Hoon’s statement that this was clearly aspirational, and that he had no current plans to do this. In any event, I do not consider that telling the undercover reporter that he was prepared to brief a private equity firm about defence policy more generally had the effect of bringing the House of Common or its Members generally into disrepute. There can, in my judgement, be no objection to a former Member of the House, experienced in defence matters, speaking to private equity firms or any others about general defence policy as long as he or she does not imply that such a briefing would draw on confidential information. I conclude, therefore, that Mr Hoon was not in breach of the rules of the House in making this statement.
518 WE 90 00.22.52
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viii. Defence policy document. Mr Hoon offered to present to the company’s defence clients a document which he said he had just got “from Washington”.519 He had earlier in the interview identified this as an academic document.
702. I accept Mr Hoon’s evidence that this document was an academic document produced for the NATO review which was intended for publication and has now been published. It is reasonable to conclude that the interviewer should have recognised this as the document referred to earlier in their discussion. There could be no breach of confidence in Mr Hoon presenting such a document to others. I conclude, therefore, that Mr Hoon was not in breach of the rules of the House in making this statement. ix. Bank business. Mr Hoon told the undercover reporter that a US investment bank wanted to “build a business around me”.
703. I accept Mr Hoon’s evidence that this was an exaggeration and that, had anything come of this proposal (which it had not), he would have acted no differently from any other chairman of a company. But I do not consider that this exaggeration amounted to a breach of the rules of the House. I conclude, therefore, that Mr Hoon was not in breach of the rules of the House in making this statement. x. Daily consultancy rate. Mr Hoon told the undercover reporter that he had been offered £3,000 a day for a day’s work, which he was thought was about right for his daily rate.
704. I accept Mr Hoon’s evidence that this was reference to an offer he had received from a television company for work after the election. No question of registration therefore arises. I conclude that Mr Hoon was not in breach of the rules of the House in respect of the registration of Members interests in making this statement.
Overall conclusion: Rt Hon Geoff Hoon 705. I consider that Mr Hoon was in breach of the rules of the House in making statements to the undercover reporter about disclosing confidential information he implied he was receiving or could access from the MoD about the UK’s Strategic Defence and Security Review for the benefit of business clients who might be considering seeking contracts with the MoD and for the benefit of a private equity fund. I accept Mr Hoon’s statement that, even if he were party to such information (which he said he was not), he would not have divulged it. But by holding out the prospect of doing so, I consider that he breached the rules of the House by bringing the House of Commons and its Members generally into disrepute, contrary to paragraph 15 of the Code of Conduct, and that was a particularly serious breach. In this respect, I uphold the complaint against him.
Rt Hon Richard Caborn i. Accessing Ministers. Mr Caborn told the undercover reporter that there were a number of ways in which it was possible to access Ministers, whether it was a sector or an individual company.
519 WE 90, 00:28:22
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706. I accept Mr Caborn’s statement that he has never accessed or influenced Ministers through lobbying on behalf of a paying client and that his comments were a statement of how the system worked. I conclude, therefore, that Mr Caborn was not in breach of the rules of the House in making this statement. ii. House of Lords. Mr Caborn said that there was a possibility that he would be in the House of Lords and that this would provide access to people, including Ministers, and to “all the information that is going around. If you can get information, that is very powerful.”
707. I accept Mr Caborn’s statement that, if he were to be elevated to the House of Lords, he would act in accordance with its rules. I consider, nevertheless, that this statement was ill-judged, not only because of his suggestion that he might be elevated to the House of Lords, but because of the clear implication that that would provide him with access to people, including Ministers, and access to information which would be of benefit to his paying employers. While I consider that these statements reflect poorly on Mr Caborn, I conclude that they were not of such a degree as to bring the House of Commons and its Members generally into disrepute. I conclude, therefore, that Mr Caborn was not in breach of the rules of the House in making these statements. iii. Fitness Industry Association: Ministerial access. Mr Caborn told the undercover reporter in referring to the Fitness Industry Association (for which he was a paid consultant) that “we get access to Ministers”, particularly Health Ministers.
708. I accept Mr Caborn’s evidence that he has never arranged access to Health Ministers or to any other Minister for the FIA. I accept also that Ministers see the FIA without such intervention. I conclude, therefore, that Mr Caborn was not in breach of the rules of the House in making this statement. iv. AMEC. Referring to his work in South Africa on behalf of AMEC, for whom he was a paid consultant, Mr Caborn said, “if they want a reception in the House of Commons and if they want to get advice from Government, then I get advice from Government and I introduce them to people.”
709. I accept Mr Caborn’s evidence that, in referring to him getting advice from Government for AMEC and in making introductions, he was referring to the South African Government. I conclude that he was not, therefore, in breach of the rules of the House in making this statement. I consider later Mr Caborn’s activities in arranging events in the House of Commons paid for by AMEC. v. Relationships with civil servants. Mr Caborn told the undercover reporter, in answer to questions about setting up meetings with civil servants, that he had lots of meetings with civil servants when he was a Minister and was about to arrange a party with his former private office.
710. Mr Caborn’s answer self-evidently did not answer the question, since, as he says, he was referring to a time when he was a Minister. I accept Mr Caborn’s statement that he had not set up any meetings with civil servants on behalf of any of those who paid for his services when he was a Member of Parliament. I conclude, therefore, that Mr Caborn was not in breach of the rules of the House in making this statement.
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vi. Health and wellness services: Sheffield. Mr Caborn told the undercover reporter about the proposal he had discussed with the Chairman of the Sheffield Health Authority about restructuring health and wellness services in Sheffield and that the Chairman was “a friend of mine whom I have known for many years.” He also told her that he had been advising the FIA, who were looking to use their assets more effectively. He said that they wanted to get referrals to the services from doctors.
711. I accept Mr Caborn’s statement that he arranged no meetings or contacts on this matter with Ministers or officials. I accept, too, that, while he did not declare his financial interest in the FIA when having his discussion with the Chairman of the Sheffield Health Authority, he had raised the matter with the FIA at one of their regular meetings (as well as with other organisations) and that he would have declared such an interest in future if the idea had gone beyond “its infancy”. I recognise that the strict terms of the Guide to the Rules appear only to require the declaration of an interest to Ministers or Crown servants, including executive agencies. The Chairman of a health authority does not come into either of those categories. Nevertheless, the Guide to the Rules is not a legal document and Members are expected to abide by both the spirit as well as the letter of the rules. And I note that paragraph 86 of the 2009 edition of the Guide (repeated from the 2005 edition) says that the requirement to declare a relevant interest extends to meetings with “public officials”.520
712. Mr Caborn has stated that he would have made any necessary declarations about his association with the FIA had the idea gone further. I consider that he would have been right to have made such a declaration to the Chairman of the health authority at his initial meeting. This is because the Chairman was holding an important and influential public appointment within the public sector; because the FIA had a self-evident potential financial interest in the restructuring of health and wellness services in Sheffield, moving them “to prevention rather than cure”, as Mr Caborn said in his meeting with the undercover reporter; and because, as Mr Caborn told the reporter, the idea would require legislation, thus linking it to Parliament.521 The proposal stood to benefit FIA members financially by allowing them to make their facilities available to the NHS. Mr Caborn should, therefore, in my judgement, have declared his financial interest at the outset and not left it until later. I therefore find that Mr Caborn was in breach of the rules of the House in not declaring his financial interest in the FIA when he had his discussion, albeit of a preliminary nature, about the possible restructuring of health and wellness services in Sheffield with the Chairman of the Sheffield Health Authority. vii. AMEC contract. Mr Caborn told the undercover reporter that, at the request of AMEC, he had advised a consortium on bidding for a major contract in respect of fuel reprocessing at Sellafield.
713. I accept Mr Caborn’s evidence that he did advise AMEC and other partners in the consortium in respect of this contract, but that he did not speak to or consult Ministers, Government officials or any of the directors or staff of the Nuclear Decommissioning
520 The first sentence of paragraph 86 of the 2009 Guide to the Rules reads, “The requirement to declare a relevant interest at the appropriate time covers almost every aspect of a Member’s parliamentary duties extending to correspondence and meetings with Ministers and public officials.” 521 See footnote number 369 above and WE 112
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Agency which was awarding this contract. There was, therefore, no requirement on him to declare his interest to any of these bodies. I conclude, therefore, that Mr Caborn was not in breach of the rules of the House in making this statement. viii. AMEC structural revamp. Mr Caborn told the undercover reporter that he had revamped the whole structure of AMEC.
714. I accept Mr Caborn’s evidence that he had assisted the Board of Nuclear Management Partners in restructuring their socio-economic policies. While, therefore, Mr Caborn’s statement may have been something of an exaggeration (he did not restructure the whole of AMEC), I do not consider that it was so much of an exaggeration as to bring the House of Commons generally into disrepute. My conclusion, therefore, is Mr Caborn was not in breach of the rules of the House in making this statement. ix to xii. Receptions and dinners in the House of Commons. My inquiries into the receptions and dinners which Mr Caborn was associated with arose from a reference he made to the undercover reporter about organising receptions and dinners in the House of Commons. My conclusions on each of the events I have considered are as follows:
ix. FIA reception: 5 July 2007. I accept that Mr Caborn was not a consultant to the FIA when he held his reception on behalf of the FIA and had no reasonable expectation of such employment. He was not, therefore, in breach of the rules of the House in making this booking without declaring an interest in the FIA.
x. AMEC dinner: 23 June 2008. I accept that Mr Caborn properly declared his interest in AMEC on the booking form for this dinner. I accept, too, that no formal invitations were issued, so it was not possible to identify Mr Caborn’s financial interest in AMEC on those invitations. But I find that he was in breach of the rules of the House in not declaring that financial interest to those who attended the dinner, as he could well have done in his winding-up remarks at the dinner.
xi. FIA dinner: 3 December 2008. Mr Caborn was in breach of the rules of the House in not declaring his interest in the FIA on the booking form submitted for this dinner, which he had sponsored. I accept that there would appear to have been a muddle between Mr Caborn’s office and the office of the FIA, which may account for this error. Nevertheless, Mr Caborn signed a form which stated that he did not have a declarable interest, when he clearly had one. He was also in breach of the rules of the House in not ensuring that the invitations for the dinner sent out by the FIA clearly identified and declared his financial interest in the FIA as the sponsor for the event. On both counts, I find that he was in breach of the rules of the House.
xii. AMEC dinner: 11 May 2009. I find that Mr Caborn did properly identify his interest in AMEC in the booking form for this dinner. I accept that there were again no written invitations, so it was not possible for Mr Caborn to declare his registrable interest on any invitation. But he should have identified his registrable interest to those attending the dinner, as he could well have
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done in his winding-up remarks. In not doing so, he was in breach of the rules of the House. xiii. AMEC meeting with Prime Ministers. Mr Caborn said that, if the Managing Director of AMEC wished to see the Prime Minister, he was able to do so. When he was asked if he had helped AMEC to arrange the meeting, Mr Caborn answered, “Yes I do it and the Minister of Energy.”
715. I accept Mr Caborn’s statement that chairmen of major companies do have access to Ministers, including the Prime Minister, without, in effect, the need for his intervention. I accept also his statement that he has never arranged meetings for the Managing Director of AMEC or other industrialists with the Prime Minister or any other Ministers. It is difficult, therefore, to interpret his statement to the undercover reporter that he did arrange such a meeting, including for “the Minister of Energy.” I note that Mr Caborn might here have been referring to South African Ministers. I consider that there is sufficient doubt on this point for me not to suggest that Mr Caborn was providing an inaccurate answer. I conclude, therefore, that Mr Caborn was not in breach of the rules of the House in making this statement. xiv. Payments. Mr Caborn told the undercover reporter that his current clients paid him £2,500 a day.
716. I accept Mr Caborn’s evidence that this was a reference to the day rate paid by AMEC, although the FIA paid less. I accept also that Mr Caborn properly registered his payments in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I conclude, therefore, that Mr Caborn was not in breach of the rules of the House in respect of the registration of Members’ interests in making this statement.
Overall conclusion: Rt Hon Richard Caborn 717. I find that Mr Caborn was in breach of the rules of the House in not declaring his financial interest in the FIA when he had a preliminary discussion with the Chairman of the Sheffield Health Authority about restructuring health services in Sheffield in a way which could have benefited members of the FIA; and that he was in breach of the rules of the House in one failure to declare his registrable interest on a booking form for a House of Commons dinner, and otherwise failing to declare his relevant interest, either on the invitation or in his remarks to those attending three of these events. I have no evidence that any of these breaches was caused by deliberate intention: it was more likely that they were the result of careless oversight. They were therefore less serious on that account. In this comparatively limited respect, I uphold the complaint against him.
Rt Hon Adam Ingram i. Network of former Ministers. Mr Ingram told the undercover reporter that ex-Ministers would become “a point of contact in the political network” and that “all of that ... can be established ...”
718. I accept Mr Ingram’s statement that he was not suggesting in these remarks that a formal network of ex-Ministers be set up to help make contact with people working in
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Departments. There is not sufficient evidence, from his statement, to draw that conclusion rather than his own conclusion that former Ministerial colleagues would naturally maintain their contacts. In any event, Mr Ingram was referring to activities once he—and former Ministerial colleagues—had left the House of Commons. No question of a breach of the rules of the House therefore arises. I conclude that Mr Ingram was not in breach of the rules of the House, therefore, in making this statement. ii. Contacting civil servants. Mr Ingram told the undercover reporter that he had good contacts with civil servants and that it was civil servants who dealt with contract issues.
719. I accept Mr Ingram’s statement that he did not have contact with civil servants on behalf of clients, or lobby on their behalf when he was a Member of Parliament. Inasmuch as he was referring to using contacts with civil servants once he was no longer a Member of Parliament, such contacts would not be a breach of the rules of the House. I conclude, therefore, that Mr Ingram was not in breach of the rules of the House in making this statement. iii. Consortium to bid for MoD work. Mr Ingram said that he knew of a consortium being put together to bid for outsourced defence contracts, but he was “not going to touch it” until he was no longer a Member of Parliament.
720. I accept Mr Ingram’s statement that, while he had been contacted by a business acquaintance in respect of this project, he had done no work for it, had received no payment, and had no contact with Ministers or civil servants about it. This was consistent with what Mr Ingram told the undercover reporter, which is that he would have no involvement with this project until after he had left the House of Commons. No question of a breach of the rules of the House therefore arises. I conclude that Mr Ingram was not in breach of the rules of the House in making this statement. iv. Defence academy in Libya and (v.) teachers for the academy. Mr Ingram told the undercover reporter of his paid work for companies seeking to build a defence academy in Libya, and subsequently seeking to supply its teachers.
721. I agree with Mr Ingram that there was nothing improper about his work on this project. He properly registered his interests in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, for the design and construction companies and for the company which hoped to provide the academy with teachers. I conclude that Mr Ingram was not in breach of the rules of the House in making these statements. v. EDS. Mr Ingram referred to his work with EDS, and that it would probably come to the end once he was no longer a Member of Parliament.
722. Mr Ingram properly registered his interest in EDS in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, and also registered his pay band and an agreement for services, as Members are required to do when providing services in their capacity as a Member of Parliament. Mr Ingram has argued that he was not providing such services, and only lodged the agreement and pay band because, in such matters, he always “erred on the side of caution”.
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723. I agree with the evidence to me from the Registrar of Members’ Financial Interests that, on the basis of Mr Ingram’s description of his role, he was right to have registered his interest as providing services in his capacity as a Member of Parliament because I consider that, among other things, that was what he was doing. There is, therefore, no question but that Mr Ingram was fully within the rules of the House in the way he registered his work for EDS. I conclude, therefore, that Mr Ingram was not in breach of the rules of the House in making this statement. vi. Identifying former civil servants. When asked about the possibility of identifying former civil servants who might be able to serve on the boards of companies, Mr Ingram told the undercover reporter that he had “some there (the MOD) in mind”.
724. Mr Ingram has sought to argue that he did not maintain contacts with civil servants so he could recommend them for future employment. He was not offering himself as a headhunter. I consider, however, that Mr Ingram gave the clear impression that he had some civil servants “in mind” whom he would be prepared to recommend to the company for an advisory board appointment. I do not regard this as a breach of the rules of the House. I conclude, therefore, that Mr Ingram was not in breach of the rules of the House in making this statement. vii. Relationships with Ministers and civil servants. Mr Ingram said that he could “work at” helping the company to develop their relationship with Ministers and civil servants.
725. Mr Ingram has sought to argue that he had said that he “could work at that” because he had no experience of being paid to develop relationships with Ministers and civil servants. I find that an unconvincing interpretation of what he said, but there can be no breach of the rules in a former Member of Parliament seeking to develop a relationship with Ministers and civil servants on behalf of a paying employer. I conclude, therefore, that Mr Ingram was not in breach of the rules of the House in making this statement. viii. Contact with a possible Conservative Defence Minister. In answer to a question about whether a Conservative Administration would change Mr Ingram’s role on the imaginary advisory board, he referred to a parliamentary colleague whom he believed was likely to become a Defence Minister in the new Conservative administration (he was not so appointed) and that he would give that person good advice: he added, “I don’t know if that’s of interest to you.”
726. I accept Mr Ingram’s explanation that he would seek to give advice to an incoming Defence Minister of whatever political persuasion in the interest of good governance. But I consider that the suggestion that this contact might be of interest to the company seems to me to suggest that Mr Ingram was seeking to persuade the company that he would be able to continue to act in its interests with Ministers in a Conservative administration. That would clearly be work undertaken once Mr Ingram was no longer a Member of Parliament. He could not, therefore, be in breach of the rules of the House in making such a contact. I conclude, therefore, that Mr Ingram was not in breach of the rules of the House in making this statement. ix. Day payments for consultancy work. Mr Ingram told the undercover reporter that his day rate varied between £1,500 and £2,000.
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727. I accept Mr Ingram’s evidence that the statement he made to the reporter about his payment levels was accurate. I accept, too, Mr Ingram’s evidence that he properly registered the payments he received in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I conclude, therefore, that Mr Ingram was not in breach of the rules of the House in respect of the registration of Members’ interests in making this statement.
Overall conclusion: Rt Hon Adam Ingram 728. I conclude that Mr Ingram was not in breach of the rules of the House in any of the statements he made during the course of his meeting with the undercover reporter. I do not therefore uphold the complaint against him.
Concluding observations 729. The interviews which these six Members unwittingly gave to an undercover reporter, and my inquiry into the statements they made, raise in my judgement some questions about the adequacy of the rules on lobbying by Members of Parliament, and former Members of Parliament. I am in no position to make any recommendations on these matters, since that would require extensive consultation and further consideration which would not be appropriate for this inquiry.
730. I therefore make the following observations in case the House were to decide, in the light of this inquiry or any other considerations, that a wider review of the content and operation of the rules on lobbying should be undertaken.
731. My observations relate to the operation of the paid advocacy rule and to lobbying by former Members of Parliament.
Paid advocacy rule 732. A resolution of the House of November 1995 prohibits paid advocacy. The operation of this provision has developed since then, initially tightening the provision and, since the House’s consideration in 2001/2 of a report by the Committee on Standards in Public Life, introducing some liberalisation in the way Members may act. The current position is that Members may now speak freely on matters which relate to the interests and affairs of a body or individual from whom they receive a financial benefit, provided that any resulting benefit is not exclusive to that body or individual but shared more widely, and that the financial interest is properly registered and declared. So Members can speak from experience on issues affecting a particular business or other sector, even if those who stand to benefit include but do not wholly comprise individuals or bodies who have paid for their services. The position is broadly the same if a Member has a problem involving a company within his or her constituency. 522
733. This inquiry has, however, raised some questions about whether this rule is still operating in the public interest. It has suggested that it is possible and within the rules for a Member to make arguments on public policy which either are initiated by those who employ them, or which would clearly benefit such people. So, as long as the Member
522 Guide to the Rules relating to the conduct of Members, 2009, paragraphs 95 to 101
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argues that there should be a change in a regulation to benefit a particular business sector, and they declare their financial interest, they can do so despite the fact that they work for and are paid by a dominant business in that sector. I consider that the effect of the rule operating in this way is to risk giving the impression, at least, that the Member can advocate a policy or lobby a Minister or officials for a personal benefit rather than a public purpose. It would, in my judgement, be desirable to find a way of avoiding such an outcome while still enabling a Member of Parliament fully to represent their constituents and to speak freely on public policy issues. One answer may be that if a Member has such a paid position, they should resign from it if they wish to make public policy points in the business sector in which that company or organisation undertakes significant operations, or if they have a constituency interest in that company’s or organisation’s objectives, subject to any necessary saving if the Member is asked by their constituent to take up their particular case.
Activities of former Members of Parliament 734. This inquiry has shown that, once a Member of Parliament has left the House, there is nothing to prevent them using contacts which they have developed as Members of Parliament in lobbying Ministers or civil servants, including paid advocacy in the exclusive support of those who are paying them.
735. There are restraints on former Ministers in taking up outside appointments, which are managed by the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments. There are no such restraints on former Members of Parliament. While there should be no suggestion that former Members of Parliament should not seek paid employment, it might be right to consider some restrictions on the activities they can undertake in the first few years once they have left Parliament.
736. I consider that it would be unrealistic, and not in the public interest, for former Members of Parliament to be restricted from taking up paid positions which draw on their knowledge and experience gained when a Member of Parliament. I consider also that it would be unrealistic and not in the public interest to prevent former Members of Parliament giving advice to their employers about the conduct of Government and parliamentary business, including how best to influence a policy being considered by the Government or by Parliament. Lobbying is a necessary and longstanding part of the democratic process. But I have some concern about former Members of Parliament making direct contact with former parliamentary colleagues or Government Ministers and with civil service contacts on behalf of an employer which is paying them.
737. As this inquiry has shown, it is human nature that former colleagues would expect to have access to those whom they knew when Members of Parliament. It would be wrong if people thought—as under the current arrangements they might—that former colleagues were given preference over others. It might be worth considering, therefore, whether Members of Parliament, Government Ministers and public officials should be prevented under their respective rules from receiving representations or delegations requested or led by a former Member of Parliament for a set number of years when that Member is being paid by those who would benefit from that contact. There would be nothing, of course, to prevent a former Member of Parliament seeking to make such contacts with Ministers and former colleagues and civil servants when they wish to do so on their own account or when
Sir John Butterfill, Mr Stephen Byers, Ms Patricia Hewitt, Mr Geoff Hoon, Mr Richard Caborn and Mr Adam Ingram 171 they are not receiving payments from an organisation likely to benefit from those contacts. The mischief which needs to be considered is whether former Members of Parliament should be able to be “hired hands”, using the contacts they have made in the course of their parliamentary duties to benefit directly an employer.
22 November 2010 John Lyon CB
172 Sir John Butterfill, Mr Stephen Byers, Ms Patricia Hewitt, Mr Geoff Hoon, Mr Richard Caborn and Mr Adam Ingram
Written evidence received by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards
1. Extract from Sunday Times article, 21 March 2010
THE familiar bespectacled figure sitting in the meeting room looked every inch the management consultant. He had just returned from a business trip to Dubai and was now looking across the table at a new commercial opportunity. Residents of North Tyneside might well have recognised him, because it was Stephen Byers, their MP. He is more widely remembered as a former transport minister who was close to Tony Blair. The woman on the opposite side of the table was an executive from a communications company, seeking to hire Byers because of his connections in government. What Byers did not know was that hidden between them in a bowl of potpourri was a tiny video camera pointing directly his way. The woman was an undercover reporter working for the Sunday Times and Channel 4’s Dispatches programme. Would he use his government contacts to help influence policy on behalf of a business client? Would he lobby ministers? Would he provide confidential information from within the corridors of power? The reporter barely had a chance to ask the questions because Byers was so keen to spill everything out. “I’m a bit like a sort of cab for hire,” he volunteered. It is 16 years since Mohamed al-Fayed unleashed a political scandal by revealing that you can “hire an MP the way you hire a London taxi”. Since then the rules on lobbying by MPs have been tightened up considerably— but has anything really changed? Here was Byers, a serving MP with three outside jobs, describing himself in the same terms. Not only would he lobby ministers on behalf of the “executive” but he also gave examples of occasions when he claimed he had successfully done this before. He said he had saved hundreds of millions of pounds for National Express through his contacts with Lord Adonis, the transport minister, and had delayed and amended food labelling proposals for Tesco after phoning Lord Mandelson, the business secretary. “It’s a bit confidential, so keep it very much to yourself,” he added. On Friday Sir Alistair Graham, the former parliamentary standards commissioner, said that if Byers’s claims were true he may have breached parliament’s strict rules on paid advocacy ... Over the past two months a joint investigation secretly interviewed nine MPs—including four former cabinet ministers—who are leaving the Commons this spring. The MPs were told that Anderson Perry, a fictitious US communications company, was forming an advisory board and wanted to hire them to sit on it. Meeting rooms were booked in a central London office block and the MPs were invited for informal interviews. As the interviews progressed, the reporter posing as an Anderson Perry executive gently inquired about how much lobbying work the MPs were willing to do on behalf of her company’s clients. The responses of the MPs varied greatly. Several were clearly seeking to cash in on their contacts and experience, some were keen to start before leaving parliament and some claimed they had already done similar work while serving as an MP. Others said they were hoping to be elevated to the Lords which would open new doors for them. Among the high-profile figures was Patricia Hewitt, the former health secretary, who charged £3,000 a day for a range of advice and services that included helping to influence legislation. Geoff Hoon, the former defence secretary, said he wanted to translate his knowledge and contacts into cash and told the undercover reporter “I’m yours”—once he had retired as an MP. ... Byers, 56, had announced his decision to quit parliament to “pursue other interests” in November last year. His five-year ministerial career began inauspiciously when as schools minister he famously multiplied seven times eight and answered “54”. After spells at the Treasury and the Department of Trade and Industry, he was forced to resign as transport secretary in 2002 after his special adviser was revealed to have suggested that the 9/11 terror attacks were a good opportunity to bury “bad news” stories.
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As a backbench MP he has taken on work as a consultant to a Lebanese construction company and became chairman of its Yorkshire water treatment subsidiary and another company that promotes links between Ukraine and the European Union. Byers was in Dubai working on a desalination project for the construction company when the reporter first called him in February. They arranged to meet the following week. From the start of the meeting Byers appeared keen to work for the fictitious company and was quick to flag up his impeccable political connections. “I still get a lot of confidential information because I’m still linked in to No 10,” he told the reporter. An extra string to his bow was his famous friend. “I see Tony Blair every month and you’ll probably find a lot of your clients really quite like him,” he said. “If there’s an event ... we could have a word with Tony, say come along for a drink.” When the conversation turned to clients that might wish to influence legislation, Byers leapt at the opportunity, suggesting he should start in April when parliament had been dissolved for the general election and most politicians would be out campaigning for their party. “It’s a great time if there’s an issue where your clients actually want to get a regulation changed or some law amended. That’s the time to get in to see the civil servants. Because there’s no Ministers around, they’ve got more time,” he said. He was happy to ring Ministers, talk to civil servants and arrange meetings and was confident of his ability to open doors. “It’s all part of the democratic process really and ... I can’t think of any occasion when someone has said no to a meeting,” he said. To help the reporter through the democratic process, he charges a fee. “It’s usually between £3,000 and £5,000 a day, that’s the sort of wage,” he said. Expenses were extra. Part of the service was to use his inside knowledge of government. He described himself as the “architect” of the Enterprise Act and could therefore offer help to any clients “operating as restrictive practice” or “price- fixing”. He said: “That’s an animal I created, for better or worse ... but you always know ways around it, well actually ... there’s an ace you can play there.” To show that he could produce results, Byers spoke candidly about an occasion when he claimed to have successfully lobbied former cabinet colleagues. One of his “trump cards”, he said, was his friendship with Lord Mandelson. Byers recounted an occasion when Lucy Neville-Rolfe, the corporate and legal affairs chief at Tesco, rang him because she was concerned about a possible food labelling regulation being proposed by Hilary Benn at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Rather than approach Benn, Byers chose a more circuitous route. “So you ring Peter Mandelson and say, ‘Peter, did you know what Hilary Benn’s about to do? ... He’s going to introduce a regulation which is going to have this huge nightmare in every supermarket’.” As a result, Byers claims, “Peter got it delayed and then got it amended.” He regards his greatest success, however, as his “work” for National Express when the company was in negotiation with the government over its loss-making rail franchises that cost £1.4 billion. This is how he tells the story: “They approached me, June of last year, and said, ‘We’ve got a huge problem. We want to get out of the East Coast main line but not pay a huge penalty and we want to keep the other two franchises as long we can’. “So between you and I, I then spoke to Andrew Adonis, the transport secretary, and said, ‘Andrew, look, they’ve got a huge problem. Is there a way out of this?’ And then we, we sort of worked together—basically, the way he was comfortable doing it and you have to keep this very confidential yourself. He [Adonis] said we shouldn’t be involved in the detailed negotiation between his civil servants and National Express but we can give them a broad steer. So we basically got to a situation where we agreed with Andrew he would publicly be very critical of National Express and talk about, ‘I’m going to strip you of the franchise’ and be very gung-ho. And we said we will live with that and we won’t challenge you in the court, provided you then let us out by December, by the end of the year, and we can keep the other two franchises for a little longer. So, and that’s what we managed to do.” Adonis criticised the company on July 1 and it escaped without a penalty, leaving the railway line in the hands of the taxpayer. Critics have said the exchequer is likely to lose hundreds of millions of pounds when it sells the franchise to a new operator. The story does not end there. After the meeting, Byers sent a quick note to the reporter saying it was “good to meet”. The next day, however, he sent an e-mail effectively claiming that he had lied throughout the meeting. “In reality I have not been engaged in lobbying ministers here in the UK. My statements yesterday would have given the opposite impression and I would like to take this opportunity to withdraw them,” he wrote.
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This applied to the conversations with Mandelson and Adonis. Had Byers become suspicious about the fictitious Anderson Perry? In a statement on Friday he said he had “made some exaggerated claims” and on reflection “regretted that my misleading comments might be taken seriously”. National Express said it had held discussions with a number of MPs whose constituencies were along the East Coast main line and Byers had been one of them. The company said it had not paid Byers: “Any actions that Mr Byers may or may not have taken following our discussions with him were entirely of his own choice.” A source close to Richard Bowker, who was chief executive of National Express at the time, said Byers’s version of events told to the undercover reporter was a “close footprint” that was “pretty accurate”. He said he understood the relationship with Byers was “commercial” and that he had been acting on the company’s behalf. The source added that Byers had written to Adonis and met him after the decision was taken in July to terminate the franchise. If Byers’s relationship with National Express was commercial, then he should have registered it with the House of Commons. He did not. Adonis’s department issued a statement on Friday saying: “There is no truth whatsoever in the suggestion that Byers came to any arrangement with Andrew Adonis on any matter relating to National Express.” However, it did not deny that Byers had spoken to Adonis. Tesco also last week denied ever “engaging” Byers to deal with food labelling regulations. It said in a statement: “We did not speak to Mr Byers on food labelling, regulation or indeed any other issue. These claims are completely fictitious and Mr Byers has acknowledged this to us.” Mandelson said he had “no recollection” of talking to Byers about the issue. Two weeks after the Byers meeting, another well known face was waiting in the foyer of Anderson Perry’s rented office. It was Patricia Hewitt, who was a minister for nine years in the Treasury and the departments of trade and health. Since stepping down in 2007 she has taken four appointments with BT, Alliance Boots, Barclays Capital and a private equity firm called Cinven which she says pays her £60,000 a year for 18 days’ work. She told the reporter she was leaving parliament to spend more time with her family and pursue her business interests. Hewitt was much more measured than Byers. She acknowledged that she could help the fictitious company’s clients to influence legislation. “If you’ve got a client who needs a particular regulation removed, then we can often package that up [for a Minister],” she said. It was not a role she wanted to do full-time. She listed five ways that a company could contact a minister including by funding think tanks and seminars, hospitality, sponsoring events in party conferences, contacting special advisers and finding a connection with the minister’s constituency. When asked for examples of the type of consultancy work she had done previously, Hewitt spoke at length of her involvement with Partnerships in Care (PiC), a private mental service provider owned by Cinven. She claimed it was through her efforts that PiC was able to give evidence to the Bradley report, a government study about providing care outside prison for criminals with mental health problems. The report had recommended the creation of a Home Office and Department of Health advisory group. Hewitt claims she paved the way for PiC to be the only contractor on the group. The following is Hewitt’s account, recorded in the meeting. She said that Lord Bradley had been talking only to the public sector when producing his report into mental health services for criminals. “So I was able to get them [PiC], basically, in front of Bradley, and I got Bradley to go and, actually I think he visited one of their establishments, he took evidence from them,” she said. The Health and Criminal National Advisory Group was formed as a result of the report and Hewitt claimed: “I was able to persuade the chairman of that taskforce that there would be a private sector, independent sector, representative on that taskforce.” Her client, PiC, became the representative on the advisory group as it was the “most active” private sector company in respect of the Bradley report. She continued: Hewitt: I’ve kind of got them into the system where they can build the relationships, they can make the arguments. Reporter: Yes, with a view to getting further contracts, presumably, and being able to expand their work? Hewitt: Exactly. On Friday PiC said that its involvement in the Bradley report had been nothing to do with Hewitt and arose solely out of its membership of the Confederation of British Industry. The company said it was invited to join the advisory group because of its leading market position. Hewitt’s solicitor said she had “no influence” on PiC’s selection.
Sir John Butterfill, Mr Stephen Byers, Ms Patricia Hewitt, Mr Geoff Hoon, Mr Richard Caborn and Mr Adam Ingram 175
During the meeting Hewitt also claimed she had “spoken to Ministers and civil servants” about changing a carbon reduction regulation that helped her client Cinven and other private equity companies. However, Cinven says she was not hired to “influence” legislation but to advise on a possible amendment. Hewitt’s lawyers said she was merely advising on how the regulations might be changed in future to make them fairer. In a statement Hewitt said: “I have always observed the Code of Conduct for Members of Parliament. The Code makes it clear that MPs are free to take on outside appointments, subject to the conditions which I have always observed.” Code of Conduct The Code of Conduct for MPs bans a member from acting as a “paid advocate” in any proceeding of the House of Commons, such as promoting a bill, tabling an amendment or speaking. It also makes clear that an MP is forbidden from taking money to “advocate or initiate any cause or matter on behalf of any outside body or individual” when approaching, writing or talking to ministers and servants of the crown. There are no rules to prevent former MPs from lobbying. Former ministers have to consult an advisory committee after leaving office if they wish to take up a new job. This ceases to be the case after two years. MPs must register outside earnings and paid work. “A financial interest should be declared if it might reasonably be thought by others to influence the speech, representation or communication in question,” the Code states.
Jobseeker Hoon plans to cash in
GEOFF HOON, the former defence secretary, presented himself as a man in urgent need of work and money when he came before our undercover reporter, writes Insight.
“I’ve got two children at university so I’ve got to get a job,” said Hoon at the meeting on March 3, a few weeks after he had announced that he was stepping down from parliament at the general election. He and Patricia Hewitt launched a failed coup against Gordon Brown on January 6. He said he would expect a fee of £3,000 a day to serve on the advisory board of the reporter's fictitious American company. He was told that his “political background” was something that would impress the company’s foreign clients.
“Yeah exactly,” he responded. “One of the challenges that I'm really looking forward to is translating my knowledge and contacts about the international scene into something that frankly makes money.” What Hoon was looking for was a portfolio of work, mainly defence related. He said he already had job offers on the table, including a chairmanship of a foreign defence firm for what he described as an “embarrassing” amount of money. He said that during a recent trip to Washington he had devoted a couple of days to “Hoon work”, which involved talking to organisations about future employment prospects. Hoon was reluctant to take a job as a lobbyist. However, he wasn't averse to undertaking tasks which could be loosely termed as lobbying. “I do not want to be seen to leave politics and go back as some sort of lobbyist,” he said. “I mean, I am quite happy with strategic advice ... and in the right circumstance I don't mind leading a delegation in to see a minister but that's not what I want to spend my life doing.” He was under no doubt that his name and past career were a valuable commodity for opening doors to the corridors of power. He said: “Irrespective of what party-political background you're from, if a former minister asks to see the defence minister ... I don't think there would be any difficulty.” He said that he had encouraged companies to hire former politicians in the past because they can “open doors”. He agreed that he would be able to talk to politicians on behalf of the reporter's fictitious American company. Hoon stepped down as defence minister in 2005, but still does work for Nato. He said he was still able to get information on forthcoming defence policy to share with clients. He said: “I know some people on the team in the MoD [because they brief him about his separate Nato work].” He added: “They’re both advising me as to what the government position is but also working separately on the, ah, defence review.” Hoon appeared interested in working for the fictitious company. He said: “Parliament will be dissolved at the beginning of April ... after that you know I’m, I’m, I’m yours.”
176 Sir John Butterfill, Mr Stephen Byers, Ms Patricia Hewitt, Mr Geoff Hoon, Mr Richard Caborn and Mr Adam Ingram
On Friday, Hoon’s solicitors said in a legal letter that during the meeting he had merely explained, as he had been invited to do, how his experience in public office might be of value to his imagined future employees. The lawyer said Hoon denied being prepared to disclose “privileged, confidential or inside information” and that at “no point was any offer of employment made, let alone accepted”. ... Among the MPs interviewed during the undercover investigation was Sir John Butterfill, a Conservative who is tipped for elevation to the Lords. He said he would be happy to make introductions to ministers on behalf of fee-paying clients. Butterfill, who said he would charge £30,000 to £35,000 a year, explained he would be free to help clients once he had left parliament. He said: “I’ve done, in the past, quite a lot of consultancy for people who wanted to get involved with the public sector. “It’s now quite difficult for a serving MP to do that, but once you're retired, you can do as much of it as you like.” He suggested he might be even more useful to the reporter if he goes to the Lords. “It [the Lords] also gives me another string to my bow, as far as you're concerned,” he said. On Friday, Butterfill denied he would use the Lords as a business opportunity. He said he went to the meeting to see what was being offered but did not necessarily want a job. “I said I was happy to make introductions only if I was satisfied I was dealing with people of considerable standing.” ... 21 March 2010
2. E-mail to the Commissioner from Rt Hon Stephen Byers MP, 22 March 2010
In the light of media comments following the secret filming of an interview I gave, I would be grateful if you could investigate my actions to confirm that I have at all times complied with all the relevant provisions covering Members of Parliament. 22 March 2010
3. Letter to Rt Hon Stephen Byers MP from the Commissioner, 22 March 2010
Thank you for your e-mail of 22 March asking me to investigate your actions following Press reports over the weekend. Under the rules agreed by the House for complaints, I am expected to consult the Committee on Standards and Privileges when a Member has asked me to investigate an allegation against him when they are not the subject of a specific complaint. The rules state that the Committee would expect to authorise such an inquiry only in exceptional circumstances. I will consider, therefore, your e-mail in the light of this agreed procedure. I will also consider any complaints I receive against you in respect of this matter. In the meantime, if you wished to let me know later today why in your view the circumstances are sufficiently exceptional to justify an inquiry, that would be helpful. In any event, I will write to you again to let you know the outcome once I have consulted the Committee, which I hope to do tomorrow. 22 March 2010
4. Second e-mail to the Commissioner from Rt Hon Stephen Byers MP, 22 March 2010
Thank you for your letter outlining the procedure that applies to a self-referral. I have requested that you carry out an inquiry because media reports have questioned whether I have complied with the rules of the House. I know that I have always complied but now need this to be independently confirmed. The only person who can do this with authority is yourself. Given the level of media interest and the serious allegations made against me, I believe that these are exceptional circumstances that merit an inquiry. As the facts are clear, I believe it can be a short and speedy exercise.
22 March 2010
Sir John Butterfill, Mr Stephen Byers, Ms Patricia Hewitt, Mr Geoff Hoon, Mr Richard Caborn and Mr Adam Ingram 177
5. E-mail to the Commissioner from Rt Hon Patricia Hewitt MP, 22 March 2010
I am one of the MPs who was interviewed, and surreptitiously filmed, by a woman representing herself as Clare Webster, who was in fact a journalist from the Sunday Times and Channel 4 Dispatches programme. “Ms Webster” claimed to be acting on behalf of a United States-based consultancy, Anderson Perry, that was interested in recruiting an MP retiring at this election to their Advisory Committee. I attach a confidential letter523 to my lawyers from Channel 4’s lawyers making it clear that the programme will not in fact allege any breach on my part of the Codes of Conduct for Ministers and MPs. In the course of my discussion with “Ms Webster”, I referred to work I have done over the last two years for Cinven, a private equity company, and AllianceBoots. Both appointments were approved by the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments; neither appointment involved any conflict of interest with my previous work as Health Secretary; and both appointments are declared in the Register. In my work advising Cinven and AllianceBoots, I have always been mindful of the provisions of the Code of Conduct for Members—for instance, by making clear my association with the firm in any conversation I have had with officials. Nonetheless, the Sunday Times story carried the implication that I (and others) acted improperly and similar allegations have been made by others. I therefore want to refer myself to you and hope that the Committee will agree to allow you to investigate the matter. I am not sure what evidence you will wish to see, but I will of course be happy to provide you with a more detailed submission. 22 March 2010
6. Letter to Rt Hon Patricia Hewitt MP from the Commissioner, 22 March 2010
Thank you for your e-mail of 22 March asking me to investigate your actions following Press reports over the weekend. Under the rules agreed by the House for complaints, I am expected to consult the Committee on Standards and Privileges when a Member has asked me to investigate an allegation against them when they are not the subject of a specific complaint. The rules state that the Committee would expect to authorise such an inquiry only in exceptional circumstances. I will consider, therefore, your e-mail in the light of this agreed procedure. I will also consider any complaints I receive against you in respect of this matter. I will write to you again to let you know the outcome once I have consulted the Committee, which I hope to do tomorrow. 22 March 2010
7. Letter to the Commissioner from Ms Justine Greening MP, 22 March 2010
I would [like] to make a formal complaint regarding the behaviour of three Members of the House of Commons. The public are entitled to know that the MPs that they elect to serve in Parliament on their behalf are serving their interests and no one else’s. That is why a Code of Conduct has been established to ensure that Members of Parliament at all times act with integrity and transparency. Over the weekend there have been serious allegations relating to three former Ministers that suggest they have put their personal interests above those of the public. I am writing to ask you to investigate these allegations. The Sunday Times reported that the Rt Hon Members Stephen Byers, Patricia Hewitt and Geoff Hoon have been offering their parliamentary expertise to external commercial interests in exchange for financial rewards: • The Rt Hon Member for Tyneside North, Stephen Byers, described himself as a “sort of cab for hire” for commercial enterprises, and claims to have influenced policy on behalf of several major firms, including National Express and Tesco. Speaking to an undercover reporter, he said: “The three to five [thousands pounds figure] just depends a bit on the work, the clients...and sometimes I can charge more.”
523 Not included in the written evidence
178 Sir John Butterfill, Mr Stephen Byers, Ms Patricia Hewitt, Mr Geoff Hoon, Mr Richard Caborn and Mr Adam Ingram
• The Rt Hon Member for Ashfield, Geoff Hoon, offered to allow companies to influence government policy by making use of his knowledge and position for “something that frankly makes money”.
• The Rt Hon Member for Leicester West, Patricia Hewitt, claimed that she had been appointed to a government advisory group on behalf of a client in which she had a financial interest. Last Friday, she also made a statement in which she said: “If you’ve got a client who needs a particular regulation removed, then we can often package that up [for a Minister].”
I believe that there are strong grounds to state that they have compromised their public duties as members of the House and breached the Code of Conduct for Members of Parliament. I refer you, firstly, to the following “General Principles” of the Code of Conduct: “Selflessness
Holders of public office should take decisions solely in terms of the public interest. They should not do so in order to gain financial or other material benefits for themselves, their family, or their friends.
“Integrity
Holders of public office should not place themselves under any financial or other obligation to outside individuals or organisations that might influence them in the performance of their official duties.” In addition, I refer you to Articles 11–13 of the General Rules of Conduct: “12. In any activities with, or on behalf of, an organisation with which a Member has a financial relationship, including activities which may not be a matter of public record such as informal meetings and functions, he or she must always bear in mind the need to be open and frank with Ministers, Members and officials.
“13. Members must bear in mind that information which they receive in confidence in the course of their parliamentary duties should be used only in connection with those duties, and that such information must never be used for the purpose of financial gain.”
I believe that the behaviour of the three members represents a clear breach of several of the Code’s general principles and specific articles. I understand that the Rt Hon Member for Tyneside North has already referred himself to you, yet I encourage you to extend this investigation to the other two members mentioned in this letter and to treat this investigation with the utmost seriousness. I would appreciate it if you could reply to this request as soon as possible and confirm what steps you will take to ensure that any breaches are investigated. 22 March 2010
8. E-mail to the Commissioner from Sir John Butterfill MP, 22 March 2010
Further to the Dispatches programme on Channel 4 this evening, I wish to clear my name completely, and in this connection I am referring myself to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards so that you may consider whether I may have been in breach of the parliamentary Code of Conduct. I look forward to hearing from you. 22 March 2010
9. Extract from Sunday Times article, 28 March 2010
Two more ministerial ‘cabs for hire’; ...Labour MPs ‘up for sale’
TWO more former Labour ministers have been secretly recorded offering to exploit their government contacts and experience to help commercial clients for fees of up to £2,500 a day. Adam Ingram, the former armed forces minister, said he could draw on a pool of out-of-work ministers who could be used to harness their government contacts. Richard Caborn, the former sport minister, said he may
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be in line for a peerage that would boost his chances of extracting valuable information from the corridors of Westminster... Ingram, who is standing down as MP for East Kilbride at the election, offered to develop a network of former ministers who could be useful for contacts in different departments. He was happy to help the reporter meet serving ministers after the election, saying there were strict rules preventing him from lobbying while in parliament but he could do so as a “non-MP”. However, he suggested that the fictional company might wish to target civil servants as “they draw up invitations to tender, they then make all the recommendations which may not cross the minister’s desk”. When asked if he still had good contacts with civil servants from his time as a minister, he responded, “oh yeah”. The reporter asked: “So you would be able to help us develop our relationship with the ministers and civil servants?” Ingram replied: “I’d do that.” Ingram said he is paid £1,500 a day or £1,000 a meeting by companies. He already makes up to £173,000 a year from outside earnings on top of his £65,000 salary as an MP. On Friday, his solicitors said he had not offered to sell his experience and contacts. He said he regarded it as wrong for ex-ministers to do so. Caborn, who is standing down as the MP for Sheffield Central, expressed interest in working for the fake company but said he would not decide until after the election. He quoted a daily rate of £2,500 “plus expenses” if he took the job. He said he would be willing to build relations with ministers whom he knew. “There’s a number of ways in which you can influence or at least access ministers, whether it’s a sector or an individual company, or what. And also on policy as well,” he said. Caborn may be in line for a peerage, which he said would give him “access to ministers” and information. “This is all about contacts. It’s not so much always about influencing, it’s about getting information. That’s key, because information is very powerful.” On Friday, Caborn’s solicitor denied that he had acted in anyway “unethically”. Caborn said his £2,500 day rate actually reflected three days’ work. MY FEE? £2,500 A DAY ... PLUS EXPENSES; INSIGHT Our revelations about two more former Ministers who are prepared to trade their political contacts for cash from lobbyists will increase the public’s anger at their rulers
The Prime Minister’s ambassador for England’s bid to host the 2018 football World Cup had been neatly caught. From a hidden camera in a leather handbag, Richard Caborn was framed in the viewfinder with the Palace of Westminster over his shoulder. The former minister was in a bar across the river from parliament earlier this month to talk about his future career. He explained that he was hoping Gordon Brown would elevate him to the House of Lords when he steps down as MP for Sheffield Central at the election. This, he made clear, could be very useful to the woman sitting opposite: an undercover reporter posing as a company executive who was looking to hire MPs for lobbying work. Asked how he could help the firm if he were in the Lords, Caborn replied: “Well, access. Access to people... You are in the environment, you’re moving around.” This included access to Ministers. He later elaborated on the advantages of the Lords: “All this is all about contacts, it really is. It’s not so much always about influencing, it’s about getting information, and that’s absolutely key because if you can get information that is very powerful.” Caborn, the former sport and trade minister, is already acting for business. One of his main clients is AMEC, the nuclear construction company, which pays him £75,000 a year for 30 days work. He said if a client was a “big hitter” it could gain access to the highest levels of government. This was true of AMEC’s chief executive, Samir Brikho. “If Samir Brikho wants to see the Prime Minister, Samir Brikho sees the Prime Minister,” said Caborn. Asked whether this was something he helped to arrange, he said it was. Caborn said he would wait until after the election to decide whether to work for the fake company, but was “interested”. The fee would be similar to his other work for which he charges £2,500 a day—”plus expenses obviously”. ... Since stepping down as armed forces minister in 2007, Ingram has built up a large portfolio of outside interests. His combined fees from private firms could add up to £173,000 a year—which he receives on top of his £65,000 salary as an MP. Like the other seven MPs interviewed during our two month investigation, he was phoned out of the blue by a reporter pretending to be an executive from Anderson Perry Associates, a fake US communications company. She was forming an advisory board and was looking for a senior politician to sit on it. Ingram agreed to attend an informal interview at the firm’s offices in central London.
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He appeared keen for work: “I’ve got a breadth of experience, I think I’ve good knowledge, I’ve run big departments and, and I may be of use to you,” he said. Ingram made it clear that he would not lobby until after the election. “As a Member of Parliament I can’t lobby. There’s a very strict rule on that, so you can’t go and lobby for a company, er, which a non-MP can,” he said. However, the poll was “only weeks away anyway”. Indeed, the vote would open up more lobbying opportunities, he suggested, because a lot of his colleagues in government were also stepping down. They had experience that might complement his specialism in defence. “There’s going to be a lot of ex-ministers, many of whom are leaving parliament voluntarily, some are going to lose their seats and they then become a point of contact in the political network. ‘Who do you know in that department? Who can you suggest to talk to?’ And that becomes a point of contact. So all of that can be established,” he said. He added that he was happy to approach both Ministers and civil servants for the client. Ingram: “It’s worthwhile sometimes cultivating a Minister, it depends how they react and how amenable they are. But decision-makers really, well, in the big sense, are the civil service structure, because they do all the definitions of how you’re going to deliver on a particular project. They draw up invitations to tender, they then make all the recommendations which may not cross the Minister’s desk...” Reporter: “And presumably you have good contacts with them from when you were a minister?” Ingram: “Oh yeah.” Once he had left parliament such lobbying would not be a problem “because you’re a private citizen... All you’re doing is using your, your street cred and your points of contact.” Reporter: “So you would be able to help us develop our relationship with the ministers and civil servants?” Ingram: “I’d do that.” When discussing his fee, he said it would be in a range up to £1,500 a day “plus Vat”. While he has not been lobbying as an MP, Ingram has been doing a lot of work in connection with defence. He said he was helping to put together a consortium to bid for work that the Ministry of Defence outsources to private companies. It was a project, he said, which “has not surfaced yet”. Another project he disclosed to our reporter is perhaps more controversial, especially for a former defence minister. He has been involved in two British firms which are helping to create a “defence academy” in Libya for its leader, Colonel Gadaffi. The former pariah state, which once sponsored terror attacks around the world, had its arms embargo lifted a year after the Iraq war when Gadaffi destroyed his weapons of mass destruction. Ingram is a director of Argus Libya UK which was part of a consortium constructing the academy. “Gadaffi wanted a defence academy built, and people I’m with have got very good points of contact with the Libyan regime,” Ingram revealed. He said the consortium members had just been paid and were “cash-rich”. He is also arranging for another of his firms to supply the academy’s teachers. The International School for Security and Explosives Education is based on an RAF base in Wiltshire and provides security and counter- terrorism training. On Friday, Ingram sent a letter through his lawyers saying that the work in Libya was consistent with government policy to promote relations with the country. The letter said Ingram was merely seeking opportunities for future employment. It said he did not believe it to be proper for a former minister to sell his contacts and influence to give certain businesses privileged access to government. A WEEK after Ingram’s encounter with our reporter, Caborn strolled across Westminster bridge to meet her in a hotel bar at County Hall. The reporter told him she was looking to get close to government. It seemed familiar territory to Caborn, who said one of his clients, the Fitness Industry Association, has “direct access” to health Ministers. He continued: “There’s a number of ways in which you can influence or at least access ministers, whether it’s a sector or an individual company, or what. And also on policy as well.” When asked whether he would be willing to help build relations with Ministers and civil servants after he stood down as an MP, he said: “Oh yeah, yeah, obviously I know Ministers,” adding later that several were “good friends”. He said it would not be a problem to set up meetings with civil servants, and he would help with other approaches no matter who was in power after the election. “As long as you know how the system works, that’s the main thing... How you influence the decision-makers, that’s the structure, that’s not going to change,” he said. He said of his work for AMEC: “I connect them in, if they want a reception in the House of Commons and if they want, erm, to get advice from government, then I get advice from government and I introduce them to people.”
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On Friday, Caborn sent a letter through his lawyers saying it had been his intention to talk generally about the political system and lobbying. It made clear that he had made no commitment to work for the fictitious lobbying company. The letter said he believed that he would not have had time to work for the company if he moved into the Lords. Alternatively, if he did not receive a peerage, he would have returned to Sheffield to work in an engineering business. However, the transcript of the meeting shows that he did express interest in the work but didn’t want to commit to anything until after the election. “I don’t really want to commit to something I can’t do. If I do it, I do it,” he said. He left saying that he would be happy to meet the fake company’s executives when they came over from America. AMEC said in a statement that Caborn was employed to provide consultancy services and he had not arranged receptions in the Commons or for the chief executive to meet the prime minister. JUST two days after the meeting with Caborn, the alarm bells began to ring in No 10 as rumours of an undercover investigation began to circulate in Westminster. Labour whips immediately began making inquiries to find out who had been stung. 28 March 2010
10. Letter to the Commissioner from Mr Greg Hands MP, 28 March 2010
I would [like] to make a formal complaint regarding the behaviour of two Members of the House of Commons. The public are entitled to know that the MPs that they elect to serve in Parliament on their behalf are serving their interests and no one else’s. That is why a Code of Conduct has been established to ensure that Members of Parliament at all times act with integrity and transparency. This weekend there have been serious allegations relating to two more former Ministers suggesting they have put their personal interests above those of the public. I am writing to ask you to investigate these allegations. The Sunday Times reported that the Rt Hon Members, Adam Ingram and Richard Caborn have been offering their parliamentary expertise to external commercial interests in exchange for financial rewards: • The Rt Hon Member for East Kilbride, Strathaven & Lesmahagow, Adam Ingram admitted that he had used his contacts and experience to help a construction company he worked for carry out a defence project in Libya: “Gadaffi wanted a defence academy built, and people I’m with have got very good points of contact with the Libyan regime.” Also, responding to a question posed by the undercover reporter about whether he could use his experience to develop relationships with ministers and civil servants, he said: “I’d do that”.
• The Rt Hon Member for Sheffield Central, Richard Caborn told the undercover reporter that he has previously used his contacts and access to his clients’ advantage: ‘I connect them in, if they want a reception in the House of Commons and if they want...to get advice from government, then I get advice from government and I introduce them to people.’
I believe that there are strong grounds to state that they have compromised their public duties as members of the House and breached the Code of Conduct for Member of Parliament. I refer you, firstly, to the following ‘General Principles’ of the Code of Conduct: “Selflessness
Holders of public office should take decisions solely in terms of the public interest. They should not do so in order to gain financial or other material benefits for themselves, their family, or their friends.
“Integrity
Holders of public office should not place themselves under any financial or other obligation to outside individuals or organisations that might influence them in the performance of their official duties.”
In addition, I refer you to Articles 11–13 of the General Rules of Conduct:
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“12. In any activities with, or on behalf of, an organisation with which a Member has a financial relationship, including activities which may not be a matter of public record such as informal meetings and functions, he or she must always bear in mind the need to be open and frank with Ministers, Members and officials.”
“13. Members must bear in mind that information which they receive in confidence in the course of their parliamentary duties should be used only in connection with those duties, and that such information must never be used for the purpose of financial gain.”
I believe that the behaviour of the two members represents a clear breach of several of the Code’s general principles and specific articles. I note that you have already begun an investigation into three other former Ministers accused of lobbying Government in exchange for cash. Given the similarities of those cases to the allegations against Mr Cabom and Mr Ingram, I would ask that you launch a further investigation or consider the two former Ministers are part of your current investigation.
I would appreciate it if you could reply to this request as soon as possible and confirm what steps you will take to ensure that any breaches are investigated. 28 March 2010
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1 Sir John Butterfill
11. Letter to Sir John Butterfill MP from the Commissioner, 23 March 2010
Having consulted the Committee on Standards and Privileges, I have decided exceptionally to accept the reference you made to me in your e-mail of 22 March in respect of recent allegations made against you arising from an article in the Sunday Times of 21 March and Channel 4’s Dispatches programme of 22 March. In essence, the allegations are that you may have been engaged in lobbying activities in a way which is contrary to the rules of the House; that your conduct during an interview with a person who subsequently revealed herself as a journalist was contrary to the rules; that that conduct was not such as to maintain or strengthen the public’s trust in the integrity of Parliament; and that it brought the House of Commons into disrepute. The Code of Conduct for Members of Parliament provides the following rules of Conduct: “ 9. Members shall base their conduct on a consideration of the public interest, avoid conflict between personal interest and the public interest and resolve any conflict between the two, at once, and in favour of the public interest.
“10. No Member shall act as a paid advocate in any proceeding of the House.
“11. The acceptance by a Member of a bribe to influence his or her conduct as a Member, including any fee, compensation or reward in connection with the promotion of, or opposition to, any Bill, Motion, or other matter submitted, or intended to be submitted to the House, or to any Committee of the House, is contrary to the law of Parliament.
“12. In any activities with, or on behalf of, an organisation with which a Member has a financial relationship, including activities which may not be a matter of public record such as informal meetings and functions, he or she must always bear in mind the need to be open and frank with Ministers, Members and officials.
“13. Members must bear in mind that information which they receive in confidence in the course of their parliamentary duties should be used only in connection with those duties, and that such information must never be used for the purpose of financial gain.
[...]
“15. Members shall at all times conduct themselves in a manner which will tend to maintain and strengthen the public’s trust and confidence in the integrity of Parliament and never undertake any action which would bring the House of Commons, or its Members generally, into disrepute.”
The Code provides also in respect of the registration and declaration of interests as follows: “16. Members shall fulfil conscientiously the requirements of the House in respect of the registration of interests in the Register of Members’ Interests and shall always draw attention to any relevant interest in any proceeding of the House or its Committees, or in any communications with Ministers, Government Departments or Executive Agencies.”
The Guide to the Rules sets out categories of registrable interests including Category 2 as follows: “Remunerated employment, office, profession, etc: Employment, office, trade, profession or vocation (apart from membership of the House or ministerial office) which is remunerated or in which the Member has any financial interest. Membership of Lloyd’s should be registered under this Category.”
The rules in relation to Category 2 set out in the guide for 2005 (which may be the one most relevant to this part of the allegation) includes the following in paragraph 19: “All employment outside the House and any sources of remuneration which do not fall clearly within any other Category should be registered here if the value of the remuneration exceeds 1 per cent of the current parliamentary salary. When registering employment, Members should not simply state the employer
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company and the nature of its business, but should also indicate the nature of the post which they hold in the company or the services for which the company remunerates them. Members who have paid posts as consultants or advisers should indicate the nature of the consultancy, for example ‘management consultant’, ‘legal adviser’, ‘parliamentary and public affairs consultant’.”
The Guide to the Rules also sets out the requirements where a Member has an agreement for the provision of services in his or her capacity as a Member of Parliament. It includes the following: “Any Member proposing to enter into an agreement which involves the provision of services in his capacity as a Member of Parliament shall conclude such an agreement only if it conforms to the Resolution of the House of 6th November 1995 relating to Conduct of Members; and a full copy of any such agreement including the fees or benefits payable in bands of: up to £5,000, £5,001–£10,000, and thereafter in bands of £5,000, shall be deposited with the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards at the same time as it is registered in the Register of Members’ Interests and made available for inspection and reproduction by the public.”
More detailed provisions are set out in paragraph 49 to 54 of the 2005 guide. Section 2 of the 2005 Guide deals with the Declaration of Members’ Interests. You may wish to read this in full. Paragraph 55 of the 2005 Guide provides as follows: “In 1974 the House replaced a long standing convention with a rule that any relevant pecuniary interest or benefit of whatever nature, whether direct or indirect, should be declared in debate, or other proceeding. The same rule places a duty on Members to disclose to Ministers, or servants of the Crown, all relevant interests. The term ‘servants of the Crown’ should be interpreted as applying to the staff of executive agencies as well as to all staff employed in government departments.”
The rules in relation to lobbying for reward or consideration are set out in section 3 of the Guide. You will wish to read this in full. Paragraph 72 of the 2005 Guide provides as follows: “This Resolution prohibits paid advocacy. It is wholly incompatible with the rule that any Member should take payment for speaking in the House. Nor may a Member, for payment, vote, ask a Parliamentary Question, table a Motion, introduce a Bill or table or move an Amendment to a Motion or Bill or urge colleagues or Ministers to do so.”
Paragraph 73 provides: “The Resolution does not prevent a Member from holding a remunerated outside interest as a director, consultant, or adviser, or in any other capacity, whether or not such interests are related to membership of the House. Nor does it prevent a Member from being sponsored by a trade union or any other organisation, or holding any other registrable interest, or from receiving hospitality in the course of his or her parliamentary duties whether in the United Kingdom or abroad.”
I would welcome your comments on the allegations made against you in the light of this summary of the rules. In particular, it would be helpful if you could: 1. Give me a full account of the circumstances in which you came to be interviewed by someone who turned out to be a journalist;
2. Confirm what you are reported to have said during that interview, and whether each such statement is true:
a) That you would be happy to make introductions to Ministers on behalf of fee-paying clients and, if true, whether you have made such introductions at any time in the past;
b) That in the past you had done quite a lot of consultancy work for people who wanted to get involved in the public sector and, if true, what that work was, when you undertook it, and whether you registered your consultancy work in the Register of Members’ Interests;
c) That people have in the past come to you for advice on, for example, procurement issues and, if true, when that happened, what advice you gave, what payment, if any, you received from these people for this or other services and whether you registered your services in the Register of Members’ Interests and made appropriate declarations;
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d) That Members of the House of Lords are very much involved in “procurement or in telecommunications or whatever it is you are looking at”, and, if true, what you intended to imply by that statement in terms of your own employment by the client if you were to become a Member of the House of Lords.
e) That you could organise a meeting with a Minister in their office or on a visit and, if true, when you did so for a client who paid you for your services and whether that service was registered in the Register of Members’ Interests and appropriate declarations made;
f) That you said it would be “easy enough” to arrange a meeting with Conservative Ministers if there were a Conservative government and if there was something genuine to interest them—and “that depends on how I present things”; and, if true, what you intended to convey to the interviewer in respect of the paid employment which you were discussing;
g) That you said to the interviewer that being in the House of Lords “gives me another string to my bow as far as you are concerned”, and, if true, what you meant to imply by saying that;
h) That you said that the going rate for the work you believed you were discussing was £30,000 to £35,000 a year.
3. Confirm whether you have at any time been paid £30,000 to £35,000 a year for consultancy or other services, and if so, by whom and whether you registered these payments;
4. Confirm what subsequent communications you or your legal advisers had with the reporters;
5. Confirm if any of the allegations are true, whether you considered you had an obligation to make a Register entry or declaration, or both, in respect of any financial interest you had in these alleged activities.
6. Confirm if any of what you said was untrue, why you spoke as you did.
Any other points you may wish to make to help me with this inquiry would, of course, be most welcome. I am writing to the Channel 4 programme makers to invite them to let me have any unbroadcast parts of your interview and, if they do so, I may need to ask you about these. I would be grateful for a response to this letter within the next three weeks. You will appreciate, I know, that we are now very close to the Dissolution of Parliament. I do not expect, therefore, to be able to conclude this inquiry before then. I will, however, resume it once Parliament has been re-established and I know I will be able to look to you for cooperation on this after you have left the House. I enclose a note which sets out the procedure I follow. If you would like a word about any of this please contact me at the House. I look forward to your help on this matter. 23 March 2010
12. Letter to the Commissioner from Sir John Butterfill MP, 24 March 2010
Thank you for your letter of the 23rd March. I would comment on your points as follows: I was interviewed by the journalist following a telephone approach to my P.A. which indicated that a company known as Anderson Perry, which claimed to be a major consultancy organisation in the U.S. and which was seeking to expand its operations in the U.K. and Europe, was looking to form an advisory board with authoritative figures from the political, regulatory and diplomatic arenas. It was also apparently looking for consultants having intimate and expert knowledge of Government affairs to be employed on a retainer basis. I am enclosing the e-mail that was sent to me on the l6th February, together with my reply of the 17th February.524 I responded by telephone, during the course of which I indicated that I might be interested in an appointment to their European Advisory Board but that I was not particularly interested in working in the field of Government affairs on a retainer basis. We discussed my
524 Not included in the written evidence
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business background and I pointed out that I had in the past been active in Europe and a director of companies in France and Denmark and that I spoke French, Danish and Spanish. As a result of this, as you will see from the enclosed e-mails, we made an appointment to meet on Wednesday 24th February.
I confirm that the televised discussions are accurate but the interview was heavily edited to exclude matters which would put these discussions in a different light. I was pleased, therefore, to see that you have asked to see the unedited original of this recording. The particular points that have been omitted are as follows:
Our early discussion centred upon my previous business career and the skills that I could bring to any directorship.
When asked whether I would be prepared to organise any entertaining of Ministers or Civil Servants, I answered, “no, that would be improper and a breach of the rules”.
At the end of the interview, I indicated that I was unsure whether I would be willing to undertake work for their company and, before making a decision, I would need to have a great deal more information about them, who their directors and shareholders were and whether they were of the highest integrity and standing. I indicated that this due diligence process might take some time, particularly since I had been previously approached by American interests and following investigations found out that they were not people I wished to be involved with.
I confirm that I said that once I was no longer an MP, I would be free to make introductions to Ministers on behalf of clients. I have never in the past made such introductions.
The work that I had done in the past was entirely unremunerated and related to representations made to me by constituency companies, many of whom were involved in Government in diverse ways, notably in the fields of insurance, financial services and manufacturing, for example, Cobham (formerly Flight Refuelling), who employ a very large number of my constituents and who came seeking my support and that of other neighbouring M.Ps.
This is covered in (b) above. I have never received payment or any other form of remuneration and therefore registration in the Register of Members’ Interests was not appropriate.
My comment regarding the House of Lords was a rather stupid one since I completely overlooked the fact that, if I were to become a member of the House of Lords, I would be governed by similar rules to those which apply in the House of Commons.
I confirm that I said I could probably organise meetings with Ministers on a paid basis in the future when I was no longer a Member but I have never done so in the past.
I confirm that I said that it would be easy enough to arrange a meeting with Ministers if there were a Conservative Government and if there was something genuine to interest them. By this I implied that the matter would be something which the Minister might find helpful and possibly create a situation where valuable business could accrue to UK Plc. The phrase ‘that depends on how I present things’ was intended to imply that I would be competent in any initial representation that I made.
The phrase “gives me another string to my bow so far as I am concerned” was intended to imply that potential clients would be likely to look favourably on having a member of the House of Lords on the advisory board.
I confirm that I said that the going rate for the work we were discussing as a director of an advisory board was in the region of £30–35,000 a year.
1. I confirm that I have never at any time been paid £30–35,000 a year for consultancies or other services. In the distant past, I have acted as an advisor to a number of trade associations as shown on the enclosed c.v.525 These were as follows: British Insurance & Investment Brokers Association (BIIBA) (1992–97), the IFA Association (1992–97) and the British Venture Capital Association (1994–2001). Each of these was
525 Not included in the written evidence
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remunerated and duly registered in the Register of Members’ Interests. At no time did I specifically lobby for these Associations but was scrupulous to ensure that, if any specific matters arose which were relevant to these bodies, then I would declare it. I did not engage in advocacy for them. My reasons for becoming involved with them were that, in the case of the BVCA I had a great deal to do with private equity which had funded some of the companies in which I was involved and, in the case of BIIBA and the IFA, because I had been involved in insurance broking in my partnership with Curchod & Co, that my late father was a Lloyds’ broker and that insurance is one of the leading areas of employment in my constituency. None of my other business appointments were in any way related to my membership of the House of Commons.
2. Neither I nor my legal advisers (I have not appointed legal advisers) have had contacts with the reporters since the Dispatches programme was broadcast.
3. I did not have to consider that I had an obligation to make a Register entry or declaration, given that I had definitely not decided to take up an appointment with Anderson Perry nor had they made any offer to me. I had considerable reservations about them so that there was no obligation on me to make an entry in the Register.
4. None of what I said was untrue but perhaps foolish and slightly exaggerated in parts.
I have no further points to make to you regarding this matter but I am very anxious that you should obtain a full and unedited copy of the interview. Please let me know of any further information that you may require. 24 March 2010
13. E-mail to Sir John Butterfill MP from Anderson Perry Associates, 16 February 2010
It was good to speak to you earlier today. As I explained, I work for a US communications company called Anderson Perry Associates and we have recently set up a UK office. Our clients operate in the US and Middle East but a number are looking to expand their operations in the UK and Europe. To meet our clients’ needs we will be forming a European advisory board consisting of a number of authoritative figures from the political, regulatory and diplomatic arenas. We are also looking to hire consultants who have an intimate and expert knowledge of government affairs to work for us on a retainer basis. You said that you might be free next week to discuss this further. I will speak to your PA about your availability, but perhaps we could do Tuesday or Wednesday afternoon? Here is a link to our website—www.andersonperryassociates.com. My office number is [...] and my mobile [...]. Many thanks. 16 February 2010
14. Letter to Sir John Butterfill MP from the Commissioner, 25 March 2010
Thank you very much for your letter of 24 March responding to mine of 23 March about this inquiry into the interview you gave to what you thought was a United States consultancy organisation. It is most helpful to have this response and to receive it so promptly. I will come back to you when I have a response to my request for the full interview. Meanwhile, it might be helpful if you could clarify or provide a little more information on the following: 1. Paragraph 2 (b)—could you confirm that the consultancy work you have done in the past was only related to companies based in your constituency, and do you have any further examples in addition to Cobham? It would also be helpful if you could clarify your reference to them being “involved in Government in diverse ways.”
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2. Paragraph 2 (g)—I think the quotation was “gives me another string to my bow so far as you are concerned.” 526This is not quite the same as you have in your letter. Please let me know if you think I have misheard.
3. Point 4—I note that you have not had contact with the reporter since the programme was broadcast. But could you let me know of any contacts you had with the reporters or programme makers since the interview on 24 February, with copies of any correspondence.
Thank you again for your help. I look forward to hearing from you. 25 March 2010
15. Letter to the Commissioner from Sir John Butterfill MP, 6 April 2010
I thank you for your letter of the 25th March and would respond to your further inquiries as follows: 1. Paragraph 2(b): My past unpaid work under this heading was related only to companies based in my constituency or employing large numbers of my constituents. Examples are Liverpool Victoria, Portman Building Society, Lloyds TSB, Abbey Life etc., all of whom would contact me from time to time on a wide variety of issues to raise with the Government. These might have related to taxation, regulatory matters etc.
2. Paragraph 2(g): The quotation “gives me another string to my bow as far as you are concerned” (I am not entirely sure of the precise wording) was intended to convey that I would be more valuable to them by virtue of being seen to be rather more prestigious in dealings with their clients.
3. Point 4: I have not had any contact with the reporters or programme makers since the interview, other than by sending the programme makers a short e-mail, a copy of which I enclose,527 and also speaking on the telephone with the Sunday Times reporter before the article was published in that newspaper.
I hope that this is helpful. 6 April 2010
16. Letter to Sir John Butterfill from the Commissioner, 2 June 2010
I have now received the certified transcripts of your conversations with the undercover reporter, which is the subject of the inquiry which you asked that I undertake. I attach a copy of the certified transcripts. This material is confidential to my inquiry and subject to parliamentary privilege. If it were disclosed to anyone else during the course of my inquiries, that would, as you know, be a contempt of the House. I would be grateful, therefore, if you did not disclose these transcripts further or use them for any other purpose. I said when I initially wrote to you on 23 March that I might need to ask you about some further points having seen these transcripts. The points on which I would welcome your help are as follows: The transcript of your phone call does not appear to cover some of the points which you made at part one of your letter to me of 24 March—in particular, the claim that you were not particularly interested in the field of Government affairs on a retainer basis, and the discussion about your business background. Was there a different conversation when you raised these points or was your recall mistaken?
You say on page 3, “I’ve done in the past quite a lot of consultancy for people who wanted to get involved with the public sector … It’s now quite difficult for a serving MP to do that, but once you’re retired you can do as much of it as you like … So people have come to me for advice on procurement issues, for example.” 528I would like to be able to reconcile that statement with what you told me at point b of your letter of 24
526 WE 18,00:46:45 527 Not included in the written evidence 528 WE 18, 00:25:37
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March and reiterated in your letter of 6 April. Given that all your consultancy work was unpaid and on behalf of companies in your constituency, I am having difficulty in understanding your reference to it now being difficult for a serving MP to do that, since that might be thought to be a reasonable activity for a Member to undertake in support of their constituents. I would be grateful if you could help me with this.
On page 4, you say in relation to Kvaerner, “… I have to say I blackmailed him [an alleged Norwegian asset stripper]. I said that unless you put a decent amount of money into the British pension fund, he might find it difficult to get public sector work, either here, or in the rest of the EU. And he put twenty-five million in.” 529 Is this an accurate statement of what in fact happened? Do you think that it was acceptable for you to “blackmail” him as described, and how would you have been able to influence public sector work as you suggest?
You say on page 5 that “all my private Members’ Bills are pro bono”.530 Do you accept that the implication of this statement would appear to be that there are some private Members’ Bills that are not pro bono—and would be the subject of payment to a Member? Do you think it reasonable to draw such a conclusion and, if so, to make such an allegation?
You say on page 10 that you would be prepared to undertake informal consultancy work while still a sitting MP.531 Can you tell me what you thought you were agreeing to, and whether you assumed you would be paid for that work?
You say on page 14 that you had had a number of approaches, including from a major trade association, for work after you left Parliament.532 Could you let me know whether you have at present secured any remunerated employment and, if so, what it is?
You refer on page 14 to your chairmanship of Gold Mining.533 Could you confirm that this is a reference to your Register entry as a Director and shareholder of Gold Island Limited, and, as you recalled in category 11, that it is currently unremunerated?
I would, of course, welcome any other comments you may wish to make having seen the transcripts, either on the context or on particular points. I appreciate that you may want a little time to go through the transcript, but it would be helpful if you could let me have a response to this letter by the end of this month. Thank you for your continued help. 2 June 2010
17. Dispatches ‘Politicians for Hire’—Transcript of Telephone Conversation with Sir John Butterfill MP on 16 February 2010
Telephone conversation between [...], under the name Claire Webster (“CW”) and John Butterfill (“JB”) JB Hello? CW Hello. Is that John Butterfill? JB It is. CW Hello, this is Claire Webster calling from Anderson Perry. JB Yes. CW I’m sorry I was wrapping up a meeting when you called before so I’m sorry I couldn’t take your call then. So, we are a company that’s based in London now but we’ve got a big office in America, I’m just opening up the London one as we speak. And we’re looking for some people to do some kind of consultancy work for us or to sit on the advisory board we’re forming to help our clients and I was wondering if it was something you might be interested in doing?
529 WE 18, 00:28:55 530 WE 18, 00:30:20 531 WE 18, 00:48:22 532 WE 18, 00:58:44 533 WE 18, 01:02:38
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JB Yes, well in principle, I should think yes. I mean I’d like to know a bit more about you and everything else. CW Yes, of course! [laughs] JB What would you want me to do for you? CW Well, I suppose, just thinking about the advisory board first, that would be to kind of help us with developing our business and contact network in London and of course supporting our clients in a broad way and I would expect that to be maybe, um, for the advisory board, a meeting every quarter or so. JB Yes. CW But also we’re looking for consultants to work a bit more closely with our clients. So there’s two kinds of roles up for grabs really it would kind of depend what you were most interested in. JB And introductions, presumably to potential customers and everything else? CW Yes, that kind of thing. JB You’re essentially a PR company? CW Yes well communications company really so within that we do PR and public affairs and that kind of thing. JB Do I know any of your board or...? CW No you certainly won’t because we’re only setting it up at the moment, we’ve only opened our London office in the last month or so. We’re well established in America, in San Francisco. JB Fine. CW But because of the needs of our clients we thought well actually it’s time to open a London office and try to get a bit more on top of what’s going on here in terms of legislation that might affect our clients but also just general issues and you know... JB You’re aware that I’m retiring from Parliament? CW Yes I am aware of that but I didn’t think that would really matter. JB I don’t think so I think I will still know everybody pretty well. CW Yes, no, I’d imagine so, you’ve got lots of experience. I’d imagine you’ve got a good network and know how things work really. JB Well, er and will I find you on the internet? I’m sure I will. CW Yes. Yes we’ve got a website. If you’d like I can drop you an e-mail with my contact details and also the website JB That would be most helpful. CW And perhaps we could, you might like to come to our office—I don’t know if you’re around this week as its recess but perhaps next week and we can talk about it further. JB Yes, well send the things to me. I’ve got a fairly busy time next week but we can probably fit something in I’m sure. Where are you based? CW St James’s. JB In St James’s, that’s fairly convenient [family reference]. CW What e-mail should I contact you on? JB I think, well I’m going to be getting rid...I think probably if you do my personal one which is [...] CW OK. I’ll drop you an e-mail this afternoon with some details... JB That’s great. CW ...and then if you could just let me know your availability that would be great. JB I’ll do that...well if you let me know when you have in mind roughly we’ll try and work something out. CW OK alright that’s kind of you I’ll do that. JB And if you can’t get hold of me. You’ve spoken to my PA[...]? CW Yes I did, I called her yesterday. JB She’s brilliant. CW Oh great, so I can just arrange something via her. OK well nice to talk to you I’ll drop you an e- mail this afternoon. JB Thank you very much indeed. CW Nice to talk to you John, bye! JB Bye.
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18. Dispatches ‘Politicians for Hire’—Transcript of Sir John Butterfill MP meeting 24 February 2010
TC Dialogue 00:16:50 [preamble/chat whilst making tea] JB 00:19:11 I have brought you just so that it, sorry, because I thought it might help you, would you like a CV?
CW Oh great thank you, how organised, that’s great, thank you. JB It tells you a bit about what I’ve done over the years. CW Brilliant, yeah that is very useful. So as I said really on the phone, I’ve just set up the London office here, we’re an American company, and we’ll be moving in here kind of properly in the next couple of weeks I hope. You know, it’s a great location. And one of the things I’ve got to do over the next couple of months is set up an advisory board for us and our clients and I’m also looking to take on a couple of consultants who could work specifically for some clients, so depending on what areas you’re interested in, you may be interested in doing that or not. JB You’ll get an idea from that CV of the range of things that I’ve dealt with in the past. CW Well just looking at your appointments for various departments, Energy and Transport and Northern Ireland, it looks quite varied you know, you’ve got a lotof experience, by the look of it. JB But if you look at, and then pensions is a big thing of mine, I founded the all party group on that. CW Oh right. JB I’ve been Chairman of it since its inception. CW We that’s, yeah, that’s quite interesting actually. JB But then, if you look at the, first lot of the companies where I, I’ve actually been a director and a shareholder, so you’ve got the Gold thing in Iceland, I already, Butterfill Associates is really just something that I dump in casual fees for the Inland Revenue. CW Oh right. JB And it’s a partnership with my wife, so I can wash through little things like that. Conservation Investments is a family investment company. Curchod’s Chartered Surveyors are, answers itself. Micro Business Systems, I was a founder of that, it’s now part of Fujitsu. That was IT hardware and leasing. St Paul’s Securities, which I founded with a chap called Jim Slater, who you probably won’t even remember. CW No, I don’t unfortunately. JB 00:21:26 They were one of the big merchant banks in the city, they caught a terrible cold in the late seventies or mid seventies, but I didn’t and I was very successful with it and made myself a millionaire. CW Oh, congratulations. JB Which was a happy thing to do. And I sold it out to Jimmy Goldsmith, but, and then I was in Bovis, I was, that’s a construction and property company and their French subsidiary. Oh, I had a Danish subsidiary in St Pauls Securities because I speak rather bad Danish and good French, bad Danish and bad
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Spanish. Then Hammerson’s were one of the biggest property companies in the UK and Jones Lang Wootton who are probably the biggest consultants, they’re now Jones, they’ve amalgamated, Jones Lang La...., LaRoq or something, they merged with an American company. And then you can see all my non-executive (...INAUDIBLE...). CW 00:22:35 Yes. JB Construction Industry. Venture Capital, I was for nearly nine years, on the, no seven years on the council and taxation committee. Delphi Group, that’s IT services and recruitment. Two Lloyds brokers doing different things. Maples was a furniture company. Then British insurance and investment people and the IFA, so that’s insurance and financial advice. Pavilion Services, we bought all the rank motorway service areas; I was a shareholder in that before I landed director, non-executive director. CW Right. JB And we turned them all round and we sold them off to Granada at a huge profit. And then a Danish construction company and an English construction company. And then you’ve got my charitable things. CW Yes. JB So it’s fairly broad. CW 00:23:36 It is very broad and amazingly detailed, you’ve obviously been involved with an awful lot of things. It’s great, which is good actually for us. We have clients whose interests kind of span from defence, all the way through to construction and investments. We have a group of Middle Eastern business men, who are very interested in investing in the UK at the moment, in terms of property, so maybe that’s offices. But also they’re very interested in aviation and there’s going to be a lot of expansion in terms of airports and also just transport infrastructure. So I think they’re interested in getting involved with building some of the infrastructure for the high speed railways, for example, if that all goes ahead. JB Yes. CW Which would be quite an important... JB As you see, I was in the Department of Transport. CW Yes, well exactly, I’m sure you know all about it. JB It was a long time ago. CW 00:24:38 But I’m sure you know how those kinds of things work. And so really, what we’re looking to be able to provide for us and also our clients, is a kind of insight into the way that things work in the UK. Who we should be talking to, who they should be talking to, what kind of opportunities there are. Someone that can really just give us a heads up and an insight into what’s going on. I don’t
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know if it might be useful for you to maybe give me some examples of things that you’ve done for clients, and work that you’ve done that might be kind of useful to us, so I can kind of feedback to my board about your kind of background and experience. JB Well what I think, possibly, is the simplest way of doing that is, if you, I’ll give you another copy of that, if you say to them well this is what this chap’s been doing, which of the bits would you like to hear more about? Does that make sense? CW Yeah, that does absolutely make sense. Do you take, for the kind of consultancy work that you do, what does that normally involve? What’s your kind of experience? JB 00:25:37 It’s enormously varied, and rather, as you can see from this. I’ve done, in the past quite a lot of consultancy for people who wanted to get involved with the public sector. And that will now, it’s now quite difficult for a serving MP to do that, but once you’re retired, you can do as much of it as you like. And a lot of Ministers do that as well, retire into that. So people have come to me for advice on procurement issues, for example. CW So how to get Government contracts really? JB Yes, yes. But property, as you will see, is something that, I’m a chartered surveyor by profession, so that’s my qualification and anything to do with real estate, particularly commercial real estate, rather than residential. I mean I know a bit about residential, but I, my experience has mainly been in commercial. And I was quite a substantial property developer in my own right before I became an MP. So anything in terms of property, anything to do with financial services really, that’s the other main thing that I do, particularly pensions. And in relation to pensions a lot, I’m chairman of the parliamentary pension scheme general trustees. I’m also, was the chairman of the PDSA. Do you know the PDSA? CW Yes the, yeah. JB The People’s Dispensary for Sick Animals? One of our top twenty charities, turnover between eighty and a hundred million. It’s quite large for a charity. CW Yes it is. JB And I chaired their pension scheme for about six years. And then a lot of people have come to me with pension problems and I think I outlined them in here. Yes. For example, when Maxwell, do you remember when Maxwell went bust? CW Of course. JB 00:27:33 Well they came to me and actually I did that, I didn’t charge them, because I said enough people are ripping you off. I actually managed to get, in order to rescue that scheme, I was able to persuade the Government to change the
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law, so that they could set up a structure where, there were about seven schemes and some of them were more adversely affected than others, by what had been stolen by Maxwell. And what we had to do was to enable them to support one another until we could get the money back. And that was illegal, so we had to have the law changed, which I managed to persuade the Minister to do and actually we got nearly all the money back and nearly everybody saved all their pensions. CW Oh that was lucky. JB 00:28:19 So that was one of the things I was did. And then one of the others that I was involved with, was the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, and their pension scheme was in a dire mess and they came to me and said can you help us out? And I actually got it solved, in the end I managed to get the Government to effectively take it over. CW Oh good. JB So that they were saved. We couldn’t have the home of the British commonwealth having its pension scheme go bust. And then Kvaerner, you probably know Kvaerner, they’re one of the big engineering groups. CW 00:28:55 Yes. JB They got taken over, together with the British subsidiaries, by a Norwegian asset stripper, who wanted to strip out all the assets and then get a lot of business in for the engineering side, all round Europe. And I have to say I blackmailed him. I said that unless you put a decent amount of money into the British pension fund, he might find it difficult to get public sector work, either here, or in the rest of the EU. And he put twenty five million in. CW Oh good. JB And, but then, lots of people come to me for those sort of things, because I can push the right buttons. CW 00:29:44 Well yeah, I think that’s, what’s, my background is kind of PR actually. So what’s quite important, I think, for the advisory board, is to get a kind of insight into the workings of Government. And also, you know, it’s very difficult for me just to be able to call up a civil servant or, I don’t know, a Minister, or an MP, or whoever, because I don’t know them. And even knowing who the right person is to call can quite tricky, you know, I think from the outside you don’t really know the workings of Government. And so I think it’s that kind of expertise that I’d quite like to draw on for the advisory board. JB 00:30:20 A lot of this I’ve done on a pro bono basis. And for example, all my private Members’ Bills are pro bono, the last one, the Building Societies (Funding) and Mutual Societies (Transfers) Act has actually saved the bacon of the mutual sector. CW Has it? JB Because otherwise, they, some of them would have been in considerable difficulties. But you may have noticed that there’s now been an acquisition of, for example, some of the building societies being taken over by, by banks. CW Yes. JB Co-op recently bought, bought Britannia. Now that would have been
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virtually impossible before my Bill went through. And so I’m very much in the good books of all the mutual insurers, like LV or Nationwide. CW Were you working for them was that? JB 00:31:19 No, I did it pro bono. You know, all, all of these things are pro bono, the Policyholders’ Protection Act well that was, there, there was a difficultly that ifyou had an insurance and your, and your insurance company went bust, youmight not get all the money that you were entitled to, so my Act actuallystrengthened your position. CW Oh great, so you made lots of friends by doing that then? JB Yes. And then I did one on insolvency, which I won’t take you into, but it was very complex and the Law Society came to me and said, can you get this through, and I said yeah, and I did. And the Registered Homes (Amendment) Act was really to avoid some abuse in care homes, where there were a lot of cowboys running it and I tightened up all the regulations. CW Yes, well that can be a big issue. JB So those, it’s a fairly broad... CW It is. JB Brush, but you can see the, the main things that I’ve been involved with and if they want to know a little bit more. I, in turn, would like to know a little bit more about them. CW Yes. JB I looked them up on Google, and couldn’t find out very much. CW Oh really? Okay, well let me tell you a bit. JB Are they related to the other Anderson Perry, who are the engineering company? CW No, I don’t think so, they largely do business on the west coast of America and it’s quite kind of low key I suppose for their clients, they don’t want to make a big fuss about who they are, it’s just in America about meeting kind of the right people to help people do business really. So there’s a defence company that they look after in the States and they manufacture chassis for mine protected vehicles, so they have a contract with the State Department, the Defence Department in the States to produce those. And so that’s one thing they’d be looking to kind of try to expand into the UK, as they’ve got a contract in the US, they think well, surely we could do the same for the MOD? Maybe they can. JB 00:33:19 I would be in a position, once I’ve retired, to open doors there to Ministers. Which, really whichever party becomes. CW Yes, well that’s one thing I wanted to ask about, you know, if the Conservatives win the election I’m presuming that would be good. JB It will be more helpful to me, but I actually have very good relationships with a lot of the Labour. I mean, for example, my building societies funding and mutual societies, Ed Balls was tremendous, tremendously helpful to me in getting that through. CW Oh really? How does that work in terms of kind of cross party relations? JB Well sometimes you have, I mean there are very close friendships across parties. I mean, although we fight each other nominally, you know, at Question Time it’s not always like. And I, I’ve, I’ve been on the Trade Minister’s Select Committee for nearly nine years, as you will see from that, and, and we operate for the benefit of Britain. Ed I’ve known quite well, I know his father ... CW Oh I see. JB Because I’m one of the founders of the Parliamentary group FRAME which you won’t of heard of, but it’s the fund for the replacement of animals in medical experiments. And what they do is to...fund ...the,
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what’s the word I want? Where they’re looking at ways, research into animal ...into humans using animals, we try to find ways they can avoid using animals CW Yes, as much as possible, yeah. JB Yes and its becoming more and more possible now with stem cells. And we finance that research. And Ed’s father, Michael Balls, Professor Michael Balls, is the chairman of that. CW Oh, I see. JB So you, it’s amazing how, it’s a very small world. CW Yes. Yeah, I bet it is. JB 00:35:34 I would need to know before I... you might not think I’m what you want but if you did I would really want to know quite a lot more about the company and the personalities behind it. CW Yes, that’s absolutely fine. What I think I’m going to do over the next couple of weeks is draw, um, a short list. I’m looking for about maybe four to six kind of advisory board members, so I’ll draw up a short list up and someone will be coming over from the States and then those people will be able to meet at least one or two of the directors from the States and maybe some of the clients as well, which I think would be quite nice JB Well that would be helpful. In my position, you have to be careful. CW Of course you want to know who you’re working with. JB That’s right. Well I can tell you that once I had some people who wanted me to help them put lots and lots of money into the UK and when I dug deeply, the source of the money was not very, strictly kosher. CW No I think, you, well yeah, that would be very worrying. JB So I just turned that down. Actually the more questions I asked, the less information I got. CW Well of course they didn’t want to say where the money was coming from. JB I’m not in any way suggesting that. CW No, well I wouldn’t want to work with people like that either. JB I’d need to be pretty reassured. CW Oh of course, yes. Well this is just, I just wanted to kind of have an informal chat with you, just to gauge your interest really and also the kind of things you might be able to do and your kind of expertise. There’s one thing we obviously do need to do, is be able to meet people in the next Government, whoever that may be and we’d be looking for some help with that really, in identifying who we need to be talking to and then perhaps smoothing the way for us, because as I’ve said its quite hard for me to call. JB Well they’re pretty well all friends of mine. CW Oh, good. JB I don’t think I’ve fallen out with any of them, but you wouldn’t have a problem with the next Government assuming it’s Conservative, but nor would you havea particular problem if Labour CW Hold on. JB Well it would probably, I don’t think Labour can become the next Government but I think it could be within a, some sort of coalition. And again there, I’ve got very good relationships with pretty well all the Labour Ministers. CW How easy is it kind of to contact them, is it just a case of picking up the phone and because of who you are they answer the phone or? JB Yes, it, it, in my case yes, I could just pick up for the phone for ninety
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percent of them I’d think. CW And what about civil servants? I’ve kind of been told from my very kind of limited public affairs knowledge, that they are the people that make lots of the decisions and they’re the people that you need to be talking to. Is that right? JB 00:38:19 Ah, yes and no. I wouldn’t be as good with civil servants as I would be with Ministers, because they try to keep us away from the civil servants. But inevitably I’ve, over the years I’ve got to know a lot of the civil servants and some of them are friends and some aren’t. But I would be honest with you, that I would have fewer contacts within the civil service, than I would with Ministers. CW Yes, well I think that would be okay. I would imagine our clients would be quite impressed to be able to meet a Minister or even to have a lunch or to go in for a meeting within the department. JB Yes, I could normally arrange for your clients to meet Ministers. And civil servants are quite difficult about that, they don’t like being taken out to lunch and wined and dined, because they’ll be accused of being partial perhaps. That’s a much more difficult thing, they’ve become, because over the years there have been a few scandals about civil servants giving preference to this or that, you know, and they try very scrupulously to avoid that. And it’s not just at a Government level, you find it at local government, yes. For example, if you wanted to build some huge sort of a development somewhere, property development, you can go and meet the planning officer and you an open the doors to see and they’ll meet you in their office. But if you asked them out to lunch, they wouldn’t go. CW Oh really, that’s very useful to know. See it’s that kind of familiarity, I think, with regional and central Government that is very useful to us. JB Yes. They, they’re very, very cautious about meeting anybody outside their offices. CW Oh, right. So it’s very hard to get them out for lunch? JB So you don’t take them out to lunch. CW No exactly, you might alarm them. JB Yes. That would be the wrong thing to do and actually, even with Ministers because we’re so much scrutinised now. I could organise a Minister, a meeting with a Minister in his office, or possibly if the Minister were really interested in getting more briefing, they might come to you, but they would usually prefer to meet in their office and there would be a civil servant sitting in. There’s always a civil servant making notes of what was said on each side. It’s to cover their back, you know. But they would all see me and there won’t be a problem about that. CW Yes, presumably they can see you informally, it’s just when I trot in. JB Yes, that’s right, yes. CW 00:31:11 Yes which I suppose could be quite useful. Are there any people within the shadow cabinet that you’re particularly close to, or have good relations with, that? JB Yeah, again most of them. David Cameron, I was one of the four original people who persuaded him to stand. And George Osborne and I were the main. Actually if was funny how it all really came about. I’ve known David for over twenty years, I knew him when he first came down from Oxford with his shiny new double first and I was then working with Cecil Parkinson at the Department of Transport. And he came down as part of our team and we employed him, he did a lot of research for us, did part of the speech writing, you know, policy development. And I formed a very high opinion of him then. Because what David’s got is quite unique, he’s got the, possibly the most powerful brain in the House of Commons CW Really? JB 00:42:20 Yes. Intellectually he’s a genius. He doesn’t, most people who are that
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clever are either slightly away with the fairies, you know what I mean? CW Or quite awkward or something. JB Or, yes can be rude and awkward and, you know, not very many social graces. And he’s neither of those things. When you meet him you think, what a nice bloke, you know, and he just seems like everybody else, you know, but a nice one, you know. And that’s a tremendous gift. And he’s a very good orator. CW Yes, yeah he does speak well. JB 00:42:51 He’s very good at, very good with people. For example, William Hague, brilliant brain, terrible with people. CW Oh, really? JB Oh, awful. Very, very good orator, fantastic orator, debater, anything like that, he’s better than, he’s better than David at the dispatch box, for example. But he couldn’t manage people at all, he was a disaster. We kicked him out in the end. Because I was deputy chairman of the 1922 Committee at that stage and we said he’s got to go, because he just alienated everybody. David doesn’t do that. And one of the things we had in common, until recently, I’m not doing it so much nowadays, but I used to cycle into work and so did he. CW Oh, so could you race him? JB 00:43:39 And so we were, we were always meeting in the changing rooms when we were showering, when we got in, because we were all hot and sticky. And I said to him, “David you’ve just got to stand, because if you don’t we’ll go down to another huge defeat and we can’t afford to do that yet another time.” And he said, “No, no, no,” he was too young and too inexperienced and the party wouldn’t have him. I said, “Well look, you leave that to us and we’ll see what we can do.” Then George also cycled in, so I tackled George and I said, “George, you and I have really got to get David to see that he, he’s the only one who can win for us.” And that and Oliver Letwin and the four of us kept going at him and he said, “Oh well, do you think I could?” We said, “Well look, we’ll all go away and we’ll each get half a dozen people who say they’ll support you and if we can do that, will you reconsider?” So he said, “Okay.” So we did that and we got that number of people and we said fine. So we said, “No we’ll go and get ten more each,” you know and eventually we got enough people to convince him that if he stood he would win, which he did, comfortably in the end. So I’m pretty close to him. Oliver is an old friend from way back and he’s got a constituency nearby. George, I didn’t get on very well with George initially, but now we get on like a house on fire. CW Oh, really? Oh good. JB Because I found him, he was a bit abrasive, he’s another, he’s very clever. CW Is he? JB Yes he’s very clever, he’s got a very good brain, but he’s also a bit arrogant. And I think some of the rough edges have been knocked off him more recently. I mean all these people are people I know terribly well. CW Oh great, so it would be easy enough to arrange a meeting for us, or our clients with them? JB Yeah. CW Okay, that would be good. JB 00:45:37 Provided there’s something genuine that is likely to interest them and that depends on how I present things. And I would also be quite happy to tell you if I thought that it wouldn’t be something. CW Oh yes, exactly, which is really important, you don’t want to be wasting their time and getting a bad name for yourself, do you? JB No. You know, if I don’t think that you would be able to persuade them to do what you wanted them to do, then I’d tell you. I mean what I would probably do first, you see, if you gave me a brief, then I would go and see
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see the responsible Minister and give them a general feel of the thing and say, now would you like to meet them? You know, but do it that way first. CW Yes, no, I think that sounds like a sensible idea. JB But if I get a complete door being shut, no we can’t possibly do that because of this, this and this or we’re given undertakings here or there or wherever CW It’s good to know that in advance isn’t it? That’s the thing, so you don’t waste your time. JB So you don’t waste your time. There’s no point bringing you in. CW For a non meeting. JB No. CW 00:46:45 No, exactly. And in terms of kind of getting guidance on kind of upcoming legislation or policy initiatives, do you think that would be possible? JB Yes. CW Okay. Because that can be very beneficial to a business. JB Well I may, can I tell you something very much in confidence? CW Yes, of course. JB Well it is quite likely that I will go to the Lords. CW Right, okay. Congratulations. JB No, it’s not, nothing is certain in this world, so I don’t want that. But it is, well it has been suggested to me by those who would be putting me forward, that they probably will, so that would be nice CW Yes, it would be fantastic. JB And it also gives me another string to my bow, as far as you’re concerned. CW Yeah. JB Because quite often, the right mover and shaker happens to be in the Lords particularly. And again, the person in the Lords, for example, might be somebody who’d been very much involved on procurement or on communications, or whatever it is that you’re looking at. CW Yes. JB 00:47:59 And his view in the Lords might be quite influential. CW Yes, yes, I suppose. So you mean to say a former Minister or a former procurement person who’s then in the Lords? JB Or a former, you know, high powered businessman who’s been in that field. CW Yes, yes, that’s very true. I suppose there’s lots of different expertise there that you can kind of tap into. JB Yes, that’s right. CW 00:48:22 Yes, that’s a good thought. And in terms of how quickly you’d be able to get involved, you mentioned after the election, I didn’t know whether you’d be available for any kind of more informal consultancy work before then? JB Yes, so long as it doesn’t, I’d have to look at each one to see if there was any conflict. CW With your other clients you’re working for? JB Yes, or with my party’s view on something, or you know, if you wanted to do something that my party wouldn’t like at all, you know, there might be a conflict there. It’s all going to be much easier in about six weeks’ time, when I suspect it will all be over. Six to eight weeks. CW Yes, I suppose it will, won’t it? JB Yes. I mean I don’t think it will go beyond the sixth of May. CW No, I don’t think anyone is expecting it to are they? JB And we’re, we’re about to go into March. CW Yeah. No we haven’t got much time that’s very true. JB The General Election will take about four weeks, so that, frankly
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approaching anybody in parliament over the run up to the election. CW Yes presumably April’s out, isn’t it, then, yeah? JB Yes, April’s more or less out. Well April will be, I assume, pretty well entirely consumed by the Election campaign and they won’t want to talk to anybody, they won’t want to listen to anybody, they’ll be so busy trying to hold their seats and getting a majority in parliament that, you know, it’s a complete void. CW Yeah. So if we were to do anything it would be March really? I just, I know there was a couple of things that they wanted to get off the ground quickly, but I’m not sure if that’s too quick, I think I’ll have to kind of gauge it and then. JB 00:50:04 Well, if you let me know what they are, I can tell you whether we can do anything in March, but they’re becoming, even now, they’re becoming more and more. CW The mindset changes I suppose, doesn’t it? JB Obsessed with winning the election and the campaign and that’s what they’re all focused on. I mean if you said can you, can I get you an interview with David Cameron in March, I would think that the probable answer is no. He’s so busy going round the country (...INAUDIBLE...) be voting for him, you know. CW Of course. JB It wouldn’t be a good time. CW No, I think you’re right, I think that’s very true. It’s always a tricky question. But in terms of how much you’d expect to be paid to be on an advisory board, would you be able to give me an idea of maybe your daily rate, or I think for an advisory board we’d be looking to do a meeting every other month or so and I think we’d asses it after six months you know, is that working, do we need a meeting every month for instance? And then with consultancy work, I think that would be on a kind of pro rata basis, depending on how much work is being done. JB Well sitting on a board, the going rate now is thirty, thirty five, something like that. CW Ok and is, something you’d be happy with? JB Yup. CW Okay. JB But it depends how, what the time commitment is, and if it increases, you know, and if I’m successful and making you very happy, you want to make sure keep me, but that sort of, that sort of order, thirty five thousand. CW Okay, well that’s good to know it’s just useful for me to bear in mind really, what kind of thing you’d be looking for, especially when I want to put the rest of the board together, about thinking about different personalities and different expertise, and of course drawing up a shortlist as well, it’s just an important thing to bear in mind. It’s an interesting point, if you are going into the Lords, that was something I hadn’t thought about at all, about what kind of extra expertise that kind of allows you to bring along, I suppose. JB It opens more doors. It opens more doors. I mean, there will be people there that, well a lot of them I know already, because a lot of them are ex- MP’s anyway, and even those that aren’t ex-MP’s are people that I know socially. I know a lot of the members of the Lords. But it is another range of expertise, where perhaps you can go to somebody who has, you know, headed up British Railways, do you see what I mean? CW Yes. JB Or been a big player in, you know, electricity industry or whatever, you know, it depends what you want to do. CW Yeah and I suppose of course, more and more Ministers are ending up being Peers these days, aren’t they? It’s a rather strange way that it’s
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working out, I don’t know if there’s going to be any more under the Conservative Government. JB What? CW Peers who are Ministers so I’m thinking of kind of Lord Mandelson. JB Well there may be some, yes. I mean, in fact there is always, for each department in Government, there will always be a Peer who will cover that when those issues are being debated in the Lords. CW Yes, yes of course. Yes, you have a spokes, kind of, person on health, is that right? JB Yes. So there’ll be a Lord spokesman on any particular issue. CW Yeah. Oh I see, yeah. JB So there are Ministers in the Lords. CW Yes exactly, it’s not just limited to the Commons is it, where they are hanging out? And also, in terms of where decisions are being made. You know, I think, as far as I know, it goes from the kind of the Commons to the Lords and kind of bounces back and forth, I think, so it kind of gives you another go at something, doesn’t it, there’s more people to talk to I guess. JB Oh yes, yes. Well I know a lot of them anyway, even if I don’t go to the Lords. CW When do you find out? Is it like getting? JB Well its usually, there’s a list on the dissolution of a Parliament, it’s called the dissolution list and the outgoing Prime Minister will nominate some people, butalso the heads of each of the other parties will. CW Are able to. JB Are able to, and then the incoming Prime Minister will then almost certainly want to create more Peers, because at the moment we are very heavily outnumbered in the Lords. CW Oh really? Okay. And that’s because there’s been a Labour Government for however many years. JB Yes that’s right and they’ve created, all their people have become Lords you see, so we shall want our share to balance that out. CW Oh, I see, well it will be an interesting time then to find out and fingers crossed for you. Alright, well what I think I’ll do over the next week or so is draw up a kind of shortlist of people. I’ve got a couple more people to see. And then the, someone from America will either be coming over here or there is an option of flying people over to the States to meet them, of course that will just depend on diaries, I think, and availability. But I think maybe it might be quite nice for you to meet one of the Americans guys and one of the clients. JB That will actually be essential and if in the meantime you can give me some more information about the company and the individuals, you know, the board. Because there’s not, unusually there’s not, there’s nothing on Google about. CW About the board? JB About who your directors are, or? CW Well let me tell you a little bit about them. If you like I can send over some information, it’s probably easier. But just in terms of our clients, you know, I have to be a little bit careful because of confidentiality and that kind of thing, but so we’ve got the guys in the Middle East who are investors, so they kind of invest there, but are looking to invest here. We’ve got a very big. JB Where are they in the Middle East? CW In the UAE. We’ve got a very big company in Asia, in Singapore actually, that have kind of contracts to mend ships and are very involved in kind of infrastructure and engineering and they do lots of stuff out there, but again they’re quite keen to move into the UK, especially if this high speed
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railway thing goes ahead, you know, there’s quite a lot of contracts. JB That almost certainly will go ahead. CW Do you think it will? I kind of wondered. JB Well I do, because the Labour party wants it and we want it too. CW Right, okay. JB 00:57:00 We want it particularly because we don’t want to have a third runway. And in fact we’ve said quite unequivocally that we will not go ahead with the third runway if we become the Government, but that means it’s more, even more important to have the high speed rail link as an alternative to a lot of domestic flights and we will probably look further at building a new airport out in the Thames Estuary. CW Oh, do you think that will happen? That’s something Boris has kind of been pushing, isn’t it? JB I think it’s quite likely, yes, I think it’s probably something whose time has come. And that will involve a lot of H&R. Huge amount. CW Well it’s a massive project isn’t it? JB Vast, yes. CW I can’t almost think how big that will be. It will be great as well. JB I think it’s about twenty billion. CW Goodness me. JB Or thereabouts, you know, so it’s quite a lot of money. CW Yeah. I don’t know what really I imagine some of our American clients would be interested in investing in that kind of infrastructure, we have private individuals who are based in the States that kind of invest in various funds and we kind of help them do that, really, by kind of doing due diligence on some of the companies they want to invest in or some of the people, because you need to know kind of who you’re dealing with sometimes. JB I do. And you should know I’ve got quite a lot of family contacts in the banking world...... CW 00:58:44 Oh have you? JB And my daughter is in the Middle East ...... JB That’s why I was asking where your Middle Eastern clients were from, they may know them. CW Yes. Alright, well let me, I’ll go through your CV and I’ll speak to my director about it. JB Well there’s quite a lot in there. CW Well there is, exactly, there’s an awful lot of detail in there and I feel I need to sit down and read it properly. JB Do you want a spare copy? CW Yes, that’s kind of you, thank you. JB Now where did you get my name from? CW Well I asked someone to do some research in the office and just come up with a list of well connected people that kind of do consultancy work and then your name came up. JB Right. CW So I’m glad we got the right kind of person. It’s always tricky, isn’t it, when you’ve got to call someone and say is this the kind of thing you might be interested in, you have to be fully prepared for a no, so I was pleased you were intrigued enough to meet me. JB Yes. CW Thank you for your time and thanks for coming in, and I’ll be in touch with you in the next week or so. JB It’s quite interesting actually, I’ve, I’ve had quite a few approaches recently. Yes, well people know I’m going, and so.
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CW How do you feel about going? JB I think this looks like fun. You know, it looks like something that I could get involved with. I recently also had an approach from a major trade association in the UK, that said would I become a consultant to them? CW Does it sound like something you might be interested in? JB Yes, yes, and they’re offering quite attractive terms too. CW Oh right, oh well let me know if we need to become more attractive on our terms. JB Well I think we could probably manage the two, because I don’t think they’d necessarily conflict, in fact they might actually work quite well with each other, but that remains to be seen. CW Yes. JB Well I’ll wait to hear from you. When do you think your people will be coming over? CW Sometime in the next couple of weeks I would have thought, probably not next week, I would imagine maybe the week after. JB Yes I will be around then. I’m going off skiing on Easter week CW Of course, yeah, yeah. JB If that’s alright? CW 01:02:38 Oh yeah, absolutely fine, enjoy yourself. JB The snow’s very good this year. CW Where have you got to be? JB Very near, yes it’s in Vine Street, my next meeting. CW Oh brilliant. That’s handy ... JB That’s my next meeting, my next meeting is the Gold Mining of which I’m chairman. CW That must be very interesting, working for them. JB It is, it’s fascinating actually, we are the only people with mining licenses in Iceland. CW You know, I wouldn’t have even thought about gold mining in Iceland. Is there quite a big market for it? JB Yes, we have fifteen and a half thousand square kilometres under license and we are the only people who’ve got a license at the moment in Iceland. There was gold mining in Iceland in the early part of last century and it was a German company that mined quite successfully. And then, when the war came along, they were kicked out by the Icelanders and it had never been restarted for some reason I don’t understand. CW Oh I see, so it’s just been sitting there really. JB Extraordinary, so it’s been sitting there. So one of our main tranches of Iceland that we’ve got, is the area where they were mining all that time ago and they produce quite a lot of gold. CW Really? How did you get involved with that, were you, did you have a kind of gold background? JB No, I’ve never done anything in mining before, but it was, I’ve got a house in [EU country] and one of my neighbours, a woman, she’s been in gold mining and she, she was involved with the Icelanders, and she said would I come in and help her and would I help her get the finance? And in fact, I introduced, well all, pretty well all the financiers that have gone into the project to date, have been introduced by me CW Oh really? Oh great, that’s good. Very handy, worked out well didn’t it? JB It’s worked out very well. So I’m a shareholder, a modest shareholder. CW Sounds like such an interesting project to be involved in and presumably you get to go to Iceland quite a lot as well? JB Yes, it’s, a lot of people go there for holiday. I’d go once. CW Yeah I don’t, I can’t imagine going there more than once. JB It’s very barren.
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CW Is it? JB Yes, very few trees, although there are some in Reykjavik, but that’s about it. Otherwise it’s pretty bleak. It’s pretty cold most of the time. On the other hand, the scenery is, is quite striking. CW I’d love to go and see the Northern Lights. That’s the thing I would be really excited to go and see in Iceland. JB You have to go at right time of year. CW Yes, well I think you have to go in kind of January/February don’t you, and it would be freezing. JB Well it’s not as cold as you might think, because the, it gets the Gulf Stream. CW 01:05:57 [Carry on talking about Iceland and wrap things up]
19. Letter to the Commissioner from Sir John Butterfill, 22 June 2010
I thank you for your letter of 2nd June, enclosing the certified transcripts of my conversations with the undercover reporter. I have studied this, and can confirm that it seems to me to be largely an accurate version of our discussions. There are, however, two matters which puzzle me. Firstly, I have a clear recollection that at some point in our discussions, I made it clear that I was more interested in joining an Advisory Board than engaging in parliamentary lobbying. To a degree, this is reinforced by the length of information provided by me relating primarily to my business experience rather than my parliamentary career. You will have noted for example, that when I was pressed on my experience at t[he Department of Transport, I pointed out that this was all a long time ago. Secondly, I am puzzled that my recollection of our conversations showed that when the reporter asked me about the possibility of entertaining Ministers and or Civil Servants, I responded by saying that this would be improper and contrary to the Parliamentary Rules. This does not appear in the transcript, but I did make it clear on Page 7, that Ministers and Civil Servants did not like being wined and dined etc. These two issues are my principal differences with the transcript. However, it is only fair for me to say that at the time of the meeting I was suffering from the after effects of [an illness] I suffered at the end of January, in respect of which I have spent three stays in [name of] Hospital. The most recent of which was last month. I am pleased to say that my last visit showed that I had largely recovered ... but that I had been left with [health effects] and a degree of loss of memory. On Page 2 of your letter, you mention my comments on the difficulty of a serving MP acting in measures of this nature where a financial interest existed. It seems to me that under the Rules this could occur where a Member has a financial interest in a Company in his or her constituency, employing perhaps, large members of his constituents. In such a case, it seems to me that the Member could argue in favour of the Company, provided that the interest had been disclosed in the Register of Members’ Interests, and again disclosed verbally during a debate. In relation to Kvaerner, I may have used somewhat colourful language [material not relevant to this inquiry]. I had no personal contact with the businessman concerned but I did advise a group of his pensioners and employees together with other Members of Parliament who had constituents in the Kvaerner Group, on how they might best shame the businessman into providing proper protection to his UK employees. We advised them to suggest that a failure to protect members of his pension fund would be likely to lead to protests against Kvaerner, were they to seek to obtain contracts from Public Authorities both in the UK and the EU. This strategy was extremely successful and I am proud of my role in it. So far as private Members’ Bills are concerned I do not accept that the implication of my statement implied that some private Members’ Bills were not pro bono and I do not accept that it would be reasonable to draw such a conclusion. So far as informal consultancy is concerned I made it clear that I did not think this was likely to occur but that I would have to be careful if I did accept some form of engagement before the Election and that I would have to ensure that no improper conflict of interest occurred. I went on to say that in view of the imminence of a General Election, I doubted that there would be any likelihood that Ministers would be interested in talking to anyone at the time.
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It is correct that I said on Page 14 that I had had a number of approaches for work after I left Parliament but I can advise you that I have not secured any such remunerated employment and have not heard further from the Trade Association. My Chairmanship of the Gold Mining Company534 is indeed a reference to my Register Entry as a Director and Shareholder of Gold Island Ltd, and that it is still currently unremunerated. I hope that these responses are helpful, and I would be happy to discuss them further when we meet. I am taking a brief holiday [location] as from Friday 25th June and will be returning on 2nd July. I look forward to hearing from you. 22 June 2010
20. Letter to Sir John Butterfill from the Commissioner, 25 June 2010
Thank you for your letter of 22 June responding to mine of 2 June following receipt of the certified transcripts of your conversations with the undercover reporter. I was most grateful for this response. I was very sorry to learn about your ill health earlier in the year. While I am very glad to hear of your recovery, I recognise that your ill health may have affected your memory of these conversations. I hope that I am right in assuming, therefore, that you accept that you did not in fact say you were more interested in the advisory board than in parliamentary lobbying, and that you did not say that entertaining Ministers and the civil service would be improper. On the former point, it does appear from the transcripts that you expected that you would be asked to make introductions to contacts. That might suggest that you were prepared to be involved in that form of parliamentary lobbying once you had left Parliament. On the same matter of comparing your recollection with the transcript, I should also draw attention to the statement you made at point 2(iii) in your letter of 24 March, where you say that you indicated at the end of the interview that you were unsure whether you would be willing to undertake work for the interviewer’s company and would need a great deal more information about them. I do not think that there is such a statement from you at the end of the interview, although you are recorded as saying (on page 14): “It’s quite interesting actually … I think this looks like fun. You know, it looks like something that I could get involved with. I recently also had an approach from a major trade association in the UK that said would I become a consultant to them? … Well I think we could probably manage the two, because I don’t think they’d necessarily conflict, in fact they might actually work quite well with each other, but that remains to be seen … Well I’ll wait to hear from you.” Do you accept that your recollection on this point is not borne out by the transcript? In response to your other points, it might be helpful if I made the following observations: Page 3—the difficulties of consultancy work for a serving MP. I have noted the points you have made. Given that the prohibition in the Rules of the House is directed against advocacy as opposed to consultancy, I would be grateful if you would explain why you consider that sitting MPs would now find it quite difficult to engage in consultancy. I am asking you this because I may need to consider whether you were exaggerating the difficulties of current MPs engaging in consultancy in order to strengthen the case for employing a former Member in this role.
In relation to your evidence about Kvaerner, do you consider that, as well as using somewhat colourful language, you exaggerated your role in this matter, since your statement appeared to imply that you had taken direct action with the individual himself?
I recognise that you do not accept that your reference to all your private Members’ bills being pro-bono implied that there were some Members who did not act on this basis. But it would be helpful to know your reasons why you do not think this conclusion should be drawn from your statement.
I have noted your response on the offer of informal consultancy work before the election. Could you let me know whether you accept that you did indeed agree to consider such work and that you would have expected to have received a fee for it?
Finally, you asked about a meeting. I am, of course, always ready to meet informally Members who are subject to an inquiry. I am also happy to take formal oral evidence from a Member if they so wish. Otherwise, I would normally consider towards the end of my inquiries whether I think it would be helpful in concluding the
534 WE 18, 01:02:38
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inquiry for me to take formal evidence from the Member. Subject to your wishes, I will consider this further once I have concluded taking written evidence, which I am doing through this correspondence and for which I have been most grateful. If you could let me have a response to this letter within the next two weeks, it would be most helpful. 25 June 2010
21. Letter to the Commissioner from Sir John Butterfill, 15 July 2010
I thank you for your letter of 25th June which was awaiting me on my return from a brief holiday. So far as your first paragraph is concerned, I must say that I remain puzzled why there appear to be a number of discrepancies between my own recollection of discussions and the detail of the transcript. Nevertheless I see no reason to make a major issue of this matter since as you suggest the overall conclusion which can be drawn from the transcripts is that I would be interested in both membership of an advisory board and involvement in making introductions to both ministers and business contacts once I had left parliament. On the question of entertaining ministers and civil servants although the transcript does not contain my own recollection of the use of the word improper, it does on page 7 record my giving considerable detail on the way that such introductions should be made and suggests that it would not be helpful to engage in entertaining such as wining and dining. This discussion is concluded and reinforced by the discussion saying “JB Yes, they are very cautious about meeting anybody outside their offices” “CW Oh right, so it’s very hard to get them out for lunch?” “JB, so you don’t take them out to lunch” “CW No, exactly, you might alarm them” “JB Yes that would be the wrong thing to do and actually even with ministers because we are so much scrutinized now, etc, etc” As regards my indication that I would be unsure whether I would be willing to undertake work for the interviewer’s Company or their clients, this is stated by me very clearly, on Page 6. Although the transcript does not include the phrase ‘seeking due diligence; despite my own recollection is that I did use such a phrase. More importantly, I gave an example of a previous similar approach to me which I ultimately declined because I was not satisfied with the information they gave to me. This issue is referred to later in the discussion on Page 12 where the interviewer stated that someone from America would be coming to England with a view to my meeting “one of the American guys and one of the clients” The transcript then shows me as saying “that will actually be essential and if in the meantime you can give me some more information about the company and the individuals, etc, etc” On your further points, I would comment as follows 1. It is a fact that sitting MPs now find it difficult to engage in consultancy. This is because a large proportion of members of the public and the press now take a view that it is improper for MPs to have any outside interest. It had never occurred to me that my comments on this matter could be interpreted as exaggerating the difficulties of current MPs in order to strengthen the case for employing a former member in this role. I would take great exception to this interpretation on my comments. 2. In relation to Kvaerner I may, in fact, have underplayed my role in this matter. The details of this are, that I was approached by [name], a former director of [company name] (KPF Pensioner), who was one of my constituents, and was heading up an action group because of what KPF was proposing as far as British KPF pensioners were concerned. Together, we devised a strategy to embarrass KPF by proceeding with a parliamentary lobby group, given the very large number of members of parliament who had significant numbers of constituents who were KPF pensioners. I enclose, herewith, a list of the relevant MPs (60 in all) which you will see included large numbers of Ministers, including Tony Blair and Gordon Brown! Through [name], I made it clear that I would seek the support of these MPs in order of persuade Kvaerner that it would not be in their best interests to alienate such a powerful group of politicians. This action led to the Chairman of the Trustee board (appointed by the Norwegian board) together with other representatives of Kvaerner to ask for a meeting with me in my office. I enclose, herewith, in confidence, the minutes of that meeting.535 As a result of this I was requested to “hold fire” whilst additional funding and an improved investment strategy might be arranged. Following this intervention a satisfactory solution was subsequently agreed. 3. My statement that all my private Members’ Bills had been pro bono was made simply to head off any accusations that I may have been trying to make personal gain from such a Bill. I was, therefore, defending
535 Not included in the written evidence.
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myself rather than seeking to impugn the actions of other parliamentary colleagues and I take great exception to this suggestion. 4. I neither agreed nor disagreed to carry out informal paid consultancy work before the Election, or indeed after it. I regarded the interview as a preliminary discussion for both parties and in my case, I had made it clear that I would need a great deal more information about the Company and its clients before I could give any commitment of any sort. I thought you might be interested to see details of the journalist [name], who conducted the interview with me, and I therefore enclose an extract from Google.536 With regard to a meeting between us, I think this might be useful when you have considered all the evidence I have made available to you. 15 July 2010
22. Letter to Sir John Butterfill from the Commissioner, 20 July 2010
Thank you for your letter of 15 July responding to mine of 25 June about the inquiry into your discussions with the undercover reporter which you referred to me. I was most grateful for this response. The following is my response to some of your points: 1. I have noted that you agreed that you offered to make introductions to Ministers and business contacts once you had left Parliament. I assume that you agree that this constitutes “lobbying”, although if that is not so please let me know. 2. I have noted the points you made about entertaining Ministers and civil servants on page 7 of the interview transcript, which was most helpful. 3. I have noted the points you made on pages 6 and 12 about the need to find out more about the company. Your recollection was that you made these at the end of the interview, but I have noted closely the references you made earlier on in the interview. 4. I was very grateful for your responses about difficulties for sitting MPs taking on consultancies and about private Members’ Bills. It was most helpful to have your responses to both points. 5. Thank you too for the fuller information about your actions in respect of Kvaerner and the Kvaerner Pension Fund. It was most helpful to have a note of your meeting with the Chairman of the Trustees of that fund on 10 March 2006. 537I may need subsequently to consider whether it is necessary to include that in the evidence for this inquiry, and I note that it was sent to the Pension Regulator and posted on the Kvaerner Pension Fund Association website. There is no reference in that note to your advice to the pension fund members that they should suggest that, if they were not protected, there would be likely to be protests against Kvaerner were they to seek to obtain contracts from public authorities both in the UK and the EU, as set out in your letter to me of 22 June. Could you help me on whether you gave that advice before the meeting in March, and whether, to the best of your knowledge, that advice was followed before that meeting (where you supported the Trustees’ request for a reduction in political activity in view of the delicate nature of the negotiations)? Finally, could you confirm the accuracy of your statement to the undercover reporter that Kvaerner subsequently paid £25million into the pension fund? 6. I have noted that you believe you neither agreed nor disagreed to provide informal consultancy before the Election. I will need in due course to weigh this alongside what you are recorded to have said on page 10 of the transcript where you appear to say that you would be available for informal consultancy work subject to looking at each one to “see if there was any conflict”; and to your suggestion that if the interviewer let you know what they were: “I can tell you whether we can do anything in March, but they’re becoming, even now they’re becoming more and more…Obsessed with winning the election and the campaign and that’s what they’re all focused on.” 7. I was grateful for a copy of the Google page in respect of the undercover reporter.538 I do not propose to include this page in the evidence for this inquiry, but if there were any matters which you considered relevant to my inquiry please let me know and I will consider this further. Subject to any further comments you may wish to make, I consider the one remaining matter on which I need your help is in the final questions I have put to you about the Kvaerner pension discussions. Once I have
536 Not included in the written evidence. 537 Not included in the written evidence. 538 Not included in the written evidence.
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received your comments on these, I will review all the evidence and consider whether I need ask you to provide formal oral evidence. At present, I think it unlikely I will need to do so. If there are matters on which you would like to give formal oral evidence, please let me know. Otherwise, I would hope to be at the point of concluding my inquiries into this matter. As you may know, I am currently conducting a number of inquiries on the basis of the undercover reporter’s interviews, and I have decided that I should submit a memorandum to the Committee on Standards and Privileges on all of these inquiries. [Procedural matters.] It is difficult to be precise about timing at this stage, but I think it is very unlikely that I will have completed my memorandum on all of these inquiries before the end of the summer recess. I am grateful for your continued help and look forward to hearing from you, I would hope within the next two weeks. 20 July 2010
23. Letter to the Commissioner from Sir John Butterfill, received 2 August 2010
I thank you for your letter of 20th July, which was waiting for me on my return to England yesterday. My responses to your latest points are as follows: 1. I regard introductions as part of what might be undertaken as lobbying, but full blown lobbying includes much more, including extensive advocacy and promotion of the client, which would be beyond what I would either wish or be able to offer 2. Noted 3. Noted 4. Noted 5. My action which precipitated the meeting on 10th March 2006 was because I had suggested to[ ...] and other constituents, that they should make it clear to the new Chairman of Trustees (appointed by the Company) that failure by the company to meet its legal obligations to the Pension Scheme would result in a vigorous political campaign in the House of Commons. This resulted in their seeking the meeting with me and a request by the Company to hold off political activity whilst negotiations took place. I can tell you, in confidence, that Kvaerner have subsequently paid considerably more than £25m into the pension fund. ... 6. I was trying to explain to the interviewer that there was no point in thinking about setting up a consultancy before the Election. 7. I am pleased that you fund the copy of the Google page helpful. It shows the skill of this young woman in putting words into an interviewee’s mouth! See 6 above! I hope that you now have all the information that you may require and will look forward to hearing from you and seeing the relevant aspects of your enquiries. Received 2 August 2010
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2 Rt Hon Stephen Byers
24. Letter to Rt Hon Stephen Byers MP from the Commissioner, 23 March 2010
I would welcome your help on a complaint I have received from Ms Justine Greening MP about your conduct in respect of an interview you gave to an undercover reporter, in respect of an alleged possible appointment. Since I have decided to accept this complaint, I do not need exceptionally to conduct my inquiry on the basis of the self-referral you sent me with your e-mail of 22 March.539 I attach the complainant’s letter of 22 March inasmuch as it affects the complaint against you. I know you will have seen the Sunday Times report of 21 March on which this complaint is based, as well as the Channel 4 Dispatches programme of 22 March.540 In essence, the complaint is that you may have been engaged in lobbying activities in a way which is contrary to the rules of the House; that your conduct during an interview with a person who subsequently revealed herself as a journalist was contrary to the rules; that that conduct was not such as to maintain or strengthen the public’s trust in the integrity of Parliament; and that it brought the House of Commons into disrepute. The Code of Conduct for Members of Parliament provides the following rules of Conduct: “9. Members shall base their conduct on a consideration of the public interest, avoid conflict between personal interest and the public interest and resolve any conflict between the two, at once, and in favour of the public interest.
10. No Member shall act as a paid advocate in any proceeding of the House.
11. The acceptance by a Member of a bribe to influence his or her conduct as a Member, including any fee, compensation or reward in connection with the promotion of, or opposition to, any Bill, Motion, or other matter submitted, or intended to be submitted to the House, or to any Committee of the House, is contrary to the law of Parliament.
12. In any activities with, or on behalf of, an organisation with which a Member has a financial relationship, including activities which may not be a matter of public record such as informal meetings and functions, he or she must always bear in mind the need to be open and frank with Ministers, Members and officials.
13. Members must bear in mind that information which they receive in confidence in the course of their parliamentary duties should be used only in connection with those duties, and that such information must never be used for the purpose of financial gain.
[...]
15. Members shall at all times conduct themselves in a manner which will tend to maintain and strengthen the public’s trust and confidence in the integrity of Parliament and never undertake any action which would bring the House of Commons, or its Members generally, into disrepute.”
The Code provides also in respect of the registration and declaration of interests as follows: “16. Members shall fulfil conscientiously the requirements of the House in respect of the registration of interests in the Register of Members’ Interests and shall always draw attention to any relevant interest in any proceeding of the House or its Committees, or in any communications with Ministers, Government Departments or Executive Agencies.”
The Guide to the Rules sets out categories of registrable interests including Category 2 as follows:
539 WE 2, WE 4 540 WE 1
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“Remunerated employment, office, profession, etc: Employment, office, trade, profession or vocation (apart from membership of the House or ministerial office) which is remunerated or in which the Member has any financial interest. Membership of Lloyd’s should be registered under this Category.”
The rules in relation to Category 2 set out in the Guide for 2005 (which may be the one most relevant to this part of the complaint) includes the following in paragraph 19: “All employment outside the House and any sources of remuneration which do not fall clearly within any other Category should be registered here if the value of the remuneration exceeds 1 per cent of the current parliamentary salary. When registering employment, Members should not simply state the employer company and the nature of its business, but should also indicate the nature of the post which they hold in the company or the services for which the company remunerates them. Members who have paid posts as consultants or advisers should indicate the nature of the consultancy, for example ‘management consultant’, ‘legal adviser’, ‘parliamentary and public affairs consultant’.”
The Guide to the Rules also sets out the requirements where a Member has an agreement for the provision of services in his or her capacity as a Member of Parliament. It includes the following: “Any Member proposing to enter into an agreement which involves the provision of services in his capacity as a Member of Parliament shall conclude such an agreement only if it conforms to the Resolution of the House of 6th November 1995 relating to Conduct of Members; and a full copy of any such agreement including the fees or benefits payable in bands of: up to £5,000, £5,001–£10,000, and thereafter in bands of £5,000, shall be deposited with the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards at the same time as it is registered in the Register of Members’ Interests and made available for inspection and reproduction by the public.”
More detailed provisions are set out in paragraph 49 to 54 of the 2005 guide. Section 2 of the 2005 Guide deals with the Declaration of Members’ Interests. You may wish to read this in full. Paragraph 55 of the 2005 Guide provides as follows: “In 1974 the House replaced a long standing convention with a rule that any relevant pecuniary interest or benefit of whatever nature, whether direct or indirect, should be declared in debate, or other proceeding. The same rule places a duty on Members to disclose to Ministers, or servants of the Crown, all relevant interests. The term ‘servants of the Crown’ should be interpreted as applying to the staff of executive agencies as well as to all staff employed in government departments.”
The rules in relation to lobbying for reward or consideration are set out in section 3 of the Guide. You will wish to read this in full. Paragraph 72 of the 2005 Guide provides as follows: “This Resolution prohibits paid advocacy. It is wholly incompatible with the rule that any Member should take payment for speaking in the House. Nor may a Member, for payment, vote, ask a Parliamentary Question, table a Motion, introduce a Bill or table or move an Amendment to a Motion or Bill or urge colleagues or Ministers to do so.”
Paragraph 73 provides: “The Resolution does not prevent a Member from holding a remunerated outside interest as a director, consultant, or adviser, or in any other capacity, whether or not such interests are related to membership of the House. Nor does it prevent a Member from being sponsored by a trade union or any other organisation, or holding any other registrable interest, or from receiving hospitality in the course of his or her parliamentary duties whether in the United Kingdom or abroad.”
I would welcome your comments on the allegations made against you in the light of this summary of the rules. In particular, it would be helpful if you could: 1. Give me a full account of the circumstances in which you came to be interviewed by someone who turned out to be a journalist;
2. Confirm what you are reported to have said during that interview, and whether each such statement is true in particular in relation to the following:
a. That you continue to receive confidential information through your links with Number 10;
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b. That you have done work for National Express and for Rio Tinto and, if true, what that work was, why you undertook it, and why, as reported, you received no financial or other benefit from this work;
c. That you advised that elections are a “great time” if there is an issue where “your clients want to get a regulation changed or some law amended” to get in to see the civil servants and if true, whether you have made such attempts for clients at any time, what the circumstances were and whether you declared your interest;
d. That you know ways around the Enterprise Act for clients “operating a restrictive practice” or “price fixing”;
e. That you discussed with the Secretary of State for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (or anyone else reporting to him) changes in food labelling regulations;
f. That you discussed a similar matter with Lord Mandelson;
g. That you held these discussions following a discussion with a senior representative of Tesco. If you did hold such discussions with Tesco, it would be helpful to know whether they or someone else paid you for the services you agreed to provide;
h. That in or about June 2009 you discussed with the Secretary of State for Transport (or anyone else reporting to him) the National Express rail franchises;
i. That you held these discussions following a discussion with a senior representative of National Express. If you did have such discussions with National Express, it would be helpful to know whether they or someone else paid you for the services you agreed to provide;
j. That you said “I’m a bit like a sort of cab for hire, I suppose, at the moment”, and why you said that;
k. That you told the interviewer that you charged £3,000 to £5,000 a day, or sometimes more, for your services.
3. Confirm whether you have at any time been paid £3,000 to £5,000 a day for consultancy or other services, and if so, by whom and whether you registered these payments;
4. Confirm what subsequent communications you or your legal advisers had with the reporters;
5. Confirm, if any of the allegations are true, whether you considered you had an obligation to make a Register entry or declaration, or both, in respect of any financial interest you had in these alleged activities;
6. Confirm, if any of what you said was untrue, why you spoke as you did.
Any other points you may wish to make to help me with this inquiry would, of course, be most welcome. I am writing to the Channel 4 programme makers to invite them to let me have any unbroadcast parts of your interview and, if they do so, I may need to ask you about these. I would be grateful for a response to this letter within the next three weeks. You will appreciate, I know, that we are now very close to the Dissolution of Parliament. I do not expect, therefore, to be able to conclude this inquiry before then. I will, however, resume it once Parliament has been re-established and I know I will be able to look to you for cooperation on this after you have left the House. I enclose a note which sets out the procedure I follow. If you would like a word about any of this please contact me at the House. I look forward to your help on this matter.
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23 March 2010
25. Letter to Rt Hon Stephen Byers from the Commissioner, 2 June 2010
I have now received the certified transcripts of your conversations with the undercover reporter which are the subject of this complaint. I attach a copy of the certified transcripts. This material is confidential to my inquiry and subject to parliamentary privilege. If it were disclosed to anyone else during the course of my inquiries, that would, as you know, be a contempt of the House. I would be grateful, therefore, if you did not disclose these transcripts further or use them for any other purpose. As you will know from my letter of 23 March, I suggested that I might need to ask you questions in addition to those in that letter once I had received the full transcripts. The additional matters on which I would welcome your help are as follows: 1. You refer at various points to a number of your clients at the time and to offers you have received for when you left Parliament. It would be very helpful if you could give me a full list of all the work you undertook in the last two years when you were a Member of Parliament, both remunerated and unremunerated, including your executive positions—and for clarification on which of these you registered in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests; 2. You say on page 8, in relation to contacting civil servants, that you would ring up and say, “I want to bring someone in to have a chat about this policy area … I do it now as an MP.” 541Could you confirm that, when you were an MP, you asked for meetings with civil servants; that, as apparently implied, you did so on behalf of a client; and, if so, whether you declared your interest to the civil servants at the time? 3. On page 10 you say, “I chair this water services company. Every five years the regulator Ofwat comes up with a five-year investment programme … So once again I approached … Hilary Benn, who was dealing with it as the Minister.542 He said, ‘Well the best way is to talk to the regulator’, which I did, and then talk to the relevant civil servants, which I did, and we just got an announcement just before Christmas, which actually is pretty good in terms of levels of investment … It certainly benefited my guys because they got a high-level investment over the next, over the five years.” Could you let me know whether you did indeed approach the then Secretary of State and subsequently his officials and Ofwat; when this occurred; whether it occurred as you described it; and whether at each point you declared your interests as chair of ACWA Services Limited? 4. You said also on page 10, “the important thing for your clients to be able to say, and for us to be able to identify on their behalf, is, if there’s … a business commercial opportunity for them, but there is … some regulation which is standing in the way, or some other restriction … And we then say, ‘right, okay, we can be the facilitators, we can say right, … this is how that can be done.’” 543Could you help on whether you have performed this service for your clients; how you undertook it; and whether, in any contacts you had with Ministers or officials or others, you declared your interest? 5. You describe on pages 11 and 12 your role in mediating in a dispute which BP had with contractors about a pipeline going to Turkey.544 Could you let me know whether you did act in the way described; whether you were paid for your services and, if not, why not; and if you were paid, whether you considered registering that payment in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests; 6. You say on page 12 that, “at the moment my sort of scale is between, it varies, but … it’s usually between three and five thousand a day, that’s the sort of wage.”545 Could you help me on what particular work you were referring to here? And would it be reasonable to assume that the reference applied to the examples of the work you have undertaken as described earlier in the interview? 7. You say on page 13 that there was someone whom you know very well in Mr Cameron’s office who would go with him to Number 10, and, “probably over a couple of drinks, we’d … say … rather more than
541 WE 27. 00:03:16 542 WE 27, 00:03:35 onwards 543WE 27, 00:03:40 544 WE 27. 00:03:50 545 WE 27, 00:03:58
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we should say.” 546 You said that in the context of a reference to receiving confidential information from Number 10 about which I asked you in my letter of 23 March. Could you let me know whether it is accurate that you do know someone close to Mr Cameron and that you have had the discussions with him which you describe. If so, were they on behalf of any of your clients and, if so, did you declare your interest during these discussions? 8. You say on page 14, “We go through the manifesto, we say, ‘right if it’s a water company, we say there is a real problem here … we should go and talk to a civil servant about how they are going to recommend that is done.’ … You’ll either get it delayed … basically you want to convince a civil servant that it is totally impractical, you know, high risk.” 547Could you let me know whether this is an accurate statement of the work you have done on behalf of a water company in respect of any party’s manifesto in any previous General Election? Did you in fact do this in the current General Election and, if you did, did you arrange a meeting with civil servants and, if so, did you declare your interest? 9. You suggest on page 18 that “We can meet over in Westminster, you can come along as well, we can have a drink in one of the nice places there.” 548This was in the context of the alleged employers coming over from the United States. Could you help me on whether this was an intention to use House facilities to discuss your future employment? I would be very grateful if you could let me have a response to each of these points in addition to responding to the matters raised in my letter of 23 March. I apologise if the list has become rather long, but I am sure that you will appreciate why this is so. If you wished to draw my attention to any other points, or the context of the interview, you would be very welcome to do so. I appreciate that it may take you a little time to work through the transcript, but I would be very grateful if you could let me have a response to this letter by the end of this month. 2 June 2010
26. Dispatches ‘Politicians for Hire’—Transcript of Telephone Conversation with Rt Hon Stephen Byers MP on 17 February 2010
Telephone conversation between [name], under the name Claire Webster (“CW”) and Stephen Byers (“SB”) SB returning CW’s call. SB Hello is that Claire? CW Yes. SB Hello Claire it’s Stephen Byers here. I had a message. I believe you’ve been trying to get hold of me CW Yes I was, thanks very much for calling back. SB That’s OK. CW I don’t know how much of the message you got, I work for a company called Anderson Perry Associates and we’ve got a big office in San Francisco but in the last month or so I’ve set up the London office in St James’s. SB Oh right. CW Yes so we’re kind of rapidly expanding at the moment and one of the things I’m trying to do is um, kind of devise the board, an advisory board really, for the company which would be kind of made up of interesting people and knowledgeable people and I wondered if it was the kind of thing you would might be interested in doing? SB It could be. I mean I think it’s something that’s certainly worth us having a sort of you know conversation about, a detailed conversation about, then you can say a bit more about your background, about what you want Anderson Perry to be doing in the UK. I did a sort of google search on you actually just to see and notice that you have sort of a lot of west coast US work but er CW Yes and we have Middle East clients and Chinese clients as well... SB Right.
546 WE 27, 00:04:05 547 WE 27, 00:04:18 548 WE 27, 00:04:53
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CW ...but it’s got to the stage where some of our clients are saying to us ‘look we’d really like to do more business in the UK how are we going to go about doing that?’ So while they need some kind of consultants working for them I think in the first instance so does Anderson Perry and that’s where the kind of advisory board would come in really... SB Right. CW ...and give us advice about—what should we be doing in the UK, how should we be expanding our business and who should we be talking to and it would be good to get some good names really on the advisory board SB And do you have...? I mean it’s interesting, because I was in Israel yesterday, I’m in Dubai, as I speak, at this very moment so I’m doing quite a lot of er...I’m standing down from Parliament in May, I’m doing er a lot of sort of other work at the moment um, so that may be quite a good fit. I’ve got a lot of very good contacts now here a lot of them are looking very carefully at the UK, you know, for expanding opportunities um. CW Yes it seems lots of people are at the moment it’s quite interesting isn’t it... SB Yeah, yeah. CW I think the current climate is actually quite beneficial to um overseas clients anyway that they see it as a good time to get in to the UK. SB Yeah. What’s very interesting is that of course... er, when I was out here last week, I...introduced a (...INAUDIBLE...) multinational to one of the sovereign wealth funds (?) in Abu Dhabi, trying to get them to invest so there is that, there’s a lot of opportunities there. And also they don’t understand our systems—to do with regulation, the media and all of that—they’re sort um, they’re quite monitored (?) over here (...INAUDIBLE...) CW Yes I think that’s right and that would be really where someone like you might be able to come in because you have a good understanding of how—obviously—Government works in the UK and how the legislative process works as well, um it really would be great to kind of tap into your knowledge um I expect SB Why don’t we...? I’m back in the UK at the weekend CW OK. SB and I’m going to be in London all of next week CW Oh great. Well perhaps you could drop into our office and we could have a coffee or something? SB Yeah that would be good (...INAUDIBLE...) is it St James’s Square you are at? CW That’s right, yes, St James’s Square. Do you know what your diary looks like have you got it handy or not? SB Um ...I’ve got um, what would be good, I tell you what, why don’t you tell me what would be, are you pretty flexible for next week at the moment? [Discussion to fix the meeting date and time—they agree 1.00pm Tuesday 23rd February at St James’s Square. SB says he is calling from his mobile and that the best e-mail address is (“I try not to use the Parliamentary one for anything non-Parliamentary”[...] They confirm the date and time of meeting after a little confusion as to the day agreed.] SB What’s your background Claire? Who were you working with before? CW I was kind of doing PR before, for a company called Red Rooster... SB Right CW ...so really I’ve got to expand my Parliamentary contacts because one of the things Anderson Perry do quite well in other countries is liaise with Governments and my background is more kind of PR so dealing with press... SB Yeah, CW ...and whilst I have some knowledge of the legislative process it’s not quite up to speed so that would be one thing that I was hoping to gain from the advisory board really. SB Yes, yes (...INAUDIBLE...) Good. Anyway, let’s have a chat about it next Tuesday at 1 o’clock. CW OK. Alright. See you then. Have a good weekend. Bye SB Thank you. Bye now.
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27. Dispatches ‘Politicians for Hire’—Transcript of Rt Hon Stephen Byers MP meeting, 23 February 2010
TC (from AVI file) Dialogue
00:00:00 (preamble/chat whilst waiting—including phone call) 00:01:10 (chat in distance) CW 00:02:05 Hello, Stephen Byers, yes? Claire Webster, hi, nice to meet you. SB And you. CW I booked a meeting room for us. It’s one of the big ones. SB So how long have you been here? CW Not very long actually, about a month. We’re kind of just getting office space upstairs, you know it takes a while to kind of organise things. Do you want a drink of water? SB Oh yes. CW I’ll see what there is. Yeah, it’s a great place to be actually, because it’s just so central. SB Yeah, no it should be convenient. I just, I walked up from Westminster. CW Oh, did you? How long did it take you? SB About 15 minutes. CW Oh great. What is this natural, so that’s just still. Oh no it’s, fizzy I’m sorry. Are you alright with fizzy? Normally when things kind of say natural on the side you (laughs)… No I don’t expect it to be fizzy, no. There you go. CW 00:02:08 So thank you very much for coming, it’s nice to um... SB No, I was sort of intrigued really. CW Yeah, well as I said on the phone, we’re a kind of American company, and my job is to open up the London office, which I’m doing at the moment. And one of the. SB Right. Surviving it. CW Yeah, just about. One of the things I’ve kind of got to do over the next kind of couple of months really, is set up an advisory board, and also look for consultants who might be available to help some of our clients specifically, and your name came up. And really, I just wanted to have a kind of informal meeting with you, just to work out what kind of thing you might be interested in, and what you’ve been doing so far, to see what, maybe, you could bring to an advisory board. SB Yeah, yeah. Well shall I, shall I go through the sort of work that I’m going to be doing after May? CW Yes, SB So you can see the sort of, the type of things I, and some of them I’m involved in already, so, and some things I’ve done in the past which I’m, I’ll sort of share with you. Some of it’s a bit confidential, so keep it, keep it to, very much to yourself. CW Yeah, no, of course. 00:02:12 (interruption & door closed again) SB So, I’m doing three things at the moment. One is, I’m a consultant to a company called Consolidated Contractors International. CW Yes, yeah, I noticed that. SB And they’re sort of, it’s a family, it’s a, that still controls the company, but they’re the 12th biggest construction company in the world, they’re bigger than Bechtel, or Balfour Beatty, or whatever they, so they’re very significant. And particularly, and this may be of interest to you, sort of Middle East and the Gulf, and they’re growing their influence in the former Soviet States as well, so Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, those areas, yeah. CW Oh, that’s an interesting area to expand into, isn’t it? SB 00:02:15 Because what they do is, they do a lot of construction linked with oil and gas, so,
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so I’m doing a fair bit of work with them. I chair a water services company, called Aqua, which is based in, in North Yorkshire, but does three-quarters of its work in the Gulf. CW Oh, right. SB Desalination, sewage treatment, the big, you know the palm development in Dubai? CW Mm. SB We, we do all the sewage for that. CW Oh right. SB So, it doesn’t sound terribly sort of sexy but actually it’s, ah... CW It’s quite important actually (laughs). SB 00:02:17 It is. Yeah, no, and it’s, it’s highly profitable actually, we’ve managed to turn it around and we’re doing pretty well. And then I chair a group in Ukraine, which is a not for profit organization, I get paid for chairing it, which is to get Ukraine to look towards Europe really... CW Right. SB ...rather than towards Moscow. CW In what kind of way, in terms of business, or? SB Yeah, particularly in business. I mean our, main backers are a couple of oligarchs in Ukraine who’ve done pretty well, but recognise that, in terms of where their future’s going to be, it’s not providing steel to Moscow, it’s going to be providing, it’s going to be getting access to the European market. And having a more open economy, and they see that and so. They, they have made, they’re very good, but they just put the money up and they just allow us, there’s a, there’s a, there’s a board of six of us, and they allow us, pretty much, to run it, you know, so. CW Sounds good. SB Well, because I think we’ve been, we’re doing fairly well. CW Mm. SB 00:02:20 So those are three things that I’m sort of definitely going to be doing come May. I do a bit of work for National Express, the transport group here in the UK, but I’m not sure, I’m not sure whether that sort of fits really with what I want to do, I don’t know. But that, so that’s, that’s still there. CW Mm. What kind of work do you do for them? SB It’s mainly advising them on the whole sort of franchising system for railways. CW They had some franchises didn’t they? SB They did, they, they lost the East Coast franchise and they are going to lose the next two. CW Oh dear. SB Well actually it’s not bad news for them, because actually the east coast they were making a huge loss on. CW Oh right. SB So actually they wanted to get out of it, it sounds a bit odd, but because it was just haemorrhaging money. They overbid for it, sort of three years ago. CW Oh, I see. And then were kind of stuck with it? SB Well that’s right, but in fact they got a very good deal in the end, they go, because we let, we got the government to take it over in December with really no penalty being imposed. CW Oh, that was lucky. SB Well that was, that was really what they sort of took me on board to do. CW Is that what you were helping them with? Right. SB 00:02:25 So, um, yeah and as part of the condition is that they’ve had to give up the other two franchises which were making a little bit of money, but about a year or two sooner than they would have done. So that’s, that’s worked out reasonably well. So I’m not sure about...they’ve got a new Chief Executive, so I got on well with the Chairman, John Devaney, but the new chief executive I don’t really know
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terribly well. People say not very positive things about him, so I’m not sure, so. CW Oh, dear. It’s always, always a bit worrying isn’t it? SB And I’ve got other opportunities, so I’ve got, so there’s a big railway about to be built in the United Arab Emirates, called Union Railway, they’ve approached me to go on their sort of international advisory board. CW Oh, great. SB 00:02:27 Which would be, which would be very interesting, and is remarkably well paid. So I’ll do that. Because in reality, I mean, where my strengths have developed has been very much the sort of Middle East and the Gulf, and a bit of work...I do a bit of work for Rio Tinto, but that’s been in Kazakhstan. CW Oh are they in Kazakhstan? SB Yeah, yeah, they’re trying to get into Kazakhstan. CW Oh, right. SB So, so those are things I’m doing at the moment. CW 00:02:29 Yeah. Well I think what we’d be looking for, certainly with the advisory board; I think I’d be looking for maybe, you know, four or six people to be on the advisory board. And it can kind of be what we think it should be, so it’s going to be getting some input from the people we kind of shortlist for it I suppose, about how they see it working, but I would imagine, it would be a meeting maybe every other month or so. Umm, and that would how to kind of take Anderson Perry and their clients forward, specifically in the UK. So one of the things we’d be looking to do, would be to kind of understand what markets we could kind of get involved in, the people we’re involved in, with in the Gulf, are kind of investors, and they’ve made lots of money through oil out there, and they’re looking to start investing in the UK, a bit like, I think when we spoke on the phone, you said that some of your clients were kind of interested in getting involved with things in the UK. And then we’ve got American companies who kind of work quite happily in America, but again looking to expand in the UK. So really we’re looking for some kind of expertise about what we should be doing, who we should be talking to, that kind of thing really. Is that a similar kind of role that you play at the moment for some of those companies? SB 00:02:33 It is a bit, I mean once again just, I mean keeping this confidential, with. CW Yes. SB For example with Rio Tinto, um, one of the things I was doing with them, and I think I rang you from Dubai, I was, I know someone who’s very close to the crown prince in the UAE, and he, we were talking to him about whether they would use one of the, one of the, the big Abu Dhabi funds to invest in the Rio Tinto project. So it’s a similar sort of thing really. CW Yes, yeah it is, though I suppose what we’d be looking for... SB Are you dealing with sort of individuals, or are you dealing with government (...INAUDIBLE...) CW No, there’s a group of them. A group of individuals really. That’s largely what we do, even in America actually we kind of deal with investors, and sometimes a couple of them kind of get together as a group of investors if you like. SB And what sort of...because I’m just thinking about whether this ... I mean what scale of money have they got to invest? CW Quite a fair amount. They’re looking at a number of things including property. They kind of see it that maybe it’s a good time to be investing in the UK property market at the moment with buildings, because it’s, you know, with what, everything that’s happened with the recession, is it the right time to get in there? Also with aviation they’re quite interested, you know, the whole idea of expanding airports, there’s quite a lot going on with that. SB Right. CW Especially, you know, if the Conservatives get in, will, will that change the way that things work? I don’t know. SB Well it will be interesting to see I think, because if they, if they don’t go ahead with the third runway at Heathrow, which they’ve said they won’t, we’re going
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to have to, we’re going to have to expand somewhere. CW In which case, will it be the Thames Estuary option, you know? I just don’t know. SB When I was doing the transport job I went through that in huge detail, it’s...it’s it’ll be a nightmare. CW Oh, really? SB It’s, it’s, ah, it’ll take years to develop, ten years probably. And you’ve got all sorts of environmental issues. CW This is something that Boris seems to be championing, isn’t it? I don’t know why. SB 00:02:41 Yeah, it’s huge. No I don’t know why. Well, it’s a sort of, it will be a legacy project, on that, if it comes off, it will be great. But knowing the way the UK planning system works, and I did Terminal 5 at Heathrow when I was in government, and it’s just so slow. And I kept trying to push it as the secret..., you know, the cabinet minister responsible, and you’ve got all of these legal procedures that you, you can’t, you know, direct the, the planning inspector to do it in a particular way, or even to say, don’t take two years, come on, just try and do it in 12 months. You can’t even give them that sort of direction. CW Yeah, I suppose things do move very slowly don’t they, especially with kind of public consultations. SB Well we do, that’s how we do these things. But there’s a, anyway, but there’s a new system which the government has put in, which is if the project is of national significance, then you can, you can basically override a lot of the sort of local objections, however, the Conservatives have said they’re going to repeal that. CW Oh, right. SB 00:02:44 If, you know, if they do it in practice, if they get in. CW Well yeah, quite a lot of ifs. SB But no there’s, I mean in terms of, I mean so is it, I think the issue would be you sharing with the board, your clients, and their interests. CW Yes exactly. SB And, um, yeah and there’s huge scope. I mean I, but also I mean, I mean not just in the UK, but I, I know, just from the work I do in, slightly more risky, but in the sort of former Soviet states, I mean Kazakhstan has got huge opportunities, there’s a higher risk, you know, but bigger returns, so. CW 00:02:46 Yeah. Well I think many of our clients are kind of feel comfortable in dealing with the UK because of the language issue, you know, that’s a kind of tick. SB A lot of them like to come over here. CW Yes, well they, they already come over here for holidays or for other business things, so they were just quite, but what’s important for us, and from my background, my background’s kind of PR, so I’m not kind of well versed in kind of public affairs, I don’t necessarily know who we need to be meeting, whatever government department, or you know, how to kind of smooth the way with that relationship. Of course it’s quite hard just to cold call someone. SB 00:02:49 Well you shouldn’t do that. I mean I the, the reality is, and I don’t know who else you’re thinking of, of sort of having the conversation with about the board, but you know, although we, you know, we, we have, we, we belong to different political parties, I wouldn’t have a problem, even, you know, ringing up David Cameron because I know him. CW Oh, do you? SB So yeah, but even though, yeah, because you know, CW Well you never know, you see from my point of view I wouldn’t know whether you see you would be be able to. SB 00:02:50 Well I think that, I’m not a sort of tribal Labour person particularly. So I, so I think some of my sort of Labour colleagues would never think of even having a conversation or a drink with a Conservative. CW Yes, no I’m sure that’s true.
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SB It doesn’t bother me at all. I’ve, you know, you have, you know you can have a laugh with people. And also at a particular level where you’re interested in what’s going on and if you feel sort of confident enough in yourself, you can just chat away to people. If I, you know, if I see David or George Osborne in the lift I’ll sort of have, you know, we’ll have a joke with each other. So, you can always do that. CW Well yes actually, that was one thing I wanted to kind of speak to you about, because I wondered if the Conservatives come in at the next election, if they do win, whether that would kind of be a problem for you or not, but obviously the, because you’re an ex-Labour minister? SB It wouldn’t be a problem for me. I mean it may, it, it, no it wouldn’t be a problem for me. I think it would be for some Labour, former Cabinet, former Cabinet ministers. But in terms of, I mean without mentioning names, but in terms of the board, who, I mean you’re thinking, you said, of five or six. CW Yes that’s right. So talking to somebody from a kind of banking background, we’re talking to another ex-minister as well, and also a Conservative peer to try to kind of balance things out a bit. But of course, actually if you have any suggestions of people that you think might be. SB Well who I was thinking of because I, someone who, who is standing down who might be worth approaching is someone called John Maples. CW Yes I recognise that name. SB He’s a Conservative. He’s, he has been Conservative vice-chairman, responsible for selecting new candidates. So he’d, so he’d probably be your ... he was MP, is MP for Stratford, standing down. Now I, he, I think he’s, I mean I think he’s well connected, your clients would, he’s, he’s a likeable bloke, your clients would like him I think, you know, em, so he’s sort of sociable. CW Very affable? SB Yes, he’s, he’s, but serious and could get things done. So he, he could be worth...don’t want do myself out of it! CW That’s very...no, well maybe we could get both of you! SB I think he’d be, I think he’d be someone worth thinking about. CW Yes, I’ll have a, I’ll do some research on him and have a look and maybe contact him. SB He was a Minister when the Tories were in government. CW Oh right, so he’s got ministerial experience? Because that’s quite useful for our clients you see, that’s the kind of thing that would really impress them. SB 00:02:59 And you, and you, yeah I mean what you’ve got to be able to do is you’ve, I mean you, you can tell them that I, I’m, I still, I see Tony Blair every month so, and, you’ll probably find a lot of your clients actually really quite like him, they talk in glowing terms. CW Yeah they do, yeah! SB So the fact that, you know, and it may be you know, when the time is right, if there’s an event, you know, if you’ve got a lot of your clients here, we could have a word with Tony, say come along have a drink...meet some of the... CW Well that would be very impressive for them. I think Tony Blair carries such currency doesn’t he, especially internationally? SB Yeah and people here don’t realise. But I mean I’m, even now I’m sort of surprised—and I say this to him—at how much sort of respect, almost affection that people have got, I don’t, and I don’t quite know why, it seems quite interesting. Because actually he did very little, I, because I remember at the time saying to him, he should visit the Gulf more often, because actually he only went there once as Prime Minister. CW 00:03:02 Oh really? I didn’t know that. SB Yes, in the final couple of months of his Prime Minister-ship. Because the first time he was supposed to go, he cancelled and actually sent me instead, for a sort of day trip, overnight there, then a day, then overnight back. And then there’s a couple of other reasons. So he, he’s been to Saudi a couple of times, but the sort
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of, but sort of Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, and the UAE he didn’t, he didn’t go to very often at all. CW Do you know I didn’t, I wouldn’t have realised that, I would’ve thought he’d have been there quite a lot, that’s just what you’d would expect. SB No, no it was a big, yeah you would have but no, it was just, it was just one of those things. And then, I mean the relationship was very good, he, he met people over here all the time, so that’s what he said, he said, “Well you know, a lot of these guys come to London, you know, and I see them then.” So they’d be at Downing Street. I said, “Yeah, but yeah, because, because hospitality is very important in their culture, they like, you know, they like you to be their guest.” So. CW Yes, well something about going out there and being on their home turf. SB That’s right, yeah, and making the effort to be there is important, so. CW That goes a long way. SB 00:03:05 Anyway, but um, anyway, even though he’d sort of neglected them in my view, they, they still, they still sort of, the Blair name actually goes a long way, it sort of currency (?) CW Yeah, yeah, I think it does have a lot of international currency. And what about civil servants? Because I’m always told that kind of, civil servants are the, make lots of decisions obviously and ... SB They do. I mean the reality is in, I mean the way it works is that the, the sort of ministerial team, so you, you know, you have the Cabinet Minister, and then you have the Minister of State, and then a Parliamentary Under-Secretary, you will be all setting out the broad sort of policy. You don’t award us any contracts 00:03:09 or anything like that, so you, you know, because that’s not what our, our political system does not involve you in open, opening tenders for, that’s all done by the civil service, so that’s, they do the practicalities of it. And they’ll come up with ideas, so if, if I say, I want to develop a high speed train link to Manchester, how are we going to fund it, what’s the route going to be, do we do it under PFI/PPP(?), raise it through a POM, whatever? They’ll go away, work up options, and the civil service will then submit the options to you. So in a sense, they’re, they’re sort of, they’re guiding you, because they’re saying, and they won’t, they will not put all the options... CW No of course, they’ll put the three best. SB ...they will say well actually these are the three best. Well in fact, they may not be the three best, but that’s their judgement. So you’ve got to find a way of making sure that you, you’re not just sort of exposed to their thinking and can get views from outside. There’s a number of ways in which you can do that, you can, you can bring in outside, you know, advisors, consultants, but civil servants don’t like that, because you’re basically second-guessing their view. No, but there are ways in which you can, quite legitimately, I think, talk to the civil service. I 00:03:15 mean,
CW And what’s the best way to get, do you still have contacts with, em, civil servants? SB Yes, yes...it depends, depends what the issue is but—you just, yeah, just ring them, I mean. CW You can just ring them up? SB Just ring them. CW Okay, because obviously that would be something I’d be quite worried, you know, who the right civil servant is. SB 00:03:16 Well the thing to do, I mean no, what you should, I mean my view is, if the, I think the, my view is, the best way to do it is...someone like me...I can, I can tell you ‘actually you need to talk to [name] and this is his number.’ I would say if you’re, if you’re comfortable doing it, the first approach should be with you directly, you would ring and if, if you’re not getting anywhere then, then I
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would ring and say, you know, David, or Philip or whatever, you know, I want to bring someone in to have a chat about this policy area. CW Yeah, well yes exactly. I would imagine that would be far better actually, just because they know you. SB Yeah, yeah, yeah, or even if, even if they don’t know you personally they, they’ll know the name and you know, you’ve just got to, I don’t think that’s—that’s not a problem. CW Okay, yeah, good, cos that’s ... SB I mean with some, I’ve done it—I do it now as an MP. And some civil servants, I mean most civil servants are fine, you just say, I just want an off record chat with you about something that’s, you know, I’ve got an idea. CW Something that’s come up in your constituency? SB 00:03:20 Yes, well it’s not even that, just in the, because you’ve been in the government, and you’ve dealt with national, international things that they, and you know, they quite like it to be honest. Because you’re, you’re basically giving them—it gives them a bit more credibility I think. You know if a former Cabinet Minister comes in and says, look I want to talk to you about this policy area where I think there’s a problem. No, it’s an, it’s an amazingly open system actually, I’ve found and it’s, ah. CW Yeah. Well I think as an outsider, you think that would be incredibly complicated, but it may be that when you’ve kind of done it a couple of times, and you are kind of practised in doing, working in that world as you are, then it’s quite straightforward. SB What we should do—and it depend on, you know, how things develop, and how, how your thinking develops, I mean that, I mean just do it and then, you know, the first couple of times, you come along, see how it’s done—get introduced to them and. CW 00:03:23 Yeah that would be great. What would be quite useful for me, although I know obviously know client confidentiality is a bit of an issue here, would be, I don’t know if you could give me some examples of consultancy work, or times that you’ve helped some other companies do things in the UK, just because then I can feed them back to the guys in America, as kind of practical examples. I mean I don’t know if you could just tell, think of anything informally now? SB Well I mean, I guess the National Express issue is one, where they, they have, 00:03:25 you know three rail, three railway franchises, one of them making a huge loss, the east coast mainline, because they, they, they offered far too much money for it to be allocated to them, they’ve got two other franchises which are making small amounts of money. So they approached me—June of last year? And said, we’ve got a huge problem, we want to get out of the east coast mainline, but not pay a huge penalty and we want to keep in the other two franchises as long we can. CW Yeah. SB 00:03:26 So between you and I, I then spoke to Andrew Adonis, the Transport Secretary, and said, “Andrew look, they’ve got a huge problem. Is there a way out of this?” And then we, we sort of worked together—basically, the way he was comfortable doing it and so, and this you, you know you have to keep this very confidential yourself... CW Yeah, of course. SB He said, “We shouldn’t be involved in the detailed negotiation between his civil servants and National Express but we can give them a broad steer. So I will talk to you about where I want to go and you then Steve will talk to me about where National Express is prepared to go.” CW Right. SB 00:03:28 So we basically got to a situation where we agreed with Andrew he would, he would publicly be very critical of National Express and talk about, “I’m going to strip you of the franchise,” and be very gung ho and we said we will live with that and we won’t challenge you in the court, provided you then let us out by
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December, by the end of the year and we can keep the other two franchises for a little longer. So, and that’s what we managed to do. CW So it’s just a way of finding common ground really isn’t it? They both wanted you to do this. SB Basically, saying look, they’re going to walk, they’re going to hand over the keys 00:03:31 if you’re not careful, let’s find a way in which we can manage the process. My objective for National Express was not to get them hit with a huge penalty because had they stood by the franchise agreement they would have had to pay something like £500m... CW Oh my goodness. SB ...for the remaining three years when they’re making a loss, because of the downturn. I mean it should be a very profitable line, it normally is, but at the moment, because business travel has collapsed in the north, it’s the line that goes up to Edinburgh. CW Oh great, that’s a great line isn’t it. SB It’s great, it’s, yeah, it’s one of the top blue ribbon lines. CW It’s really beautiful as well, further up. SB So, yeah, so that’s, um, yeah that’s. CW And did you have to deal with civil servants then, or did you just deal with? SB No I dealt with Andrew, because he, that was the, that was the sort of position, he felt the most comfortable. And having said though, having said to me, you 00:03:33 talk to my, that will have been fine. A better example, perhaps is, I think mentioned, I chair this water services company. Every five years the regulator Ofwat comes up with a 5-year investment programme. Now that’s very important for water services companies, because the, the investment programme determines how much water companies spend on infrastructure, 00:03:35 and also how much they can then put up their water price to cover the investment. So once again, I approached, it was Hilary Benn who was dealing with it, as the Minister. I said, “Look there’s an issue here about levels of investment,” and he said, I said, you know, “And I want to raise these concerns.” And he said, “Well the best way is to talk to the regulator,” which I did, and then talk to the relevant civil servants, which I did, and we just got an announcement just before Christmas, which actually is pretty good in terms of levels of investment. CW Oh right, yeah. SB So it was just, so it was just, and. CW So you’re able to influence? SB 00:03:37 Yeah, you just talk people through, look saying, you know, if they if water rates go up above rate of inflation then that will allow this level of investment. If you restrict the amount by which the water rates can go up then that will have this direct consequence on that as an investment, and it will mean there’ll be more water leakage and so on. So it was just those sorts of, just, just talking people through, you know, what, what the, what the consequences would be of particular decisions. So that’s, that’s another example of a thing I’ve done here, specifically here in the UK. CW And that benefited them hugely presumably? SB Well my, it certainly benefited my guys because they’ve got a high level of investment over the next year, over the next five years. CW Ok, yeah. That’s very useful. Because I think it’s all about, really, understanding kind of what policy stuff is coming up, and also being able to engage with the kind of decision makers if you like, as much as possible. SB 00:03:40 And the important thing for your clients to be able to say, and for us to be able, able to identify on their behalf, is, if there’s a sort of, if there’s a business commercial opportunity for them, but there is a sort of, some regulation which is standing in the way, or some other restriction, maybe through a local authority, then we have to work out the solution. It’s not for them; I mean they, they’re taking the commercial decision that is what (...INAUDIBLE...).
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CW That they want to do it. SB That they want to do it. And we then say “right okay, we can be the facilitators, we can say right, this is, this is how that can be done.” And that’s just a role, so we have to put our thinking caps on, and work, you know, have a route map and work it through. But that’s all very sort of do-able. CW Good. SB 00:03:43 But the other issue we should also think about, I think is, is because, because of the, if you have an advisory board with, with the right sort of connections, we will also spot opportunities opening up, so and, you know, we can say, well actually in six months’ time, or in twelve months’ time, there’s going to be this huge opportunity which is going to be there. And there are things like, I mean I was talking to a guy called David Triesman, Lord Triesman, who’s head of the Football Association. CW Ah, right. SB He’s also leading the England bid for the 2018 World Cup. CW Oh, exciting. SB So, but I mean, we, we will know by the end of this year if we’ve been successful. CW Oh really? It’s very. SB Yeah basically he’s put on, he was talking to me about, they’re getting the bid document together for May, it has to go in. And he just had some ideas he wanted to sort of share with me. Now potentially, there’s going to be huge opportunity there in terms of construction, there’s going to be new stadiums being built, and you know people are not positioning themselves for that. CW To be getting those contracts, yeah. SB 00:03:46 So we need, we should, you know, start thinking about, you know. CW Yes definitely. That’s a really good thought. SB Anyway, but that’s sort of coming. Those sort of things, I mean it’s, yeah, yeah. CW And how do you envisage your kind of, I don’t know, your time commitments? SB Well it depends on, I, when, after you’d rung I, I actually thought you, to begin with, you may be talking about, on the advisory board, maybe even a day a month to get it started. CW 00:03:48 Well, no, I don’t think for the advisory board we’d need that, though we may decide later on that we do, and I think we’d want to assess it after six months really and see how it’s going. But if you wanted to be more involved, I think we’re looking for kind of consultants to work more specifically with clients, so it may be that you think, actually I’d quite like to work with the Middle East clients, because I understand where they’re coming from and what their interests are. Exactly. In which case, I think we’d be looking at maybe, at least a day a month, maybe you know two days, or a maximum of three days a month I’d expect. But it would kind of be dependent on what, you know, you wanted to do. SB 00:03:50 (...INAUDIBLE...) I mean what I do at the moment, I, I, so I, I will get called in to do, I do quite a lot of sort of almost, mediation to resolve disputes between companies and so on. So if, like, you know, there’s a big pipeline going from Azerbaijan to Turkey, and BP had a dispute with the contractors about how much it, the cost overruns, and they just ended up, it was going to go to court. But in the end I just sat down for three days with them, and worked out, you know, I had one lot in one room and one lot in the other, and you just negotiate between the two, and say well actually I think, you know, you could, for $380 million, you could solve this. And they then said fine. You know what I mean? But that’s, that’s. CW Good. Job done. SB Yeah, it took three days, and that, you know, quite a bit of pushing to get them into that position, but you know. So I do that sort of thing. And if there’s a sort of crisis that develops, or if there’s a takeover, which people don’t want. CW Yeah.
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SB 00:03:53 Because I did, remember I did all the, when I was at Trade and Industry, I was the sort of architect of the Enterprise Act, which covers all of the competition law in the UK. So a thing like, like mergers and takeovers, that was all done under. CW What you did, yeah. SB You know, the mechanism was, was the one that I sort of introduced there, so I know all that competition stuff pretty well actually, so. CW Oh okay, yeah it’s a great background to have, isn’t it? SB And also if, you know, if the Office of Fair Trading say you’re operating a restrictive practice, or if you’re price fixing, or whatever, then to be honest I’ve done all that, as part of, you know, that’s, that’s an. CW That’s your background. SB That’s an animal I created, for, for better or worse. CW Great, so you get it. SB But you also know ways round it, well actually there’s a way you could, ah, there’s an ace you can play here. CW Yeah, which is invaluable isn’t it? Especially when you’re kind of doing negotiations with someone, you need to know what your trump cards are, and how you can get the competitive advantage really. SB And also actually, without blowing my own trumpet too much, I think it does, if, if I appear at a meeting on, on someone’s side, the other side actually get very uncomfortable about it. CW 00:03:57 Well, no, that’s very, I think you’re right there, having a name behind you, and such experience that you have, is quite a powerful thing. And I know this is always a tricky conversation, but just in terms of money, what would you be, what would you expect to be involved with an advisory board? SB 00:03:58 Well I, I, at the moment my sort of scale is between, it varies, but it’s, it’s usually between three and five thousand a day, that’s the sort of wage. CW Ok, right, so we’d need to kind of, if we were looking at, meeting for the advisory board every other month, we could, you know, just work it out quite straightforwardly. And if you were to do some consultancy work, you can kind of work it out on a pro rata rate, I (...INAUDIBLE...). SB Yeah, it depends, I mean depends, it may depend on, on what the, I mean there’s lots of detail to work through, but that would be, you know, about expenses and so on. But that, as I say, and the three to five just depends a bit on the work, the clients, to be honest. I mean sometimes I can charge more, but that’s, I mean, I was just, you know, that’s the rate, that’s the range you know I thought. CW Well that’s good for me to bear in mind I think, when I’m kind of drawing up a short list. I think the next step is, I’m either going to have someone coming over here from the States, or, and they would like to meet whoever’s on the shortlist, or alternatively, they’re suggesting whether to fly the shortlist out to the US to meet them, and I think, you know, we can kind of work with that, depending on your diary and, of course, depending on theirs. I don’t know if there’s anything else we need to cover really. SB 00:04:02 No. Well I, I mean I had a good look at Anderson Perry before I, you know, when I got your call, and also since we had the conversation, and what I would say is if, I do have, I think I have now very good connections in the Gulf, so if, if that’s where some of your clients, I may know some of them anyway. CW Yeah, yeah, you may. It would be a small world. SB But I know mainly the sort of royal family out there, and I know one or two sort of important individual players. But, no, it would be interesting to find out. CW Yeah. SB I’m just thinking if there’s any other experience in the UK that I should tell you, I mean there’s been quite a few actually. CW 00:04:05 Presumably with your contact with, you’re still in touch, I would guess, with many ministers, and MP’s yeah?
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SB Yeah, yeah. CW Presumably through that, you’re aware of what kind of legislation is coming up, or what issues there are? SB But, the, I mean, I’m just being very frank, a change of government would, I, at the moment I get, I still get a lot of confidential information, because I’m still linked into Number 10 and so on. Even though I could lift up the phone and talk to David Cameron, he would not tell me what’s going to be in their legislative programme. CW No, of course. SB So I, I wouldn’t have that access. CW But presumably that’s where the civil servants come in, because it would be? SB Yeah, well yeah, I mean, and there are ways of finding out. So although, in fact I could probably, there’s someone in David’s, David Cameron’s office who will go with him to Number 10 and actually I know him very well. CW Oh right. SB So probably over a couple of drinks we’d, ah, say CW (...INAUDIBLE...) SB ...rather more than we should say...so there’s that possibility. CW 00:04:08 And in terms of how quickly you’d be able to start, I think they’d want to get the board running, certainly after the election, but I don’t know if you’d be available for any kind of, any consultancy work on a kind of pro rata basis before? SB Well I think, I mean I do think, you know April, assuming May the 6th election, you know, using April to get in to see a few civil servants is, is worth doing. CW Yes. Well that sounds like a really great opportunity. So... SB Because there’s no Ministers around, their job and what they do, you know, I mean they, every, every, in a couple of weeks time, every party will produce its manifesto, right. Ok, so you’ve got that. So there’ll be a Labour, Tory, Liberal Democrat one. And they’ll, they’ll do, they’ll do a lot more work on the Liberal Democrat one this time because it could be a hung parliament, and the Liberal Democrats will have far more influence. Normally they don’t bother to be honest with you. CW Oh really? I didn’t know that. SB 00:04:12 No, I know that, no I know that because I went in in ‘97 doing the schools job, and a civil servant said to me, very openly (...INAUDIBLE...), you know, this is what we’ve done the Conservatives, we’ve done yours, we don’t really bother with the Liberal Democrats. So what they do is they have a book full of, they’ve looked at your policy commitments. So, for example, one of our commitments was to reduce class sizes for 5, 6 & 7 year olds, to 30 or fewer. And they then have options about how you could implement that. So what we would need to do for your, very quickly for your clients is sit down, I can do it because I’ve done the, I wrote the manifesto for Labour for 2000 and 2005. CW Ok great. SB We go through the manifesto, we say right if it’s a water company, we say there’s a real problem here if the Tories are, really are going to ensure that the water rates can’t be increased by any more than RPI minus 1%, we’re going to 00:04:16 have to, we should go and talk to a civil servant about how they’re going to recommend that is done. So we, so first thing is, we would go through each manifesto, spot the problems, spot the positives, because there may be something good. CW Yeah, there might be some great stuff. SB So we, we, we then talk to your client, we get them in here, we say look, this is what Labour is saying, this is what the Liberals are saying, this is what the Tories are saying, we think this is a potential plus for you for these reasons, do you agree? Or we think this is a real problem, we’ve identified it, now this is how we’re going to have to try and tackle it. So the first stage, go through the manifestos, identify the issues relevant to your clients, we then go in and talk to
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the civil servants and say, look do you know this is a real problem? CW Yes, how likely is it do you think, that you can get stuff changed by talking to the civil servants? SB 00:04:18 You won’t get it changed, what you’ll, what you will do is, you’ll get it, you’ll either get it delayed, because they will say this is a ... Once you’re in government, there is a huge range of priorities, you don’t do everything that is in your manifesto. So, basically you want to convince the civil servant that it’s totally impractical, you know, high risk. And they will then say to their minister, look this is going to be a nightmare to implement, it’s a great idea 00:04:20 Secretary of State, but actually it’s totally impractical, you know, the consequences of this, this and this, it’s got to read across to what will happen over here, you know, so you’ve got all sorts of ways of doing it. The trump card actually is, if you’ve got, and this happens, this happens occasionally, if you’ve got, and I had it recently, I had another one actually that I forgot about, there was an issue about labelling food in supermarkets. CW I think I read about this in the papers, that there’s an issue, isn’t there? SB Well there’s been two issues, one is, one is about how you do all the sort of calories and so on, and whether they’re GM and all that. And that is, so that’s Hilary Benn’s department, because that’s Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, right. So he wanted to, he wanted to, it was a massively bureaucratic labelling exercise, 00:04:23 so there’s a woman called Lucy Neville-Rolfe, who’s head of corporate affairs at Tesco’s, I know Lucy really well. She rang me to basically, (...INAUDIBLE...) you’ve got to get it stopped. So, but the trump card when that happens is you talk to the business department, so you ring Peter Mandelson up and say, “Peter, did you know that Hilary Benn’s about to do?” He said “What?” CW So did you really call Peter Mandelson? That’s amazing! SB Because, well you know, everybody’s an MP in the end, so we go back a long way, and he didn’t know anything about it. And I said, “Well you, yeah, he’s about to do, he’s going to introduce a regulation which is going to have this huge nightmare in every supermarket.” And so then so Peter got it, he got it delayed, and then got it amended. So there’s often a trump card. So if you, if you’re not making progress with the particular department then either the Treasury. CW Yes, tell them it’s expensive. SB Exactly, yep. Or the business department. At the moment, because you know, but you need a big player in the business department to have influence, not someone who isn’t terribly significant there. CW Which is why Mandelson is so good obviously. SB And Ken Clarke’s going to be there after the election perhaps, em, who will be a player, so yes it’s, so I think actually, you know, using April. CW That does sound like it would be a key time. And would you be around to do work for us in April? SB Yeah, I mean I’m doing a bit, I’m doing some commentary for Sky on the leadership debates, and I’m doing a bit of campaigning, but not very much really, because I’m not standing, so, I’m basically having a bit of a interesting time. CW Oh well that might be a really good option. Ok, yeah I will. I’ll definitely flag that up because it just sounds like such a great opportunity, you know why would you want to miss it really? SB And also, just, just personally, I mean if, you know, if you’re new to the political world, we should just sit down and, you know, just talk about how it all works. CW How how it all works? That would be great. SB How it goes wrong and the nightmares you can have. And we can do, I mean yeah, I mean we can go through who potential, you know, what the Tory cabinet might be, and who’s strong and who’s weak. Because they are a bit of a mixed bag to be honest, some of them are good; some of them are pretty lightweight.
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CW 00:04:29 Do you think they’ll all make it, if you like, through to getting um? SB I don’t think so, he’s going to have, he’ll have to drop a few of them. CW Yeah, it’ll be quite interesting, won’t it, you know? SB Depends how well he does. If, if he does, if Cameron’s got a good solid majority, he can be pretty bold. CW Yes, I suppose. SB If he’s only got, you know, a majority of 15, he doesn’t want to (...INAUDIBLE...). CW How far does he want to push it, yeah? It’s such an interesting time politically. And that’s one thing our clients are kind of saying to us, look, we need to make sure we know what’s going on, because anything can kind of happen. Is there going to be a hung parliament, will the Conservatives win? SB Well the other thing you could do, it depends how quickly you would move, I mean if, if you’ve got a group of clients, I mean I don’t know, do they sort of, do they ever see each other? We should do, we could, you know, we could go to Dubai, or Abu Dhabi, do a brief, do a briefing. UK political scene, do something like that. CW Yes that’s a great idea. I think that would really impress them actually. And even American clients, you know, that’s the kind of thing. SB Because they’re fascinated. And you can tell, I mean there’s always some good anecdotes at Tony Blair’s expense which are, which is (...INAUDIBLE...). CW He must be a really interesting guy to still be in touch with, it must just be fascinating. SB 00:04:33 Well it’s funny, yeah, he had some great moments. I remember once we hosted a lunch for, it’s when Chirac was President of France. And he brought along Lionel Jospin who was the Prime Minister, but Jospin was a socialist, Chirac was right wing. Chirac doesn’t drink wine. Unbelievable for a French person, but it’s not publicly. CW Yeah, fairly surprising. SB He drinks beer. And apparently there is a bit of France where actually they are beer drinkers, in the German border (?) CW German border SB ...though he keeps very quiet about it. So anyway, so Tony’s decided at this lunch that he would have, he would serve an English white wine, this is for Jospin, and then a sort of very classic sort of claret, French Bordeaux for the main, the main course. So anyway, so Tony had this, he thought this white wine was great, and I tasted it and thought [makes a face of disapproval]. Anyway, so, so he’s watching Lionel Jospin drink this wine, and Jospin says, looks at Tony and says, “I hope this wine isn’t French.” And Tony says “No, no it’s English,” and Jospin says, “Thanks god,” he said, “Because it’s bloody awful.” Great sort of moment, because I’d had this conversation with Tony before about why are you serving English wine, and he said it’s very important that we do, you know, it was a thing... CW But if it had been good it would’ve been great, but... SB 00:04:38 And we were all waiting to see what he was going to say, or did he say, “Yes, it’s French wine.” (...INAUDIBLE...). CW But he didn’t like it anyway. SB That was also the occasion when... because you know Tony’s a very good, he’s a very good French speaker. CW Oh is he? SB Yeah, because he did, he did 6 months there when he was a student, serving in a bar in Paris. So he had this awful meeting with Chirac, it was an Anglo-French summit, disaster, gone really badly wrong, and so Tony decided he would try and make amends by doing the press conference in French. CW Impressive. SB Impressive. So he was talking away and there was this great kerfuffle in the audience, and Jonathan Powell, his deputy chief of staff, said, “What did you
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just say?” And Tony said, “Well I just said I have a great respect for President Chirac, even though we have many different views.” And Jonathan said, “No you didn’t, what you just said was I have a great desire for Jacques Chirac in many different positions.” CW Oh my god. SB So there was this great kerfuffle, so the relationship ever since has never been that good. It’s great, isn’t it? I mean, but that’s, that’s Tony getting his French wrong. CW 00:04:42 Yeah, I don’t think I would have done much better, my French is pretty poor. SB But anyway, we should think about doing that, a briefing you know, about, you know, perhaps just before the, you know, in well we haven’t got long to go really. CW No, rapidly running out of time. SB But, um, yeah, perhaps once the election is called, just say look, you know, this is the campaign, these are going to be the issues. CW Yeah. Well it just shows that you’re on top of it, doesn’t it, if you’re doing a briefing, it shows you know what’s going on. SB I think it would be good, it would be good for you, you know, setting up this office, one of the first things you could do, which shows that you’re (...INAUDIBLE...). CW Alright, sounds good SB That shows you’re on top of it. It would be interesting to your clients. CW Well I think you always want to be actively doing something, you know, that’s always, I think, the best approach. SB 00:04:45 Anyway, you’ll find with me I’ve lots of ideas, so, so. CW Oh that’s great. SB Some of them you can say god that’s absolutely mad; we won’t go with that, but hopefully there’ll be. CW One or two might be good... oh no I’m sure. SB One amongst ten, but you know, we’ll see. But no I’d be very interested, I mean I, I’d be, because it’s not something I sort of, I, I get sort of, I’m a bit like a sort of cab for hire I suppose at the moment, although I’ve got these three things which are sort of permanent, which I enjoy doing and I’ll, so I’m keeping all of those. But I think what interested me about this is that, because you’re sort of starting up afresh, and I think there are huge opportunities there, there aren’t many people out of London who do it well. There are some sort of agencies that charge a fortune and offer a very poor service. CW Yeah, I imagine. SB So, and I think a more sort of tailored, sort of bespoke type approach. CW Yes exactly, you’re doing something specifically for your client. SB Yeah, is, is, and I think that’s, that’s where the idea, that’s where I think the idea of sort of private briefings about, political scene, about what’s going on, they’ll like that. It’s, it’s an opportunity to... CW 00:04:49 How easy is it to kind of arrange meetings between a client and a minister or a civil servant? SB Depends really, it varies from one lot to another. I think, I mean, what they might feel, what they, some of them will feel uncomfortable if you say come and have dinner, they’re often far more comfortable going into their office, they provide you with a cup of tea and a biscuit, and they’ll talk to you. And that’s all above board, it’s all proper, it’s all part of the sort of democratic process really. And I’ve found, you know, I can’t think of any occasion where someone has said no to a meeting. CW Yeah. SB You know. And it will happen, I’m sure, there will be some people who’ll say, no, I don’t think it’s appropriate, but you know, you’ve got to, you’ve got to ask. CW Yes, exactly.
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SB And I think, you know, sometimes, depending on how complicated and difficult the issue is, a sort of letter going in saying you know, we’ve got a respective client, respective client who has these concerns, and they are genuine, you know, can we come in and talk you through it? CW Would you be able to write a letter do you think? Because obviously I think it carries far more weight coming from you than me, when they’ve never heard of me. SB No, well anyway we could get, that wouldn’t be a problem for me. CW Ok. That’s great. Alright, well thank you so much for coming in. SB 00:04:53 Nice to see you, hope it goes well. CW Yeah, really nice to see you, it’s much better to meet you rather than talk on the phone. So I think it’ll probably be the beginning of next week that I’ll be hopefully kind of drawing up a short list, and I’ll just stay in touch with you if that’s ok. SB Yeah, you’ve got my mobile, which is the best way CW Yeah I have, I’ll just keep you informed I think. And if someone’s coming over from the States in the next couple of weeks, I think it would be good for you to meet them. SB Yeah, I mean let me know. We can meet over in Westminster, you can come along as well, we can have a drink in one of the nice places there. CW Yeah that would be nice, yeah that’s a good idea SB The Americans love it by the way. CW I bet they do. It is just the kind of thing they would love SB And actually it would be good for you actually to. Just to let you know in terms of my movements, I’m, I’m in, at the end of next week I’m in Berlin and Kiev, so that’s Thursday/Friday. The following week I’m actually out in Abu Dhabi again in the middle of the week, I think I’ve got a big meeting there on the 10th. So I’m flying out on the Tuesday, back on the Thursday. CW Yeah I’ll bear that in mind, that’s good. And hopefully I’ll have a better idea of what’s happening next week in terms of a timeline, but it sounds like it would be really good for us to get something up and running in time for April. SB Well I think so, I think you know, if, if it, yeah I mean, I know it’s a very short timescale, but I think that. CW Well I think sometimes you’ve just got to do things. SB Yeah, you’ve just got to do it. And even if you know, and then we should, we, so and it is, sit down with the manifestos, you’d have to, well depending on, on anything I can play around with, but we then see what, where your clients are coming from, what are the issues for them? CW 00:04:59 Yeah that sounds like a really good idea, and something I hadn’t thought of. SB Yes, cos it’s not, presumably this is why you want me to (...INAUDIBLE...). CW Yes, well precisely. Well it’s just your experience and your familiarity with this world that’s very useful. SB I’m glad someone’s going to find it useful. SB 00:05:01 So, you got a busy day ahead? CW Yeah I have. Lots of telephone calls and meetings, but should be ok. Did they take your coat for you? SB Yeah, that’s me. CW Ok, really nice to meet you, have a good afternoon, be in touch soon. Ok, bye.
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28. E-mail to the Commissioner from Rt Hon Stephen Byers, 29 June 2010
Please find attached my response549 to the issues raised in your letters of 23 March550 and 2 June.551 I also forward to you copies of e-mails I sent on 24 February552 and 25 February 553 and 11 March.554 [Material not relevant to this inquiry]
29 June 2010
29. Rt Hon Stephen Byers’ response to the questions raised by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, sent to the Commissioner 29 June 2010
Introduction
In early February I received an unsolicited approach from a woman calling herself Claire Webster. She said she was from a public affairs company called Anderson Perry and that she had been given the task of establishing a London office for the company. She asked whether I would be interested in discussing a role with Anderson Perry as a member of a soon to be established advisory board and/or as a consultant to their clients.
I said I would be interested and so we agreed to meet on 23 February.
The 23 February Meeting
This was very much a preliminary meeting. Nothing was agreed and no commitments were made either by myself or Claire Webster. This is accepted by the television company that organised the deception. I had understood that the meeting was to be private. That it was to be a confidential discussion about Anderson Perry’s objectives in setting up a London office and my own plans for employment after I stood down from Parliament at the forthcoming General Election.
During the meeting I totally exaggerated my experience in lobbying on behalf of commercial interests. I must accept that my overstatements were made in order to impress a possible prospective future employer. The meeting was held in the afternoon. That same evening I reflected on the statements I had made. I realised that some of them could not be allowed to stand and that I would need to take immediate steps to clarify the situation and withdraw some of my comments. I did this in e-mails sent the following morning (24 February) and on 25 February.555 After giving the whole matter further consideration I concluded that I should withdraw my name from consideration which I did in an e-mail sent on 11 March.556
My E-mails of 24, 25 February and 11 March
I attach copies of e-mails I sent following my discussion with Claire Webster on 23 February. My e-mail of 24 February was aimed at setting the record straight about the actual level of experience I had in relation to the lobbying of Ministers in the UK and to withdraw those statements I made during the meeting
549 WE 29 550 WE 22 551 WE 27 552 WE 30 553 WE 32 554 WE 33 555 WE 30, WE 32 556 WE 33
Sir John Butterfill, Mr Stephen Byers, Ms Patricia Hewitt, Mr Geoff Hoon, Mr Richard Caborn and Mr Adam Ingram 231
which were wrong. I also made it clear in this e-mail that I had completely over-stated the part I had played in securing changes to the way in which government dealt with issues.
On 25 February I sent a second e-mail in order to further clarify my comments. In particular I made it clear that I had not spoken to Andrew Adonis, Hilary Benn or Peter Mandelson about the matters I had mentioned during my meeting with Claire Webster. In this e-mail I also stressed that I didn’t have any experience of lobbying UK Government Ministers on behalf of commercial interests. Both of these e-mails were sent within 48 hours of my meeting. I knew that I should not have made the comments I did and so I took immediate steps to withdraw them and set the record straight. Having made my lack of experience in lobbying clear, I continued to give consideration as to whether I really wanted to be engaged by Anderson Perry. I concluded that I did not and so e-mailed on 11 March withdrawing my name from consideration. In this e-mail I indicated that in my opinion, Anderson Perry are looking for someone who will gain access to Ministers, open doors to relevant civil servants and generally lobby key decision makers in Government on behalf of commercial interests. I make it clear that I have no experience in this kind of work and that this is an aspect of public affairs work that I don’t feel comfortable about and is not something I would wish to be part of.
Questions from the Parliamentary Commissioner
I hope the above answers many of the questions raised by the Parliamentary Commissioner in his letters of 23 March and 2 June.
In particular my e-mail of 11 March makes it clear that I have no experience of gaining access to Ministers, open doors to relevant civil servants or generally lobby key decision makers in Government on behalf of commercial interests.
In addition I should make it clear that I was not in receipt of confidential information from Number 10; I did not know someone in Mr Cameron’s office ‘very well’; I did not use House facilities to discuss my future employment prospects and all of the work I did in addition to being a Member of Parliament was registered in the Register of Members Financial Interests. Like most Members I would give advice to friends, voluntary groups and charities when asked, for which nothing is received and no obligations entered into.
The dispute in Turkey concerned the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline for which Consolidated Contractors International was the major contractor. My role with them is registered.
I have always made a full declaration of my outside interests in the Register of Members Financial Interests.
Conclusion
If there are any questions which remain following this response then I would be happy to respond to them in a further submission.
I recognise that while I took immediate steps to withdraw and clarify the comments I made during the meeting on 23 February this is not an excuse for making the comments in the first place.
I could try and put together all sorts of reasons as to how I come to make the statements I did but I have to accept that I simply should not have spoken in such terms.
I therefore want to take this opportunity to offer my sincere and unreserved apologies to the House. I was wrong to have made the statements I did and am sorry for having done so.
232 Sir John Butterfill, Mr Stephen Byers, Ms Patricia Hewitt, Mr Geoff Hoon, Mr Richard Caborn and Mr Adam Ingram
29 June 2010
30. E-mail to Claire Webster, Anderson Perry Associates, from Rt Hon Stephen Byers MP, 24 February 2010
Really good to meet you yesterday. I have been reflecting on our discussion and I’m afraid I completely over- stated the part I have played in trying to secure changes to the way in which government deals with issues.
In reality I have not been engaged in lobbying Ministers here in the UK. My statements yesterday would have given the opposite impression and I would like to take this opportunity to withdraw them.
Given my lack of experience in this area it may well be the case that I’m not the appropriate person to carry out the work you are thinking of. No doubt you will wish to give this further thought.
I hope this clarifies matters and I’m pleased to have set the record straight with you. If you have any questions or would like to discuss further please don’t hesitate to get in touch. 24 February 2010
31. E-mail to Rt Hon Stephen Byers MP from Claire Webster, Anderson Perry Associates, 24 February 2010
Thanks for your e-mail. Sorry for my slow reply, I have been in meeting for most of today. I will speak to the board in the US over the next week or two about a shortlist and get back to you. It was nice to meet you yesterday. 24 February 2010
32. E-mail to Claire Webster, Anderson Perry Associates, from Rt Hon Stephen Byers MP, 25 February 2010
Thanks for this. As I said in my earlier e-mail and in my follow up phone call I felt it was important to make you aware that I don’t have any experience of lobbying UK Government Ministers on behalf of commercial interests.
In the context of our discussion on Tuesday this means that I have not spoken to Andrew Adonis, Hilary Benn or Peter Mandelson about the matters I mentioned. I’m sorry that I indicated otherwise but on reflection wanted you to be aware of my lack of experience in this area before you speak to your board in the US about a shortlist.
I hope this makes my position clear. If you have any questions don’t hesitate to get in touch. In fact I shall now be in Westminster for the next weeks so we could easily meet up again. Just let me know.
25 February 2010
33. E-mail to Claire Webster, Anderson Perry Associates, from Rt Hon Stephen Byers MP, 11 March 2010
I hope all is well and that the process of setting up the Anderson Perry operation in London is going to plan. Since we met I’ve given a good deal of thought to the role Anderson Perry want their Advisory Board members to play. From the questions you posed during our meeting it appears to me that you are looking for someone who will gain access to Ministers, open doors to relevant civil servants and generally lobby key decision makers in Government on behalf of commercial interests. Although I indicated to the contrary during our meeting I have made you aware in subsequent e-mails that I have no experience in this kind of work. To be totally open with you this is an aspect of public affairs work that I don’t feel comfortable about and is not something I would wish to be part of. I would therefore be grateful if you could withdraw my name from consideration as an Advisory Board member and I do apologise to you for wasting your time.
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11 March 2010
34. Letter to Rt Hon Stephen Byers from the Commissioner, 1 July 2010
Thank you for your e-mail of 29 June responding to my letters to you of 23 March and 2 June about this complaint in respect of the interview you gave to an undercover reporter earlier this year. I was very grateful for your explanation of the circumstances of the interview and the sequence of events. I have, of course, noted your statement that you totally exaggerated your experience of lobbying on behalf of commercial interests and the points you made in your e-mails to the interviewer of 24 February, 25 February and 11 March. I have noted too the letter of 17 March from your solicitors which covers a few of the detailed allegations which I asked you about.557 I would, however, be grateful if you could give me specific responses to each of the questions I set out in my letters to you of 23 March and 2 June. So far, I think that you have dealt with the first question in my letter of 23 March (a full account of the circumstances) and 2a, 2e, 2f, and 2h of the detailed questions in that letter. You have given me also a response to question 5, 7 and 9 in my letter of 2 June. You have not dealt directly with the remaining questions. I would be very grateful if you could now do so. In relation to the points you have so far made, and in response to the material you have sent me, I would like to ask you the following: In relation to the dispute in Turkey (question 5 in my letter of 2 June) you did, as you say, register your role as a consultant with Consolidated Contractors International. Could you, however, let me know whether you mediated in the dispute with Turkey, as suggested on pages 11 and 12 of the transcript, and, if so, whether you were paid a separate fee for that work?
5. In relation to the use of House facilities (question 9 of my letter of 2 June,) I have noted your statement that you did not use House facilities to discuss your future employment prospects. Your statement to the interviewer at page 18 of the transcript appears to suggest however that you intended to use House facilities for the purpose of meeting the fictional American employers (although of course it never happened). Do you agree that that was the clear impression you gave by your statement and do you consider that such a meeting would have been an acceptable use of House facilities?
6. Could you let me know whether, at the time you sent any of your e-mails to the person who had interviewed you, you had any inkling or suspicion that either the interviewer or the company she represented was not what it claimed to be?
7. I was grateful to have a copy of your solicitor’s letter of 17 March. Would it be possible to let me have a copy of the production company’s letter of 15 March to which this was a response, and any correspondence from the company or your solicitor following your solicitor’s letter of 17 March?
If you could let me have a response to this letter within the next two weeks, that would be most helpful. I am grateful for your assistance on this matter. 1 July 2010
35. E-mail to the Commissioner from Rt Hon Stephen Byers, 13 July 2010
Please find attached my response to the questions raised in your letters.558
I have sent a hard copy of the television production company’s letter of 15 March in the post. 559Please don’t hesitate to get in touch if you have any further questions or require any clarification.
557 Not included in the written evidence. 558 WE 24, 25, 34 559 Not included in the written evidence
234 Sir John Butterfill, Mr Stephen Byers, Ms Patricia Hewitt, Mr Geoff Hoon, Mr Richard Caborn and Mr Adam Ingram
13 July 2010
36. Supplementary Response by Rt Hon Stephen Byers to the Questions raised by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, 12 July 2010
In responding to the outstanding questions posed by the Parliamentary Commissioner I do not seek to excuse myself for making the comments in the first place. As I said in my original response I accept that I should not have spoken in the terms I did and offer my sincere and unreserved apologies to the House for having done so.
Questions in the Commissioner’s letter of 23 March
2 b) I have not done work for National Express or Rio Tinto. 2 c) I have not sought to gain access to civil servants on behalf of clients. 2 d) I am unaware of ways around the Act. 2g&i) No such discussions took place. 2 j) As I think the full transcript makes clear I was discussing the situation I would be in once I left Parliament. I mentioned the three positions that I hoped to keep. I recognise that the phrase, “I’m a bit like a sort of cab for hire, I suppose, at the moment”,560 is one that I should not have used. In a clumsy way I was trying to indicate that on leaving the House I would not be seeking a single, full time job but would be looking for a number of different employment opportunities. 2k &3) This is the level of fee I charged when making speeches to commercial organisations. These were always declared. For consultancy and advisory services I charged a fee lower than that mentioned. These were always declared. I have never entered into an agreement with any outside body that involved me in the provision of services in my capacity as a Member of Parliament. 4) I sent e-mails to the undercover reporter on 24, 25 February and 11 March. I also had a brief telephone conversation with the reporter on 24 February to alert her to the fact that I had sent an e-mail clarifying the remarks I had made during our meeting the day before. I have provided hard copies of the letter from the television company of 15 March and my solicitor’s letter of 17 March. My recollection is that there was then a brief reply from the television company saying they intended to go ahead with the broadcast on 22 March. 5) The allegations made are untrue. I have always made a full disclosure of any declarable interests and made the appropriate entry in the Register. 6) As I said in my original response I had understood that the meeting was to be private to enable a confidential discussion to take place about Anderson Perry’s ambitions and my own plans for employment after I had stood down from Parliament. Looking back it is clear that I was telling the undercover reporter what I thought she wanted to hear. I accept that I did so in order to impress a possible prospective future employer. Questions in the Commissioner’s letter of 2 June 1. In addition to those interests which I declared in the Register, I held unpaid positions as Vice President of Wallsend Boys Club; President of CORE (a group of community organisations in the north east promoting renewable energy); President of GLOBE International (a group of parliamentarians from G20 countries dealing with climate change and the environment); Chair of the Policy Council of Labour Friends of Israel and a member of the Editorial Board of Inside Ukraine, a publication of the International Centre for Policy Studies, Kiev. None of these constituted a declarable interest. 2. I have not asked for meetings with civil servants on behalf of a client. 3. No approach took place to any of those mentioned. 4. I have not performed such a service for clients.
6. I saw this as the beginning of a negotiation to establish a fee. As I said in my previous reply to questions 2 k) and 3) of the Commissioner’s letter of 23 March it is higher than the fee I was charging in respect of those interests I have registered. I had no other interests that needed to be registered.
560 WE 27, 00:04:45
Sir John Butterfill, Mr Stephen Byers, Ms Patricia Hewitt, Mr Geoff Hoon, Mr Richard Caborn and Mr Adam Ingram 235
8. This is not an accurate statement in respect of any General Election. Questions in the Commissioner’s letter of 1 July 1. Consolidated Contractors International were the main contractor for the construction of the pipeline and BP were the lead client. There was a commercial dispute between the two and I assisted the Consolidated Contractors team in the negotiations to achieve a settlement. This was part of my declared work for Consolidated Contractors International and I was not paid a separate fee. 2. I agree that I gave the impression that I would use the House in the manner described. I was unaware of any rule relating to the type of guest that a Member can invite to the House. 3. I have thought long and hard about whether I had any inkling or suspicion that things were not as they were claimed to be. Four months after the meeting it is difficult to say with certainty. All I can say is that I didn’t know at the time I sent my three e-mails that Anderson Perry was a fictitious company and that I had been deceived. My reason for sending the e-mails was because I knew that I couldn’t allow my comments of 23 February to stand and that I had to take immediate steps to withdraw and clarify them. 4. A hard copy of the television company’s letter of 15 March has been provided. I have no other correspondence between them and my recollection is that the television company rejected the points made by my solicitor and indicated that they intended to proceed with the broadcast on 22 March. 12 July 2010
37. Letter to Rt Hon Stephen Byers from the Commissioner, 14 July 2010
Thank you for your e-mail of 13 July responding to my letter to you of 1 July requesting your response to the remaining points which I put to you in that letter and in my previous letters of 23 March and 2 June. Thank you, too, for your letter of 11 July,561 with which you enclosed a copy of a letter to you of 15 March from the production company, for which I had asked. If it were possible for you to get from your solicitors a copy of the production company’s response to your letter to them of 17 March, that would be helpful, but clearly not essential. I have one matter to put to you arising from your response about National Express. I notice from Lord Adonis’s statement in the House of Lords of 22 March562 (attached) that he had a brief conversation with you in June 2009 about the East Coast main line and the situation then facing National Express. Could you confirm that you had such a conversation in June last year and let me know why you did so, and whether and in what terms you raised with him the difficulties then facing National Express? It would appear on the face of it that you may have been lobbying the Minister on behalf of National Express and if so, I would need to know why you did so. You have referred in your latest response to the rules in respect of the type of guest that a Member can invite to the House. I will be consulting the House authorities about that matter and will let you see their reply. In the meantime, if you could let me have a response to this letter within the next two weeks, that would be most helpful. 14 July 2010
38. Official Report, House of Lords, HL Deb 22 March 2010, cols 754–756
Railways: National Express Franchises Private Notice Question
Baroness Hanham: To ask Her Majesty’s Government what representations were made by either Stephen Byers or on his behalf to the Secretary of State for Transport and his department in relation to the National Express rail franchises; and if they will institute an urgent investigation into the allegations in the Sunday Times of 21 March 2010. The Secretary of State for Transport (Lord Adonis): My Lords, there is no truth whatever in the suggestion that Stephen Byers came to any arrangement with me on any matter relating to National Express. It is equally
561 Not included in the written evidence. 562 WE 38
236 Sir John Butterfill, Mr Stephen Byers, Ms Patricia Hewitt, Mr Geoff Hoon, Mr Richard Caborn and Mr Adam Ingram
untrue to suggest that National Express was allowed by the Government to avoid any of its rail contract obligations when the company’s east coast subsidiary announced its intention to default on its franchise on 1 July last year. Stephen Byers had a brief conversation in the House of Commons with me last June about the east coast main line. We discussed his experience in dealing with rail franchise difficulties when transport secretary. As regards the situation then facing National Express, I told him that despite the company’s difficulties, I had no intention whatever of renegotiating the east coast franchise on terms favourable to the company as the company was seeking in its approaches to my department. I told Mr Byers that such a move would undermine the rail franchise system and would not be in the best interests of taxpayers. This is precisely the policy that I pursued and announced to Parliament on 1 July last year when National Express indicated its intention to default on its east coast franchise. The Government declined to renegotiate the east coast contract. I required National Express to pay the full amount that was due for its failure to meet its contractual obligations under the east coast franchise, and I took every step that was legally possible in relation to the other National Express franchise contracts. This included my Statement to the House on 26 November that the company’s profitable East Anglia franchise would be terminated three years early, with all profits foregone. These are the facts. Any claims to the contrary are pure fantasy. Baroness Hanham: My Lords, I thank the Secretary of State for his personal explanation and for his response to my Question. When did he first become aware of the allegations which have been printed this weekend, and what communication has he or his department had with Stephen Byers since then? Will he also tell the House why Mr Byers was under the clear impression that he had, as he put it, a deal with the Secretary of State? Lord Adonis: My Lords, I became aware of the allegations when the production company behind the programme to be broadcast this evening contacted me last Tuesday or Wednesday; I cannot recall precisely which day. I have had no communication with Mr Byers since. I have not the faintest idea why Mr Byers said what he said to the undercover reporter, but I notice that he has withdrawn unreservedly the comments that he made. Lord Tyler: My Lords, setting aside the particular problem of the allocation of rail franchises, do the Government now think it is time to ban the revolving door through which former Ministers and senior civil servants take up very lucrative retainers, consultancies and directorships, and rapidly transfer their allegiance to commercial companies where they are thought to have knowledge and access to their former colleagues? Is it not time to have at least a five-year interval between having such appointments in the Government and taking up these particularly lucrative consultancies? Lord Adonis: My Lords, the noble Lord makes a good point about the need to examine further the rules on appointments which former Ministers and Members of both Houses can legitimately take up. However, on the question posed to me by the noble Baroness, I stress that I am accountable to this House for my actions as a Minister. The opening words of the Ministerial Code are: “Ministers of the Crown are expected to behave in a way that upholds the highest standards of propriety”. That is precisely how I have behaved throughout my dealings with National Express. Baroness Williams of Crosby: My Lords, it would be hard to argue for one moment that the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, was responsible for some of the things that are alleged in the Sunday Times report. However, I strongly support the argument put by my noble friend Lord Tyler that there is an absolute necessity for once again being much clearer about the rules that link the position of Ministers, particularly Ministers who have recently left office, with possible future commercial appointments. The position has become very unclear, very weak and very fuzzy. Does the Minister not agree that it is important to protect honourable Ministers such as himself by making these rules much clearer and more transparent than they are today? Lord Adonis: I agree with everything that the noble Baroness has said, and I am very grateful for her personal remarks. Lord Clinton-Davis: Does my noble friend agree that he has been most unfairly traduced? He has done the House of Lords a great service by being as frank and open as he has been. Lord Adonis: My Lords, I have done nothing for which I owe the House an explanation or any apology. The fact that comments that are entirely unsubstantiated have been made does not, I hope, reflect on my personal conduct in this matter.
Sir John Butterfill, Mr Stephen Byers, Ms Patricia Hewitt, Mr Geoff Hoon, Mr Richard Caborn and Mr Adam Ingram 237
39. E-mail to the Commissioner from Rt Hon Stephen Byers, 20 July 2010
Thank you for your letter of 14th July.563 As requested, I attach the reply sent by Channel 4.564 No reply was made by myself or my solicitors to this letter. With regard to Lord Adonis’ statement in the House of Lords of 22nd March, I can confirm that I did have a brief conversation with him in June of last year in the terms he stated. I raised the future of the East Coast main line franchise with him in my role as a Member of Parliament trying my best to represent the concerns and interests of my constituents. The East Coast main line actually runs through my former constituency of North Tyneside. A number of my former constituents were employed by National Express in the operation of the franchise and many former constituents used the service as passengers. In June 2009 there was a good deal of speculation and uncertainty about the future of the franchise. Former constituents were worried about job security and terms and conditions of employment. Members of the travelling public wanted assurances about reliability and punctuality. My sole reason for meeting the Secretary of State in June of last year was to raise these concerns on behalf of my constituents. I was not putting forward a case on behalf of National Express. 20 July 2010
40. Letter to Rt Hon Stephen Byers from the Commissioner, 20 July 2010
Thank you for your e-mail of 20 July responding to my letter to you of 14 July about this complaint. I am most grateful for your prompt response and for a copy of the letter of 17 March 2010 from Channel 4 television in response to your solicitor’s letter of the same date. I was grateful to have the information about your conversation with Lord Adonis in June last year. In view of what you say, I am likely to need to come to a view on your statement that you were speaking on behalf of your constituents and not of National Express. In the light of that, could you let me know what points you made to Lord Adonis; could you let me know approximately how many constituents raised this with you and in what fora; and could you confirm that you had no discussions or contacts with any representatives of National Express either before or after your meeting with Lord Adonis? In the light of the information you have supplied about your discussion with Lord Adonis, could you let me know whether you had any discussions or contact at all on water matters with the Rt Hon Hilary Benn MP when he was Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; or with his officials or with Ofwat; or with Lord Mandelson on food labelling regulations when he was Secretary of State for Business? And could you confirm that you have had no discussions at any time with Tesco representatives on food labelling regulations? I need to be clear whether as with Lord Adonis, you did have some discussions with each of the people or bodies indentified, albeit not in the terms you described in your interview. I would be very grateful if you could let me have a response to these questions within the next two weeks. I am most grateful for your very prompt responses so far. In the meantime, I have written to the House authorities about use of the House refreshment facilities, and will let you see their response as soon as I receive it. Thank you again for your help. 20 July 2010
41. E-mail to the Commissioner from Rt Hon Stephen Byers, 12 August 2010
Thank you for your letter of 20th July. Please excuse my delay in replying but I have only just seen it on my return to the UK. With regard to my meeting with Lord Adonis in the House of Commons in June 2009, I think it’s worth saying that most of our conversation was about the general political scene, given the government had done very badly in the recently held European and local elections, James Purnell had resigned from the Cabinet, I personally had called for the Prime Minister to stand down, and Andrew had accepted a place in the Cabinet.
563 WE 37 564 The reply was to Mr Byers’ letter of 17 March. See WE 37.
238 Sir John Butterfill, Mr Stephen Byers, Ms Patricia Hewitt, Mr Geoff Hoon, Mr Richard Caborn and Mr Adam Ingram
I had worked with Lord Adonis since he was in the Policy Unit at No.10 in the late 1990’s, and this kind of political discussion was something we enjoyed engaging in together. I did also use the opportunity of the meeting to have a brief conversation with him about the East Coast franchise and the concerns of my constituents. We discussed in general terms the rail franchising system and the difficulties it caused. I remember expressing the view that, in a situation like this, uncertainty was not good and that he should try and reach a decision on the East Coast franchise as soon as possible. He replied that as he had no intention of entering into a renegotiation of the franchise he should be in a position to decide sooner rather than later. In fact, he made his decision a few weeks later on 1 July. During May and June 2009, it was widely known that National Express were in discussions with the Department of Transport about the East Coast franchise. It was first raised with me through political channels in my constituency as the railway trade unions were running a campaign calling for the franchise to be ‘re- nationalised’ and taken over by the government. The future of the franchise was also raised during my constituency advice surgeries, by at least one employee of National Express concerned about job security, and by another constituent worried about possible disruption to the service if the franchise changed hands again, GNER having originally held the franchise until they pulled out and it was taken over by National Express. In late May or early June 2009 I met with Richard Bowker who at the time was Chief Executive of National Express. I first met Richard in 2001 when I appointed him to head the Strategic Rail Authority and since then we had remained in contact. Our conversation was wide-ranging. We did, in the course of it, discuss the problems he was having with the East Coast franchise but at no stage did he ask me to intervene on behalf of National Express with Lord Adonis. In fact, about a month after our meeting he resigned as Chief Executive of National Express. Although I do not know the exact date, it was during this period that I was one of a number of Members with constituencies on the route of the East Coast railway line who were spoken to by National Express about the discussions they were having with the Department of Transport about the franchise. This simply took the form of a briefing for information purposes. At no time did I speak to Lord Adonis on behalf of National Express. I can confirm that I had no discussions or contact at all on water matters with Hilary Benn; or with his officials or with Ofwat, and that I had no discussions or contact at all with Peter Mandelson or Tesco representatives concerning food labelling regulations. I trust this response provides a full answer to your questions. Please do not hesitate to get in touch if clarification is required on any further matters. 12 August 2010
42. Letter to Rt Hon Stephen Byers from the Commissioner, 12 August 2010
Thank you for your e-mailed letter of 12 August responding to mine of 20 July with some further points arising from this complaint. I was grateful for this response and recognise why you were not able to let me have an earlier reply. It would appear that you were briefed by a National Express representative sometime in the spring of 2009 and then had a meeting with the then Chief Executive shortly before you met Lord Adonis. It might seem, therefore, that you were the subject of some lobbying activity by National Express. It might be reasonable to infer that the information they gave you was relevant, at least, to, and may have helped to inform, your conversation with Lord Adonis, along with the points which had been made to you by two of your constituents and the railway trade unions. I note that National Express are quoted in the Sunday Times article of 21 March as saying that they did not pay you and that you have told me (on 12 July) that you had not done work for that company. I would welcome your comments on this interpretation of the evidence which you have given me and for your confirmation that you have received no payments from National Express. In the light of what you have told me, it would also be helpful to have a little more information to clarify the position: 1. who from National Express gave you your briefing; was it one to one briefing or were you part of a group; and did National Express make clear what outcome they were seeking from the Government? 2. did the National Express representative make any suggestion that you might assist them by making appropriate representations to the Government?
Sir John Butterfill, Mr Stephen Byers, Ms Patricia Hewitt, Mr Geoff Hoon, Mr Richard Caborn and Mr Adam Ingram 239
3. in respect of your meeting with the Chief Executive, did he ask for the meeting; and did he make clear what outcome he was seeking from the Government? 4. can you confirm whether, after the initial conversation you have described to me, you had any further contacts with Lord Adonis or his civil servants about National Express or the East Coast franchise? If you could let me have a response by the end of this month, that would be most helpful. Meanwhile, I await a reply from the House authorities about your use of entertainment facilities which I referred to in my letter to you of 14 July. Thank you for your continued help on this matter. 12 August 2010
43. E-mail to the Commissioner from Rt Hon Stephen Byers, 31 August 2010
Thank you for your further letter of 12 August. With regard to the general point you raise about being the subject of some lobbying activity, it is important to correct your assumption that the briefing from National Express took place sometime in the spring of 2009 before my meeting with Lord Adonis. Although I have no record of the exact date of the briefing I am confident that it took place after my meeting with Lord Adonis. I can confirm that I have received no payments from National Express. With regard to your four specific questions: 1. The National Express briefing was over the telephone. I do not remember who made the call. I understand from a statement made by National Express in response to the Sunday Times/Dispatches programme that I was one of a number of Members spoken to at this time because the East Coast line runs through our constituencies. I do not recall any specific desired outcomes being made clear. It was more of an update on their discussions with the Department of Transport. 2. There was no suggestion that I might assist National Express by making representations to the Government. 3. My meeting with the Chief Executive was an informal affair and I do not remember who asked for it. The East Coast franchise formed a small part of a far more wide-ranging conversation. He mentioned no specific outcome that he was seeking—that simply wasn’t in keeping with the nature and tone of our meeting. 4. As Lord Adonis said in his statement to the House of Lords on 22 March, we did have a brief conversation in June 2009. I can confirm that I had no further contact with Lord Adonis or his civil servants about National Express or the East Coast franchise. I hope this reply is helpful to your inquiry. 31 August 2010
44. Letter to Rt Hon Stephen Byers from the Commissioner, 1 September 2010
Thank you for your e-mail of 31 August responding to my letter of 12 August about this complaint. I was most grateful for this response. The sequence of your discussion with the representatives of National Express is, of course, the opposite of what you told the interviewer (on page 9 of the transcript).565 I would be grateful if you could let me know whether your informal discussion with the Chief Executive of National Express took place before or after your meeting with Lord Adonis. You told me in your e-mail of 12 August that this discussion took place in late May or early June, which suggests that it was held shortly before you saw Lord Adonis. But I would be grateful for your help on this. I would be very grateful for a response to this letter within the next week. Meanwhile, I am in touch with the Director of Catering and Retail Services and would hope to let you have her response shortly.
565 WE 27, 00:03:25 to 00:03:31
240 Sir John Butterfill, Mr Stephen Byers, Ms Patricia Hewitt, Mr Geoff Hoon, Mr Richard Caborn and Mr Adam Ingram
1 September 2010
45. E-mail to the Commissioner from Rt Hon Stephen Byers, 5 September 2010
Thank you for your letter of 1 September. For the sake of accuracy and hopefully not being too pedantic, I don’t think it’s correct to describe a telephone briefing from one person as “a discussion with the representatives of National Express”. You are right to point out that what actually took place is not reflected in the transcript of my interview with the undercover reporter. As I have stated in my responses to you; in my e-mails to the reporter and from my solicitor’s letter to the production company, I totally exaggerated my experience in lobbying on behalf of commercial interests. My comments were made at what I had been told was a private and confidential discussion about my employment plans when I ceased to be a Member. I accept that my overstatements— which I took immediate steps to clarify and withdraw—were made in order to impress a possible prospective future employer. With regard to my informal meeting with the Chief Executive, although I cannot be precise about the date, I do believe it took place before my brief discussion with Lord Adonis. I hope this is helpful. 5 September 2010
46. Letter to Rt Hon Stephen Byers from the Commissioner, 6 September 2010
Thank you for your e-mail of 5 September responding to my letter of 1 September about this complaint. I have noted what you said about the telephone briefing, although I note also that the Sunday Times “Insight” article of 21 March reported that National Express said that they had had “discussions” with a number of MPs whose constituencies lay along the East Coast main line.566 In respect of your meeting with the Chief Executive of National Express, which I note you believe took place before your brief discussion with Lord Adonis, I recall that you told me in your e-mail of 12 August that you had raised with Lord Adonis the concerns of your constituents.567 It would be helpful to know if these concerns coincided with what you understood to be the concerns of the Chief Executive of National Express on this matter. It would also be helpful to know if you mentioned to Lord Adonis that as well as your constituents’ interests, the Chief Executive of National Express had raised the matter with you? And would I be right in assuming that you were anyway aware of and took account of the Chief Executive’s views when you had your meeting with Lord Adonis? I have taken from your evidence that the “source close to Richard Bowker” quoted in the Sunday Times on 21 March was wrong in all respects to suggest among other things that this company had a commercial relationship with you (and so, by implication, had either paid or promised you payment) and that you were acting on their behalf. If this is mistaken, please let me know. I have been most grateful for your prompt responses during this inquiry and look forward to hearing from you. 6 September 2010
47. Letter to Director of Catering and Retail Services, House of Commons, from the Commissioner, 14 July 2010
I would welcome your guidance on a matter which has arisen in the course of an inquiry I am undertaking into a complaint against the Rt Hon Stephen Byers for an interview he gave to an undercover reporter when he was the Member for North Tyneside, parts of which were subsequently broadcast. Mr Byers thought that he was being interviewed for a job on an advisory board and as a consultant once he had stood down as a Member of Parliament. The employers were said to be based in America. The interviewer told Mr Byers that if someone was coming over from America in the next couple of weeks she thought that it would be good for Mr Byers to meet them. Mr Byers responded, “We can meet over in Westminster, you can
566 WE 1 567 WE 41
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come along as well, we can have a drink in one of the nice places there.” The interviewer said that that would be a good idea and Mr Byers responded: “The Americans love it, by the way”. No such meeting, of course, took place, since the company was fictitious. But the question on which I need your advice is whether it is within the rules in relation to access to the House and its refreshment facilities, for a Member to invite a prospective employer to a drink in a House of Commons bar in order to discuss their personal employment prospects. I would be very grateful for your advice on this point. I will copy your advice to Mr Byers and you can expect it to be included in the evidence which would be published along with any report which I produce on this matter. If you could let me have a response to this letter within the next two weeks, I would be most grateful. 14 July 2010
48. Letter to the Commissioner from the Director of Catering and Retail Services, 27 August 2010
Further to your letter of 14 July 2010, I can only advise you that with the exception of the banqueting regulations, there are no specific regulations relating to the use of catering facilities in the House of Commons. However, the general principles and codes of conduct communicated to Members through various documents and channels apply equally to their conduct in using the refreshment facilities as they do to the use of other House facilities. I am sorry that I cannot be more specific. 27 August 2010
49. Letter to Department of Catering and Retail Services from the Commissioner, 1 September 2010
Thank you for your letter of 27 August responding to mine of 14 July about this complaint against the Rt Hon Stephen Byers.
I note that in your view the general principles and code of conduct communicated to Members apply equally to their use of refreshment facilities as they do to other House facilities. I have noted that the 2010 Members’ Handbook includes the following: “The House provides various facilities and services to Members, the cost of which is either met in full or subsidised by public funds. These include, for example:
• Accommodation, including offices and meeting rooms • Research support • ICT equipment and services • Catering facilities • Stationery.
These facilities and services are provided in order to assist Members in their parliamentary work. They should be used appropriately, in such a way as to ensure that the reputation of the House is not put at risk. They should not be used for party political campaigning or private business activity.” I would be grateful if you could confirm within the next week that these principles applied in the last Parliament and that they were the ones you had in mind. I will then copy your responses to Mr Byers for any comments he may wish to make. As you know, your letter will be included in the evidence which I have obtained in the course of this inquiry and you can expect it to be published with the memorandum which I submit to the Committee on Standards and Privileges when it comes to publish its own report. Thank you for your help with this.
242 Sir John Butterfill, Mr Stephen Byers, Ms Patricia Hewitt, Mr Geoff Hoon, Mr Richard Caborn and Mr Adam Ingram
1 September 2010
50. Letter to the Commissioner from Director of Catering and Retail Services, 6 September 2010
Thank you for your letter of 02 September. I am aware from conversations with your predecessors that guidance is given to Members setting out the general principles and codes of conduct that they should adhere to in conducting their parliamentary duties, and, specifically, in making use of parliamentary facilities. The extract you have quoted from the 2010 Members' Handbook is indeed the sort of guidance I had in mind, but I am unable to confirm if this wording is unchanged from previous versions or, indeed, whether or how any other guidance might have been given to Members. I can merely re-state that no explicit guidance is issued by my Directorate, other than with regard to the use of the banqueting facilities. 6 September 2010
51. Letter to Rt Hon Stephen Byers from the Commissioner, 7 September 2010
When I wrote to you on 14 July, I said that I would be consulting the House authorities about the rules in respect of the type of guest that a Member can invite to the House. I have now heard back from the Facilities Department. I enclose a copy of my letter to the Department of 14 July; their response of 27 August; my follow-up letter to them of 1 September; and their response of 6 September.568 As you will see, the Department’s advice is that there are no specific regulations in relation to the use of catering facilities in the House of Commons, but they would expect the general principles and Codes of Conduct to apply equally to Members’ conduct in using the refreshment facilities as they do to their use of other House facilities. The 2010 Members’ Handbook states that House facilities and services “should not be used for party political campaigning or private business activity” and I understand that this was the sort of guidance which the Facilities Department had in mind in referring to the general rules in respect of House facilities. I would be grateful for any comments you may wish to make on the Department’s advice, including whether you consider that your suggestion that you would meet the fictitious American company representatives in Westminster for a drink “in one of the nice places there” (page 18 of the transcript)569 suggested that you were offering to use House facilities for private business purposes namely to discuss your possible employment once you had left the House. It would be helpful if you could incorporate your response to this letter in your reply to my letter of 6 September. If you could let me have a response to both letters within the next two weeks, I would be most grateful. [Procedural matters.] I look forward to hearing from you. 7 September 2010
52. E-mail to the Commissioner from Rt Hon Stephen Byers, 16 September 2010
Thank you for your letters of 6, 7 and 9 September.570 With regard to the points you raise in your letter of 6 September, the views expressed by the Chief Executive were not the same as the concerns of my constituents. I think it unlikely that I would have mentioned to Lord Adonis that I had met the Chief Executive but given the time lag I cannot be absolutely certain. While I was obviously aware of the Chief Executive’s views this does not mean that I reflected them in my comments to Lord Adonis. As I have said in an earlier response, in my brief conversation with Lord Adonis about the franchise I raised the concerns of my constituents—and
568 WE 47 to WE 50 569 WE 27, 00:04:53 570 My letter of 9 September is not included in the written evidence.
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nobody else. In relation to the quote in the Sunday Times from an unidentified source, I can confirm that it is wrong in all respects. Concerning your letters of 7 and 9 September, I note that the 2010 Members' Handbook was issued in May 2010. I understand that the Members' Handbook that applied at the time of the conduct which is the subject of the complaint was the one published in May 2008. I have gone through it and cannot find guidance of the kind you refer to which is contained in the 2010 version. The only reference relevant to the complaint would appear to be at page 48 which states, “Members may entertain guests”. There does not appear to be any guidance about the type of guest that might be entertained. I hope this reply is of assistance. 16 September 2010
53. Letter to Rt Hon Stephen Byers from the Commissioner, 16 September 2010
Thank you for your e-mail of 16 September responding to my letters of 6 and 7 September and my clarification of 9 September.571 I was grateful for your response to my letter of 6 September about your meeting with the Chief Executive of National Express. I have no further points to raise with you on this matter. I have noted also your response to my letter of 7 September about the use of refreshment facilities. I have noted that you consider that there was no restriction at the time in using catering facilities for business purposes. The letter of 6 September from the Director of Catering and Retail Services suggests, however, that the 2010 Guidance was the sort of guidance which she had in mind as applying to the use of refreshment facilities, although she could not say whether it was unchanged from previous versions (and, as you say, it was indeed changed). I do, however, need to consider whether the more specific provision in the 2010 Handbook was likely to have articulated a more longstanding expectation. It could be argued that that expectation was based on the understanding, as reflected in respect of expenses in successive Green Books, that parliamentary facilities should be used only for the purpose of a Member carrying out their parliamentary duties. I have taken no view on this matter myself. But it would be helpful in coming to such a view if you could let me know whether you consider that the arrangement you suggested during the course of the interview with the undercover reporter was consistent with a principle that parliamentary facilities should be used only in support of a Member's parliamentary duties and that meeting fictitious American company representatives in Westminster for a drink was an offer to use House facilities for purposes other than parliamentary business, namely to discuss your possible employment once you had left the House. I would be most grateful if you could help me on this matter. If you could let me have a response to this letter within the next two weeks, I would hope that that would enable me to bring this inquiry to a conclusion. Thank you for your help. 16 September 2010
54. E-mail to the Commissioner from Rt Hon Stephen Byers, 20 September 2010
Thank you for your letter of 16 September. I do recognise that if the view is taken that at the time of the complaint the only guests who could be entertained by a Member were those relevant to a Member's parliamentary duties, then my invitation went beyond this. As I said in my reply of 16 September, the Members' Handbook in force at the time of my invitation makes no reference to any restriction on the type of guest that could be entertained. The most recent version of the Handbook published in May 2010 does introduce restrictions. You raise the provisions contained in the Green Book. I was unaware that the principles that applied to the claiming of parliamentary expenses would also apply to the type of guest that a Member could invite to the House. I hope this reply is of assistance.
571 WE 52,46 and WE 51. The letter of 9 September is not included in the written evidence.
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20 September 2010
55. Letter to Rt Hon Stephen Byers from the Commissioner, 29 September 2010
As you will know from my letter of 21 September,572 I am now preparing the factual sections of my draft memorandum to the Committee on Standards and Privileges about this complaint. There was one point which, for the sake of completeness, I would be grateful if you could confirm. It relates to whether you at any time had a meeting with the then Secretary of State for the Department of Food and Rural Affairs (Rt Hon Hilary Benn) in respect of food labelling regulations. You told me in the response you sent me in your letter of 13 July that you had had no discussions with senior representatives at Tesco before raising the issue of food labelling regulations with DEFRA or Lord Mandelson. In your e-mail of 12 August, in response to the specific questions I had asked you in my letter of 20 July, you confirmed that you had no discussions or contact at all with Lord Mandelson or Tesco representatives concerning food labelling regulations. I did not specifically ask you, however, about any contacts you had with the Secretary of State. Could you therefore confirm that you had no contact with the then Secretary of State for the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs in relation to any aspect of food labelling? It would be very helpful if you could let me have a response to this within the next week so that I can incorporate it in to the draft factual sections of my memorandum, which, once they are completed, I will show you. Thank you for your help. 29 September 2010
56. E-mail to the Commissioner from Rt Hon Stephen Byers, 7 October 2010
Thank you for your letter of 29 September. I can confirm that at no time did I have a meeting with the then Secretary of State for the Department of Food and Rural Affairs (Rt Hon Hilary Benn) in respect of food labelling regulations. 7 October 2010
572 Not included in the written evidence
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3 Rt Hon Patricia Hewitt
57. Letter to Rt Hon Patricia Hewitt MP from the Commissioner, 23 March 2010
I would welcome your help on a complaint I have received from Ms Justine Greening MP about your conduct in respect of an interview you gave to an undercover reporter, in respect of an alleged possible appointment. Since I have decided to accept this complaint, I do not need exceptionally to conduct my inquiry on the basis of the self-referral you sent me with your e-mail of 22 March. I attach the complainant’s letter of 22 March inasmuch as it affects the complaint against you.573 I know you will have seen the Sunday Times report of 21 March on which this complaint is based, as well as the Channel 4 Dispatches programme of 22 March. In essence, the complaint is that you may have been engaged in lobbying activities in a way which is contrary to the rules of the House; that your conduct during an interview with a person who subsequently revealed herself as a journalist was contrary to the rules; that that conduct was not such as to maintain or strengthen the public’s trust in the integrity of Parliament; and that it brought the House of Commons into disrepute. The Code of Conduct for Members of Parliament provides the following rules of Conduct: “ 9. Members shall base their conduct on a consideration of the public interest, avoid conflict between personal interest and the public interest and resolve any conflict between the two, at once, and in favour of the public interest.
“10. No Member shall act as a paid advocate in any proceeding of the House.
“11. The acceptance by a Member of a bribe to influence his or her conduct as a Member, including any fee, compensation or reward in connection with the promotion of, or opposition to, any Bill, Motion, or other matter submitted, or intended to be submitted to the House, or to any Committee of the House, is contrary to the law of Parliament.
“12. In any activities with, or on behalf of, an organisation with which a Member has a financial relationship, including activities which may not be a matter of public record such as informal meetings and functions, he or she must always bear in mind the need to be open and frank with Ministers, Members and officials.
“13. Members must bear in mind that information which they receive in confidence in the course of their parliamentary duties should be used only in connection with those duties, and that such information must never be used for the purpose of financial gain.
[...]
“15. Members shall at all times conduct themselves in a manner which will tend to maintain and strengthen the public’s trust and confidence in the integrity of Parliament and never undertake any action which would bring the House of Commons, or its Members generally, into disrepute.”
The Code provides also in respect of the registration and declaration of interests as follows: “16. Members shall fulfil conscientiously the requirements of the House in respect of the registration of interests in the Register of Members’ Interests and shall always draw attention to any relevant interest in any proceeding of the House or its Committees, or in any communications with Ministers, Government Departments or Executive Agencies.”
The Guide to the Rules sets out categories of registrable interests including Category 2 as follows:
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“Remunerated employment, office, profession, etc: Employment, office, trade, profession or vocation (apart from membership of the House or ministerial office) which is remunerated or in which the Member has any financial interest. Membership of Lloyd’s should be registered under this Category”
The rules in relation to Category 2 set out in the Guide for 2005 (which may be the one most relevant to this part of the complaint) includes the following in paragraph 19: “All employment outside the House and any sources of remuneration which do not fall clearly within any other Category should be registered here if the value of the remuneration exceeds 1 per cent of the current parliamentary salary. When registering employment, Members should not simply state the employer company and the nature of its business, but should also indicate the nature of the post which they hold in the company or the services for which the company remunerates them. Members who have paid posts as consultants or advisers should indicate the nature of the consultancy, for example ‘management consultant’, ‘legal adviser’, ‘parliamentary and public affairs consultant’.”
The Guide to the Rules also sets out the requirements where a Member has an agreement for the provision of services in his or her capacity as a Member of Parliament. It includes the following: “Any Member proposing to enter into an agreement which involves the provision of services in his capacity as a Member of Parliament shall conclude such an agreement only if it conforms to the Resolution of the House of 6th November 1995 relating to Conduct of Members; and a full copy of any such agreement including the fees or benefits payable in bands of: up to £5,000, £5,001–£10,000, and thereafter in bands of £5,000, shall be deposited with the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards at the same time as it is registered in the Register of Members’ Interests and made available for inspection and reproduction by the public.”
More detailed provisions are set out in paragraph 49 to 54 of the 2005 Guide. Section 2 of the 2005 Guide deals with the Declaration of Members’ Interests. You may wish to read this in full. Paragraph 55 of the 2005 Guide provides as follows: “In 1974 the House replaced a long standing convention with a rule that any relevant pecuniary interest or benefit of whatever nature, whether direct or indirect, should be declared in debate, or other proceeding. The same rule places a duty on Members to disclose to Ministers, or servants of the Crown, all relevant interests. The term ‘servants of the Crown’ should be interpreted as applying to the staff of executive agencies as well as to all staff employed in government departments.”
The rules in relation to lobbying for reward or consideration set out in section 3 of the Guide. You will wish to read this in full. Paragraph 72 of the 2005 guide provides as follows: “This Resolution prohibits paid advocacy. It is wholly incompatible with the rule that any Member should take payment for speaking in the House. Nor may a Member, for payment, vote, ask a Parliamentary Question, table a Motion, introduce a Bill or table or move an Amendment to a Motion or Bill or urge colleagues or Ministers to do so.”
Paragraph 73 provides: “The Resolution does not prevent a Member from holding a remunerated outside interest as a director, consultant, or adviser, or in any other capacity, whether or not such interests are related to membership of the House. Nor does it prevent a Member from being sponsored by a trade union or any other organisation, or holding any other registrable interest, or from receiving hospitality in the course of his or her parliamentary duties whether in the United Kingdom or abroad.”
I would welcome your comments on the allegations made against you in the light of this summary of the rules. In particular, it would be helpful if you could: 1. Give me a full account of the circumstances in which you came to be interviewed by someone who turned out to be a journalist;
2. If you could confirm what you are reported to have said during that interview, and whether each such statement is true, in particular in relation to the following:
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a) That it was “very do-able” to put your business clients in touch with a Minister, but “you have to be … quite careful about … how you do it”, and what you meant to imply by that574;
b) That you suggest five ways for your client to meet a Minister and, if so, whether you have advised any outside body or private company to lobby in any of these ways and what were the circumstances;
c) That you put Partnerships in Care in touch with those working on Lord Bradley’s inquiry, to enable PiC to give evidence to that inquiry and for Lord Bradley to visit one of PiC’s establishments—and, if true, how that came about, how you achieved it and why it was necessary;
d) That you persuaded the Chairman of the Health and Criminal Justice National Advocacy Group to invite PiC to join the Advocacy Group—and, if true, how you achieved this;
e) That PiC was your client—and, if so, what remuneration you received from PiC or indirectly from Cinven, and for what services;
f) That you responded, “Exactly,” to the interviewer’s statement that you had got PiC “into the system … with a view to getting further contracts, presumably, and being able to expand their work”;
g) That you spoke to “both officials and Ministers” about changing a carbon reduction regulation that helped Cinven and other private equity companies—and, if true, how you achieved this;
3. Confirm whether you have at any time been paid £3,000 a day for consultancy or other services, and if so, by whom and whether you registered these payments;
4. Confirm what subsequent communications you or your legal advisers had with the reporters;
5. Confirm, if any of the allegations are true, whether you considered you had an obligation to make a Register entry or declaration, or both, in respect of any financial interest you had in these alleged activities;
6. Confirm, if any of what you said was untrue, why you spoke as you did.
Any other points you may wish to make to help me with this inquiry would, of course, be most welcome. I am writing to the Channel 4 programme makers to invite them to let me have any unbroadcast parts of your interview and, if they do so, I may need to ask you about these. I would be grateful for a response to this letter within the next three weeks. You will appreciate, I know, that we are now very close to the Dissolution of Parliament. I do not expect, therefore, to be able to conclude this inquiry before then. I will, however, resume it once Parliament has been re-established and I know I will be able to look to you for cooperation on this after you have left the House. I enclose a note which sets out the procedure I follow. If you would like a word about any of this please contact me at the House. I look forward to your help on this matter. 23 March 2010
58. Letter to Rt Hon Patricia Hewitt from the Commissioner, 2 June 2010
I have now received the transcript of your conversation and interview with the Channel 4 reporter which is the subject of this complaint. I attach a copy of the certified transcript of your telephone conversation and of your interview with the undercover reporter. This material is confidential to my inquiry and subject to parliamentary privilege. If it were disclosed to anyone else during the course of my inquiries, that would, as you know, be a contempt of the House. I would be grateful, therefore, if you did not disclose these transcripts further or use them for any other purpose.
574 WE 59, 00:55:04
248 Sir John Butterfill, Mr Stephen Byers, Ms Patricia Hewitt, Mr Geoff Hoon, Mr Richard Caborn and Mr Adam Ingram
When I wrote to you on 23 March, I said that I might need to ask you further questions arising from the full transcript. The questions on which I would welcome your help are: 1. Could you confirm your remunerated directorships and other employment at the time of the interview, and that each was registered in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests in accordance with the rules? 2. On page 20 you described how you were able to introduce Partnerships in Care to NHS managers and senior Department of Health officials. Could you confirm this and let me know whether on each occasion you declared to these officials your work with Cinven and the relationship between Partnerships in Care and Cinven? 3. You describe on pages 25 and 26 that you had conversations with officials and Ministers about the CRC regulations—and on page 27 that you kept talking to officials—because of their effect on private equity firms. Could you let me know whether you declared your interest as a senior adviser to Cinven on each occasion when you conducted these meetings? 4. On page 29 you say, “So if you’ve got a client who needs a particular regulation removed, then we can often package that up in a way that will give the Minister a win, and with a new Government, committed to less regulation, that’s an attractive argument to make.” Could you let me know whether you, as implied, undertook such actions when you were a Member of Parliament, whether you did so in support of any of the companies which remunerated you, and, if so, whether you declared your interest to the Minister or officials whom you contacted; 5. You say on page 31, in relation to civil servants, that you “make a point of being in touch” and, on page 55, that “you need just to have a sort of eye to propriety and all of that … But I mean I have regular lunches and coffees and you know we’re all mates really.” Could you let me know whether you have indeed had such contacts with civil servants; if so, whether they have covered matters of interest to your clients; and, if so, whether you have declared your interest during those occasions? 6. You describe from pages 58 to 61 actions which you imply you have taken to change a directive or legislation. Could you confirm that you did take such action when you were a Member of Parliament; that, as implied, you did so on behalf of a client; and, if so, whether you declared your interest? 7. Finally, could you confirm the date of the interview? Any other points you may wish to draw to my attention, either about the context or particular references, would, of course, be most welcome. I would be grateful to receive a response to this letter and to my initial letter of 23 March. I appreciate that you may need a little time to work through the transcript, so I would be very grateful if you could let me have a response by the end of this month. 2 June 2010
59. Dispatches ‘Politicians for Hire’—Transcript of Telephone Conversation with Rt Hon Patricia Hewitt MP, 25 February 2010
Telephone conversation between [name], under the name Claire Webster (“CW”) and Patricia Hewitt (“PH”) CW calling PH PH Patricia Hewitt here. CW Hello Patricia, it’s er Claire Webster here. I think you were calling me back when I was leaving a message. PH Yes, hello! PH Absolutely. Yes I think our phones [laughs] yes have been talking to each other! CW Yes, I’m sorry about that. PH No, no don’t worry. CW Is it a convenient time for you to speak? PH Yes, absolutely, yes it’s fine. CW Well, let me just explain a little bit about my call. I work for an American company called Anderson Perry and I’ve just opened up a London office in the last month or so and one of the things I’m looking to do over the next couple of months is er to kind of produce a board for the UK company that can advise us and our um companies...help us break into the UK market, what kind of strategy they should be following, and all that kind of thing really. PH Indeed.
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CW ...and your name came up, I asked one of my colleagues to do some research into people who might be interested in this kind of work and I think she spoke to a number of people and did some paper research and I really wanted to find out if it was the kind of thing you might be interested in getting involved in? PH Well in principle, yes, I mean I do some advisory work already I’m on the Barclays Capital Asia Pacific Advisory Board um and I also do advisory work for Cinven, the private equity house, and Alliance Boots. CW That must be interesting. PH Yes fascinating stuff, it’s very nice. I mean, my main business role which will be my main role after I step down from Parliament is I’m a non executive Director, I’m a senior director, on BT. I’m on their board. Tell me a bit more about Anderson Perry. CW We’re really a communications company in the broadest kind of sense really. I think in America they like to call it bespoke consultancy. And what that really means is pretty much helping your clients with anything—so if they are doing a big buy out of a company or they want to invest in an organisation or with another individual it might mean that you do some due diligence on them and work out whether it’s a good investment for them. You, similarly you might um, certainly in America anyway, be talking to various State departments to help them secure contracts and to expand their portfolio. Apart from, thinking about the kind of sectors we go across really, I suppose it’s defence companies, certainly in the US and also construction and transport. Um, in America there’s also another company that, has this great kind of scheme where they go in to American schools and help out with kind of fitness and health. PH (...INAUDIBLE...) CW ...contract to that from the equivalent of the Department of Health in the US and that’s quite interesting work. We have clients all over the place, also some in the Middle East, private investors in the UAE who are involved in lots of construction schemes out there. It’s amazing how the Middle East is kind of booming especially places like the Lebanon (?) PH Absolutely. CW So they’re looking to get involved in the UK and that’s one of the reasons we’ve set up the London office because more and more of our clients are saying to us oh actually we would quite like to do business in the UK. How are you going to look after us there? PH Yep, yep. CW So that’s really where I’ve been brought in [laughs]. PH (...INAUDIBLE...) CW ...to work out how on earth to do that. I was wondering if you might want to pop to our... we’ve got an office In St James’s, I don’t know if you might have time to drop in there for a cup of coffee perhaps... PH Yes. CW ...have a chat about it and to see if this the kind of thing you might be interested in doing? PH Yes OK, let’s do that. I’m—let me see, next week is pretty jammed up already. The week beginning the 8th is possible because I was due to be in India and that’s now been postponed. I think the best thing if you wouldn’t mind, would be if you or your secretary could just ring my colleague [name]. I think that you’ve got that office number, [...]? CW Ah yes, the Commons number. PH Absolutely. [Name] has the diary [laughs] she can sort out time for me to come over and see you and we can have a chat. CW (...INAUDIBLE...) just have a cup of coffee to see if it’s something you’d be interested in doing, It’s probably the best was to proceed. PH Sure. That would be lovely. And if I could also give you my private e-mail, it would be very helpful if you can just send me a bit of background in the meantime. CW Good idea. PH It’s [e-mail address]. CW OK perfect. PH Good, alright talk to you (...INAUDIBLE...) CW Take care, see you soon, bye. PH Bye.
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60. Dispatches ‘Politicians for Hire’—Transcript of Rt Hon Patricia Hewitt MP meeting, 9 March 2010
[General Chat]
CW 00:25:22 Patricia? Hi, Claire Webster. PH Very nice to meet you, good to see you. CW Nice to meet you. I booked us a room. Do you want a cup of tea or coffee? PH (...INAUDIBLE...) CW Okay, do you want still or sparkling? PH Still. (...INAUDIBLE...) CW 00:25:37 Oh, that’s fine. PH To do with (...INAUDIBLE...) CW Oh really? Did you say still? PH Still. These are nice offices, aren’t they? CW 00:25:49 Yeah, really good. We’ve just, um, moved here really, one of my first jobs was to set up the London office, so we’re, just. PH How wonderful. CW 00:25:55 Yes, great opportunity. So I decided on this place, um, and it’s such a great location actually. PH It is, lovely (...INAUDIBLE...) it looks very nice, I’ve just walked across St James’ Park. CW That’s quite a nice walk, isn’t it? PH (...INAUDIBLE...) CW Yes, especially as it’s been so sunny recently, actually that would be a particularly nice walk. PH It’s gorgeous. CW 00:26:16 (...INAUDIBLE...)Have this water for myself. Well thank you very much for coming in. PH That’s alright, that’s alright. Yeah, interesting to hear a bit more about job too. CW 00:26:28 Yes, well as I said on the phone we’re an American company. Em, I think how they describe it in America is bespoke consultancy. PH Right. CW 00:26:35 Which pretty much means doing everything, and sometimes that’s just basic communication work with press or, um, other kind of media issues, but I think more often than not, it’s about advising our clients on business strategies, so helping them with investments, where they should be expanding, who they should be talking to, all those kind of things. Um, and we’ve got a number of clients in the US, that deal with all kinds of things, from defence, to health to, kind of, fitness, um, you name it really. And also, ah, some clients in the UAE, we’ve got a group of, of investors there who are interested in expanding to the UK, and also a company in, um, Asia. PH 00:27:16 And typically what size, what size of company? CW 00:27:20 It kind of ranges. So the people in the UAE, that’s a kind of small consortium really, so that’s, ah, quite small. But thinking about some of the ones in the States, it’s, all of them are medium sized companies, but normally we have companies that are growing, and I think that’s what’s quite exciting, to be working with companies that are moving and always developing, and looking 00:28:41 for ways to expand. So one of the things I wanted to do over the next couple of months, was set up an advisory board for us, and our clients in the UK, which is quite important, I think, for when you’re developing your business and expanding, you don’t want to be wasting your time, doing things that aren’t
going to get you anywhere, and you want to make the most of the next six
months or so, so you kind of get off to a flying start, which will mean our
clients have confidence in us and we feel like we’re going in the right direction. 00:28:07 So that was really what I wanted to talk to you about, to get an idea what kind
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of thing you might be interested in, where your interests are, what you think you could bring to the board, that kind of thing.
PH 00:28:20 Okay. Well look I, I mean I do—step back a moment—I’ve spent most, I did, you know, about ten years in Government, I was elected in ‘97, became a Minister in ‘98, stepped down in 2007, so I’ve got extremely extensive Government experience and believe that bit of private sector (...INAUDIBLE...). CW Yeah. PH 00:28:48 I decided to step down from Government and then Parliament, really because I want, you know, the next ten years to be rather different from the last ten years. I’ve done Government, which was just fabulous, and I’ll always be very, very glad I did it, but you know, I just decided (...INAUDIBLE...) now, because even if Labour is re-elected this time, I wouldn’t want to go back into Government. And I also want a rather different lifestyle work family balance, [family reference]. CW No, I bet. PH 00:29:24 [Family reference.] But, you know, I’m so very, very interested in business, and I love the time I spent at Biz, I love the time I spent at the Department of Health, have a great interest in healthcare, as well as in other sectors, um, and it became quite clear that I could just make a perfectly reasonable career as an advisor in non-executive roles. So, what I did, I joined the board of BT fairly 00:29:54 soon after I left Government, I’m now the senior independent director and I took on advisory roles for both Cinven, the private equity house, and Alliance Boots. CW Okay, what does Cinven do, I don’t think I know them? PH 00:30:04 Cinven, they’re a private equity house, they originally grew out of the Coal Board’s pension scheme, extraordinarily. CW Did they? PH 00:30:14 The Coal Board, in the days when we had a lot of mining, had an enormous pension scheme, as you can imagine, which still exists, and they had three arms, I can’t remember what the first two did, but the third one was their alternative investments arm. And Cinven basically was a management buyout of that alternative investments piece. So they still manage quite a big chunk of coal board pensions today, and then a lot of other institutional money that comes into their funds. They have some interest in healthcare, they own little 00:30:54 health provider called Partnerships in Care, so I did quite a bit for them. They own Spire which is a hospital group, they bought out the hospitals that were owned by BUPA, so they’re the old BUPA hospitals, and they’re renamed Spire and (...INAUDIBLE...) to that. So I advised them on their healthcare interests, and I also advised them on the private equity regulations. CW Right, is that, do you have a background in private equity? PH 00:31:21 No, no, but I have a background in regulations, financial services in part, partly because of my Treasury work, so and Brussels is busy doing gruesome things to regulation of private equity. CW Yes, I think there’s something going through. PH so helping them with that (...INAUDIBLE...) Alliance Boots, that’s healthcare related obviously, um they’re very keen to expand the health services they can provide on community through local pharmacies. CW Oh right. PH 00:31:53 So I’ve been advising them on some aspects of policy towards contracts and negotiations with Government, that kind of thing. What both of those, I did a lot of work with, em, um, really over the, well last year, and the previous year, we scaled it back this year because actually neither of them needed the amount of time I was giving them last year. CW Is that because they managed to achieve what they wanted to achieve, do you think?
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PH 00:32:20 Yes, yes, well and, and also I had, I kind of advised them on strategy in both cases, I’d introduced them to a lot of people they needed to know, and you know, there was just no point in them continuing to buy lots of my time that they were not using. So, we scaled back those two and I may well not, we’ll see 00:32:49 (...INAUDIBLE...) by the end of the year, I may or may not, we’ll see, continue with them. In the meantime, I’ve taken on and joined the Asia Pacific advisory committee of Barclays Capital. CW Oh right, that must be interesting. PH Which is (...INAUDIBLE...) CW Yeah. PH 00:33:00 I have a long standing interest in India and pro bono, I’m chairing (...INAUDIBLE...) Business Council, I should really give you my CV, but (...INAUDIBLE...) CW Oh, don’t worry. PH 00:33:10 So I, I do this rather nice India work, and also Australian (...INAUDIBLE...) and I keep up quite a lot of political connections in Australia, so that kind of makes me rather useful to Barclays in fact. CW Yes, yes I bet it does. PH 00.33.27 Plus, they’ve always had somebody on that committee who can give their Asian members a kind of (...(...INAUDIBLE...)..). a readout of what’s going on in the British political scene, so that’s the other function that I perform for them, um, but not a, not a huge time commitment. And in the next month I 00:33:56 will probably take on another much smaller, em, non executive role, but for a Continental company which, although it’s a board position, it doesn’t have the corporate governance complications of the UK board, CW Right. PH Um, so it’s more like an advisory role. CW What kind of business is it? PH Transport. CW Oh right. PH 00:34:14 But that’s still to be finalised. Em, so my, okay, my sort of range of skills and expertise, I know the British political system and the British Government, and the British regulatory system, and its European dimensions very well. CW Yeah. PH 00:34:37 And for any, particularly your American clients, obviously your Middle Eastern investors, em, it’s really about guiding them through what the barriers might be, what the opportunities might be, who they need to be talking to, how to interpret what the Brits are saying to them, or not saying to them, which is often even more important (...INAUDIBLE...). Helping them work 00:35:12 out a strategy, if they want to do this, who do they need to be influencing, are there regulatory barriers and if so, are they likely to change in the near future, might they change? If so how, how can they get close to the people they need to be influencing?
CW Yes. PH Who are the think tanks that they ought to be, you know, perhaps thinking about getting to know, specifically because then they’ll meet the right people, 00:35:42 that kind of stuff. That’s what I was doing from the Labour party end, When Labour was in a position, I was then (...INAUDIBLE...) and I was helping to run IPPR, which is the think tank I helped to create, so I’ve seen it from the think tank end (...INAUDIBLE...) a lot of other think tanks. So that whole piece, you know, that sort of thing, if you needed to take on another 00:36:10 professional advisor to do deeper stuff, who could deal with the regulations and public affairs, who are the ones to think about, who are the ones not to touch.
CW Yes, that would be useful to get some guidance on that.
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PH 00:36:18 So I can do that piece(?). Um, in terms of sectoral interests, em, healthcare obviously, I know very, very well. Em, public service outsourcing I know well, I’ve seen from the inside, a number of different departments, so I absolutely understand. Policy context, procurement context, what works, what doesn’t work, I’ve placed some public contracts and gone through the procurement process as a Minister, and I mean, and that’s a really interesting (...INAUDIBLE...). CW 00:36:56 Yes, well from an, as an outsider, I would have no idea how that procurement process would work, so that would be invaluable really, to have that kind of knowledge. PH 00:37:05 It’s a really interesting sector, because more and more public services are outsourcing, different elements of the value chain to different kinds of partners. It used to be very much thought of as IT procurement, and there is still that going on, but there’s masses of other stuff, you know, Tribal Group for instance, provide, oh, an astonishingly high proportion, I’d say about half, of Ofsted Inspectors (...INAUDIBLE...) CW Oh really? PH 00:37:39 So you know, you would assume, and it always used to be the case, Ofsted just had a stable of inspectors. CW Yes, I would have thought so. PH 00:37:46 And they would employ themselves on their own flexible contracts, and did, .... (...INAUDIBLE...).... they outsourced a whole chunk of it. CW I didn’t realise that. What do you think the future is, in terms of, um, health policy with outsourcing? It’s one thing that, ah, our clients in the US have said to us, where’s it going? Do you think it will be, that will continue? PH 00:38:07 Well, em, do you mean outsourcing, or do you mean private companies coming in to provide? CW No, I mean private companies coming in to provide, um. PH 00:38:16 I think, um, look there is an existing policy which Tony Blair, Alan Milburn and I put into place for acute elective care, of basically any provider who can offer NHS quality care at the best price. The current Health Secretary is downplaying it, but anyway I’ll come to that in a moment, but for acute elective care, that will not change. And indeed, if there was a Conservative Government, it would be stepped up. CW Yeah. PH They would, they would put it up in lights in a way that Gordon and Andy 00:39:01 Burnham would not. For acute elective care piece (?), for community services, domiciliary services residential care, long term care, management GP services and so on, and Andy Burnham in my view has done something retrograde, said the NHS has to be the preferred provider, put the system into reverse basically, that would certainly change if there was a Conservative Government, 00:39:30 um, but to be honest it might well change with the change of Health Secretary. CW Yes. It’s happened in the, ah, Number 10 are not entirely happy with it, so it will change. And, but at the moment that’s a mess, but on the whole I would expect 00:39:46 to see that change. The things like pathology and imaging and testing, that sort of area, um, there is masses going through on efficiency savings as there is almost everywhere you look. So I would expect to see more of the foundation trusts creating joint ventures with the private sector on that, um, and frankly, putting the pressure on resources that could well become a sort of quality provider, at NHS quality, at NHS price or less, so the (...INAUDIBLE...) as well. So generally, plenty of scope with the, at the moment, a real hiccup if you’re in the, the non-acute hospital side. CW 00:40:30 Yes, it will be interesting to see what happens with that. PH Well, does that answer the question? CW 00:40:34 Yes it does, I , that was one of their concerns you see, that, is it, really is it a
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market that they want to get into, and is it an expanding market? Em, which I think is quite. PH 00:40:44 I would say an expanding market, but one where there will be growing pressure on funds. CW Yes, oh yes of course, when you need to, um, be saving money. Ah, one thing that I’d be looking do to over the next week or so would be to feed back to the board in the US, about the people I’ve seen, and then we’ll kind of build a shortlist, and then I would expect some people to fly over from the States to meet those on the shortlist. And of course, um, I think it would be important for you to be able to meet some of our clients as well. PH Absolutely, yes, yes. CW 00:41:10 To get a sense of what they’re like, so I would arrange all of that. But just so I can feedback to them, I don’t know if you’d be able to give me some practical examples of the kind of consultancy work you’ve done before, and how that, um, and how it has worked in terms of results, I suppose, what people have been able to achieve, in terms of the work that you’ve done? PH 00:41:36 PAUSE...And remember I’ve not been operating as a consultant, in terms of the discrete project here or there. CW Yes. PH Um, but with Cinven and particularly Partnerships in Care, which is their mental health provider which does little but NHS work, okay, it, um, mainly only in medium secure fields, so complex (...INAUDIBLE...) patients. CW Very important work, yeah. PH 00:42:00 They’re not the maddest or baddest, but none the less pretty challenging stuff, they have been finding it very difficult to sell into the NHS on a fair basis, despite the fact that they, all their patients are public patients, so they are there because they’ve got court sentences they have been put into secure accommodation, paid for by the NHS, but the NHS position tends to be a, “we don’t like nasty, private outsiders”. And the NHS Partnership Trust, who are the mental health providers, often are doing commissioning services, as well as 00:42:48 providing, and they tend to look at their geographical area, they will look at specialist services like eating disorders, which Partnerships in Care also do and
they will say, oh we don’t have enough in this area, we need to expand. And in
doing that analysis, they completely ignore the private sector contribution,
where there is often spare capacity. Very frustrating all round. So what I did 00:43:13 was sit down with Partnerships in Care and understand the nature of the problem, and then started talking to people. And basically what we did was work out who they really needed to be talking to, particularly at the strategic health authority level, essentially the regional ten intermediaries that sit between the department and the primary care trusts. And I was able to introduce them to some key people there 00:43:14 CW 00:43:48 Are they civil servants at that level, presumably? PH 00:43:50 They’re NHS managers, they’re not technical civil servants but they sit (alongside?) (...INAUDIBLE...) I also started introducing them to some Department of Health officials, senior officials, and to monitor (...INAUDIBLE...) regulation of foundation trusts and that’s of critical importance, because a lot of mental health providers becoming foundation trusts. So they could get a much better understanding of who they were dealing with, they could start to build the relationships. Then the Government 00:44:21 commissioned a very interesting report, the Bradley Report, Lord Bradley had been a Government Minister in, particularly in health, he’d been in the Home Office and the Home Office has responsibility for the prisons, which contain an awful lot of mental health patients. CW Yes, I bet. PH A lot of mentally ill people that ought to be in mental health accommodation. CW Rather than a prison.
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PH 00:44:44 Rather than a prison, but they aren’t because it’s cheaper, at least in the short term, to keep them in prison than to send them off to an institution. And again, what Bradley and his officials were doing, was talking to the NHS, but not talking to private sector providers. So I was able to get them, basically, in 00:45:12 front of Bradley, and I got Bradley to go and, actually I think he visited, visited one of their establishments, he took evidence from them. Even then the officials were still (opposing?)....UNCLEAR....(weren’t allowing us?)....into consultation meetings.
CW Really? PH 00:45:25 But it wasn’t just them, it was the entire private sector. CW That must have been very frustrating for. PH Very (...INAUDIBLE...). But, after Bradley reported, the Government then set up a working party (....(...INAUDIBLE...)...) to implement the recommendations, and consider and implement the recommendations with joint Home Office and Department of Health and membership from the Department of Health Chair, and basically I was able to persuade the chairman of that taskforce that there would be a private sector, independent sector, representative on the taskforce and because Partnerships in Care had been most active, it was their person who was put on the task force. CW Oh great. PH 00:46:09 So it’s now kind of over to them because, even though I will keep a watching brief them, for as long as is needed, but basically I’ve kind of got them into the system, where they can build the relationships, they can make the arguments. CW 00:46:24 Yes, with a view to getting further contracts, presumably, and being able to expand their work? PH Exactly, and not being in a position where the NHS providers are building unnecessary extra capacity, when actually the capacity’s already there, money is tight. CW 00:46:41 Yes, yeah, I suppose sometimes it’s about helping to get people to speak to each other, isn’t it? Do you think it’s more important to be speaking to civil servants or Ministers, what’s your view? PH 00:46:51 You need both. Em, you need both and it depends a bit on what it is. If it’s very, very technical, then actually there are occasions when you can just sort it with the officials, and (...INAUDIBLE...). you need to be talking to officials to kind of understand where the technicalities come down. There’s an extraordinary little wrinkle at the moment in the carbon reduction 00:47:22 commitment regulations. Now this is a really complex piece of policy, but fundamentally a good piece of policy, designed to get medium sized companies really cutting their energy bills, their energy usage. But it’s quite bureaucratic in its implementation and it’s CW Is it? PH 00:47:44 And it’s got a bizarre wrinkle in it, whereby if you’re a private equity company, if you’re a private equity house, and you own, you probably own, ten different companies within one firm, none of whom have any relationship to each other, except (...INAUDIBLE...) CW Yes. PH Under the CRC regulations, you will be treated as one entity. CW Oh really? PH and so you may have a high energy user polluting away, and you’ll be a low energy user. CW (...INAUDIBLE...) no one. PH 00:48:14 But all their carbon emissions will be lumped into one place. Crazy. Plus, you end up with some very small companies which, if they were owned, in a free standing way, they wouldn’t be covered by the regulations at all. CW Oh really, because they would be too small? PH 00:48:28 I’ll come onto it. Right, now unfortunately, private equity people have come to
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this rather late in the day, so they’ve only quite recently even started talking to me about it. And if all of us collectively got onto it much earlier, then I think we could have kind of sorted it better. We’ve achieved one thing, and this is civil (...INAUDIBLE...), we’ve achieved one this, which is to say, if there’s a larger company within a private equity portfolio that if it were freestanding would be registered anyway, that’s fine, they can register in their own right. CW Separately, yeah. PH 00:49:05 So at least we’ve got them out of the hole, but at the moment they’re insisting, the whole portfolio gets regulated. Now I’ve spoken both to officials and Ministers about it and the advice I’ve given them is, look, you’re going to have to register to start with, and it’s dotty but the first year effectively is a trial year, 00:49:31 and nobody gets charged anything, they just go through the process, they start reporting, and then they’ll start ironing out the wrinkles. And I think what we’ve got to do is build a much more compelling case as to why this is wrong in principle, and cumbersome, unnecessary, distorting in practice, and then get it changed.
CW It’s very tricky, isn’t it? And how do you go about getting it changed? What’s the best way, presumably this already legislation? PH 00:49:55 Oh yes, yeah, the regulations are in place. Em, well you keep talking to the officials, because it’s very helpful if the officials are putting the right recommendation up to Ministers. But in this case, because it is already in place, and also so the chances are it will be a new Minister after the election, 00:50:19 whatever the outcome, so we need to make sure that the Minister kind of sees this from our point of view. So somewhere along the line... CW Which department is dealing with it? PH 00:50:26 Oh, it’s DECCA, Department of Energy and Climate Change Affairs. And Biz, who would normally be quite sympathetic you know, burdensome regulations catching small companies, are just being, it’s DECCA, leave it to them, you need to go to... CW Oh, it’s tricky, isn’t it, no. PH 00:50:48 So, new Minister and you might be able to get them in the right place, new Government, this will be quite a nice example of, you know, cutting unnecessary regulations. CW Yes, yeah, that’s true. That’s one thing I was going to ask you actually, if the Conservatives win the next election, how much will that affect the kind of advice you’ll be able to give the board? PH 00:51:12 Well,...there are always Conservative policies that are extremely murky [laughs], very interesting indeed. But, em, I’ve been around a long time, in the House you get to know people on the other side, you know, so you know individuals, as well as seeing how they are developing policy. So I reckon I’m pretty, I mean I, because I’ve been doing it anyway for several people, just in 00:51:47 terms of predicting where Conservative policy will go on health for instance, and I’m now pretty clear and pretty accurate on where they will go and...I’ve got a pretty good sense, which is both about personalities and about what Cameron is trying to do strategically with the Party on the whole, you know, I
can guide people about where they’re going to go and clearly, there will be a
balanced toward less state, less regulations, all that will be in immensely helpful
because they will looking for scalps, all Governments are desperate to cut regulations, all of them find it very difficult in practice to do so, business 00:52:30 complains about generality, but often finds it very difficult to pull up an example of what they would get rid of. So if you’ve got a client who needs a particular regulation removed, then we can often package that up in a way that will give the Minister a win, and with a new Government, committed to less 00:52:53 regulation, that’s an attractive argument to make. The problem with the sort of Conservative muddle at the moment, em, it’s not clear for instance how committed they are to competition. And normally you would say of a
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00:53:12 Conservative Government, you know, they’re going to be pro-competition, and probably more so than a Labour Government, you know, and therefore, that’s (...INAUDIBLE...), that’s a way in. CW But that is a bit harder to read this time? PH 00:53:30 It’s really unclear, they’re showing, they’re showing some kind of almost Sarkozy-style national champion tendencies. Some of it I think is about getting into bed with Murdoch, or being seen to get into bed with Murdoch, the attack on Ofcom for instance, which in the end appears to have been muddled and not thinking it through, rather than anything (...INAUDIBLE...). CW Yeah. PH But you know, it’s kind of typical of the problem, that because there isn’t a coherent philosophy there, in some aspects of what they’re doing, it’s harder to 00:54:10 predict or to pitch the element in the right place. There are other aspects, you know, the kind of post bureaucratic age, which is partly a slogan, but is also partly real, could be quite important in terms of future public service delivery and selling into that market.
CW 00:54:27 Yes, presumably though, even if, um, a Government changed, you still know many of the civil servants. PH Of course. CW Um, and they won’t have changed, although of course, some of them may leave. PH 00:54:37 By and large they won’t change and I mean they, you know, they move in the way that civil servants move, but I make a point of being in touch, well it’s a good (...INAUDIBLE...) CW Yes, no, exactly. PH (...INAUDIBLE...) I’m interested in... CW 00:54:50 How easy would it be, I think one thing that our clients would certainly be interested in doing, for, when they come over to the UK and they’re looking to expand and to kind of get contracts, all the rest of it, I think they would be interested in meeting Ministers and civil servants. How easy is that to arrange, do you think? PH 00:55:04 Well it’s, ah, .... (...INAUDIBLE...)..... Well, it’s, it’s very do-able, but you have to be kind of quite careful about, you know, how you do it. Um, and it partly depends on the individual Minister. As far as I ....PAUSE.... the Prime Minister’s view, and what I mean by that is, with Tony Blair and indeed with previous Prime Ministers, you know, there was never a problem about Ministers doing stuff that brought them in contact with business, indeed it was a jolly useful thing to do. So, you know, when I was Business Secretary, I would cheerfully accept hospitality invitations, for instance. End of Vid 03 Vid 04 PH 00:00:00 And what I’ve noticed was even stuff if it wasn’t particularly business focused like the Anglo-Spanish, Anglo-French, Anglo-Italian, Anglo-German get togethers and our Prime Minister stopped coming. CW Oh really. PH And dreadful because he really missed out on stuff. CW Yeah. PH Now I don’t know quite what view Cameron will take, but you know if he is elected he might well decide, because of all this sleaze and expenses stuff to frown on hospitality. CW Yes. PH 00:00:34 You know which is otherwise frankly a very useful route into this stuff. Now the think tank and the seminar route I think is a very good one and an amenable one. CW Yes. PH 00:00:44 And so, you know identifying the right think-tank, Policy Exchange is a good
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one at the moment, Demos is another good one. Is another good one? Erm and saying ok, does that think tank already have a relationship with Minister X, can we invite Minister X to give a seminar on this subject, your client would then sponsor the seminar. CW Right and you do it via the think tank. PH You do it via the think tank. And then and that’s very useful, because what you get for your sponsorship is basically you sit next to the Minister. CW Yes. PH 00:01:17 And you have a chance to have a nice chat, and the Minister, particularly I think with an overseas company who may not even be known there, you know, I mean I just found out in my own experience, I’ll turn up and do something for somebody, and think who the hell are those people, and then you just go oh really interesting company, (...INAUDIBLE...) investor, great 00:01:45 stuff, you know, so that’s the kind of one route in. The hospitality is one question mark. Think Tank is another nice one, sponsorship of events at party conference. CW Yes. PH Is a classic one, increasingly crowded for the Conservatives at the moment. CW Yes, yes, I bet. PH A bit un-crowded for Labour last year, it used to be the reverse. But you know that’s, that’s quite a good one, although I used to get a bit irritated as a Minister, by the number of businesses who were trying to meet me at the party conference, when actually a whole host of other people I needed to be seeing at party conference. CW 00:02:14 Yeah you were busy anyway. PH Exactly, but you can certainly do something there. Erm, sometimes you know just a direct invitation to have, you know we want policy (...INAUDIBLE...) about X will sometimes work. If it’s at cabinet level, you really need to talk to the special advisers. CW Yes. PH 00:02:37 And see where you can get (...INAUDIBLE...) But all those routes, the other one that can be useful, but may be less appropriate for your clients is the constituency route. CW Oh right. PH Erm, which you need to be a little careful about, but I used to find when I was, very odd, when I was business secretary, zillions of businesses in and around Leicester, which is where my constituency is, would write to me, ask me to come and visit, all the rest of of it and because they were (...INAUDIBLE...) I would really need a bit of my constituency time and do it on a Friday. CW 00:03:13 Yes, yeah. PH And then, when I stopped being Business Secretary, even though I was just as interested in businesses, they stopped asking. CW Oh did they. PH 00:03:22 It was really funny, so I still see the ones in my constituency, but. CW Yeah. PH They were less interested in me, which is very stupid of them, because I’m still a Cabinet Minister and could be very useful to them. CW Yeah, yeah. PH And they weren’t making the connection. But what I got instead was a zillion. health invitations, so I was spending an awful lot of time with the Leicester and Leicestershire medics and hospital and whatever. Erm so depending on the company, if they’ve got a presence in some part of the country. CW Yes. PH 00:03:59 Or there’s some link and that fits with where roughly speaking where a Minister’s constituency is, that. CW So they can try to meet them that way.
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PH 00:04:07 Yes, and that can be a more subtle route in. CW Yeah, that’s a very good thought actually. PH Yes and doesn’t, it doesn’t get trapped by the officials. CW Yeah. PH Because if you write to a Minister, it could be a month or two before the poor Minister sees the letter, because it goes into official machinery. CW Yeah I bet. PH 00:04:25 And indeed sometimes never gets to the Minister, quite often it doesn’t get to the Minister. CW Oh really, it never reaches them. PH If you’re lucky it will go to the Minister complete with the answer. CW Yeah. PH And you find yourself reading this answer and you think just answer the letter, you know and you .(...INAUDIBLE...) Oh this is a really interesting letter, possibly about something quite urgent, written 6 weeks, CW Yeah. PH 00:04:46 You know (...INAUDIBLE...). But with invitations erm it will often just go into an invitation team. CW Oh I see, and they process it. PH If they recommended a client, sometimes you’ll just get an official letter back saying no, and the Minister will never have made a judgement about it. CW Yeah, which is the civil servants weeding them out I suppose. PH 00:05:05 Yes, absolutely, so I tend not to bother with that route. CW Yeah that doesn’t sound like it’s a particularly efficient thing to do. And is that something you’d be able to help us with? PH 00:05:15 It is, although I would need to think quite carefully about whether this is going to be right for me. CW Yes. PH 00:05:25 Which is to do with, a lot of that is to do with finding out more about the company, (...INAUDIBLE...) More about your clients. CW Yes, oh I think that’s perfectly right. PH 00:05:34 And then talking about the time commitment you’d be looking for (...INAUDIBLE...) . CW Well I wanted to get a sense from you how much time you had available like, cause I was aware that you did other things, PH I do yes, yes. CW I didn’t know how involved you’d want to be. PH Erm, I erm I mean I’m thinking about the portfolio I’ve got, and obviously BT is my main commitment and that’s 4 or 5 days a month. CW Right. PH Erm, I chaired this UK India business thing, which is about 3 days a month plus some trips to India. CW Yeah. PH 00:06:11 Erm my other bits and pieces are not in particular once I assume some of the allowance (...INAUDIBLE...) up again. The, the Barclays (...INAUDIBLE...) and this other board (...INAUDIBLE...). With Barclays it’s only two large meetings every 18 months, and odd bits of stuff in between, but really not very big. So, I’m interested in taking on another major Board position, which would be about three days per month. CW Yes. PH (...INAUDIBLE...) and after that I would have about two days a month yeah. CW 00:06:54 Well what I was thinking about for the advisory board would be certainly within the first instance maybe a meeting every other month, so I think we’d want to review it after 6 months to decide whether we need a meeting once a month. PH Yes, more or less, yes.
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CW Exactly, erm and presumably there would be some preparation erm to do with that. The meetings would be in London I’d expect. Erm but as well as the advisory board, I’d be looking for erm consultants to do maybe a couple of 00:07:20 days erm a month to work with specific clients, so it sounds like for you the, the health clients would be erm best suited I would imagine. PH Yes, yes. CW Erm, I know it’s always slightly tricky, but just in terms of what your erm day rate is or what would you expect or be looking for? PH Erm with Cinven let me see Cinven were paying me, sorry I’m having to dredge this out, oh that’s right, I was doing a day and a half a month for them, which was what about 18 days, 18 days in the year. CW Yes. PH 00:08:01 And that was for a fee of sixty thousand, so yeah. In day rate terms it was a bit over three thousand. CW Yeah, well I think that sounds like a pretty standard day rate to me and that would be the kind of erm figure I’d be imagining. Erm I don’t know if you’d be interested, erm obviously I need to get a Chair of the Board as well, and I don’t know if that’s something you’d consider doing or would appeal to you. PH 00:08:22 It might be, it would depend, again, obviously it depends on finance etc., but it sort of depends on just how much time that might involve. CW Yes, I think it would be one of those things we’d have to kind of see a little bit. If we took it that a normal Board member would be doing a meeting every other month. PH Yes. CW 00:08:40 Erm but say you might need a day to prepare for a reading. PH Yes. CW They, potentially though not that much, I think you could probably add on another day if you were the Chair, largely, so that you’re looking at I don’t know what’s that, 3 days every other month. PH 3 days every other month yes, that would, where are we. CW I don’t know what you think. PH Ok. CW 00:09:01 About the board makeup, but I’m thinking about 4 or 6 people for a board. PH I think so, once you get much bigger than that it just, I think there are two problems. The meetings are just too large to be really useful. CW Yes. PH But actually almost the flip side of that people feel less responsibility to come, and plus the diaries become the biggest problem. CW So you can never schedule anything. PH 00:09:22 It becomes a complete nightmare absolutely. Erm don’t you think absolutely, getting stuff in diaries a year in advance is really critical. CW Yes. PH And I am not a couple of my former Government colleagues are doing more formal advisory committee work, but I think with that sort of 4 to 6 is about right number for ..(...INAUDIBLE...).... CW 00:09:47 Yes, cause it’s got to work, the dynamics have got to be good I think. PH Absolutely, and I think, just tell me a little bit more about the sectors that you’re. CW That we go over. Erm so health and that’s largely erm elderly care. Erm so you’d be looking. PH Ah, very interesting area, ok. CW 00:10:04 Yes, and there’s lots going on erm with that at the moment, and I find it actually quite a fascinating area, erm generally in terms of what are we going to do for the future and how is the NHS going to respond. PH A hugely interesting area, I did, over the years my very first job was with Age Concern.
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CW Oh was it oh. PH 00:10:20 So I’m always very interested in the area, and I did quite a bit of policy work in Government which then lead to the Green Paper (...INAUDIBLE...) White Paper, all that debate erm. CW Yeah well I think it’s just fascinating at the moment, all the debates about erm elderly care. But apart from that we also look after erm a defence company in the States, and they build the chassis for MPV vehicles, which are the mine, protected vehicles that go out in Afghanistan and all the rest of it. PH Yes, yes. CW 00:10:48 And they do that for the equivalent of the MoD, in the US, but of course they’re looking to expand in the UK, erm and maybe enter into some kind of consortium with some other UK erm members in order to do that, which is quite exciting. PH Yes I know both BA Systems and Thales. CW 00:11:06 Oh do you, oh right. PH Partly because I’ve dealt with them a lot when I was Business Secretary, but also, both of them have quite major factories in my constituency. CW Oh well. PH 00:11:17 (...INAUDIBLE...) CW Well you’re very familiar with that kind of work then. PH Absolutely yes. CW And actually one of our other clients in the States, I find their work just fascinating, they go into schools and do the work with kids to help them with nutrition and erm fitness. PH 00:11:32 How interesting, yes. CW Yes, erm so you kind of get a private sector company going in and supplying that. And again I think they would be very interested in getting involved in the UK. PH Yes absolutely. CW To do similar work, and there does seem to be a push in that kind of direction. PH 00:11:44 Yes there is a lot of it (...INAUDIBLE...) CW So it’s quite broad really, those are a number of our American clients. PH Right, right, well that’s interesting, I’d need to make sure as well there are no conflicts of interest. CW 00:11:55 Yes of course yeah. PH And at the moment neither seem, well Cinven isn’t doing auxiliary care with oh older care erm potentially they might be able to but they’re not at the moment. Boots I mean I’ve been kind of doing the strategy papers on what they could do in that area. CW Yes what are they looking to do? PH 00:12:19 Oh well, it’s quite interesting they’re thinking (...INAUDIBLE...). They’re very focused, you know what they really, really know about is pharmacists. CW Yeah. PH Erm so they tend to look at how can they exploit their pharmacists’ skills better, for instance doing screening in store. And that kind of stuff, they have now got oh a couple of dozen in store GP surgeries. CW Oh right. PH 00:12:51 But they don’t employ the GPs, although that is a model they’re looking at further down the line, but they erm, they have independent GP practices or GPs employed by the local NHS. CW Yes. PH Who then come and sit. CW 00:13:04 Who are then based there. PH Based inside the store and then that creates lots of nice synergies (...INAUDIBLE...) and Boots is doing, I think it would be very interesting for them to kind of take the brand into elder care, but so far they’ve not.
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CW Well they’re a very trusted brand aren’t they, so I think that might work well. PH 00:13:25 They’re one of the best known trusted brands in the country so, you know they I think it would be a very interesting, but it would be a very big investment and a big strategic (...INAUDIBLE...) question (?) for them to do so. CW 00:13:38 Well in terms off setting up that kind of care, you’re right it is a very big thing. PH It’s a big thing to do so anyway, but I, it would obviously just (...INAUDIBLE...). CW Oh yeah, I think we, well I think we’d just need to have a dialogue about that. Erm and if anything were to come up, erm that you or I were to think could be a conflict of interest you could just shout. Are there any kind of companies erm that you would feel, or kind of clients that you’d prefer not to work with? PH 00:14:02 Tobacco. Erm that’s about it, I don’t do tobacco. But that’s for obvious reasons. Erm and defence companies I’d want to know a bit more about (...INAUDIBLE...). I mean I wouldn’t go on to the board of a defence company. I all, I always used to feel when I was visiting Thales and BA completely torn between the brilliance of the technology. CW Yes. PH 00:14:28 And you know just fabulous what they’re doing because I love all that technology sector, and you know just reservations about some of what they export to (?) Erm. CW Yes, yeah I think that’s right. PH Erm (...INAUDIBLE...). Part of the Cabinet that made the decision to go into Iraq, as well as Afghanistan so. Erm, but what I would say was and in terms of the composition of the advisory board, it would make very good sense to get a former Conservative Minister. CW Yes. yeah I think that’s right. PH with good (...INAUDIBLE...), quite possibly someone who’s got defence experience, you know, the good ones around. Um I don’t think we’d need anybody else in the health care sector because I think I would cover that quite nicely for you. CW No, yeah. Do you think it would be worth getting a kind of a formal civil servant? PH 00:15:19 I do. I was just going to say, I think a former Permanent Secretary or number two would be fine. CW Yes. PH And there are some, you know, there are some good and interesting ones around. CW 00:15:33 Are there? PH Yes, there’s Sir Robin Young who used to be Permanent Secretary at my old department at Biz. CW Oh right. PH 00:15:42 He, I haven’t seen Robin recently. He is or was chairing NHS Direct, he’s doing some other quite interesting, you know, things. Um, well networked um he’s very good. Sir Tim Lancaster is also a very interesting, more abrasive than Robin but very interesting. He is a former DYFED Permanent Secretary, um he sits on another India thing I do (...INAUDIBLE...) He’s um Master of one of the Oxford Colleges now, I’m just trying to remember which one, possibly Christs, um and he’s doing well there. But he’s also on, which board’s he’s on? Mitchell and Butlers, he’s the only remaining member of the board, I mean the only one who’s left on. There was a board, a shareholder revolt and a coup.
Um and so he’s interesting. Um, who else is on that? Oh, I’d need to do just a, 00:17:01 you know.
CW Yeah, I mean it’s just an interesting thought actually about whether someone like that might be useful um, for the board. PH 00:17:07 I think so. CW How easy is it to kind of get meetings with civil servants and to be able to
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speak to them on behalf of your client? PH 00:17:15 On the whole, I think it’s never easy um. But it depends a bit on the personal relationships and you need just to have a sort of eye to propriety and all of that so that, you don’t put them in an embarrassing position. But I mean, I have regular lunches and coffees and you know, we’re all mates really. CW 00:17:36 Yes, I imagine the people you used to work with. PH Good officials um. CW Within the Department of Health presumably. PH 00:17:43 Between Health and Biz. CW Oh okay. PH And also people move on and one of the very good comms (?) (...INAUDIBLE...) who worked with me at the Department of Health is now over at DECCA, so I’m going to see him fairly soon and so I can catch up with him on some of the climate change work he’s now doing. You know, so. CW 00:17:59 Yes, it’s funny how it all fits in isn’t it? PH Yes, yes absolutely. CW 00:18:02 Yes, well I suppose that kind of give you a good opportunity to speak to them informally. PH Exactly. And also, just keep up-to-date with whose bits of work that I am also particularly interested in. CW 00:18:15 Well yes, no I bet you’re getting guidance on what’s coming up, I suppose. PH Yes, absolutely. CW 00:18:21 And what’s the best way to respond um, I don’t, I can’t see this happening er now, I can’t think of any instance er where it’s happening. But um, I imagine sometime in the future, there will be various bits of legislation that are going through, that have a massive impact on our clients, whether positively or negatively, they’re a bit like what you’re talking about with the private equity company. How easy is it to kind of get involved and be talking to people to try to either change it or influence in some way? PH 00:18:49 Well, at one level it’s, it’s easy to do but you have to put a lot of effort into it. CW Right. PH And you have to do it in a very careful and strategic and timely way. And even then you’re not guaranteed the outcome quite honestly. CW No, of course, yeah. PH 00:19:07 And depending on the scale of it, that is where, and also depending on the resource you have available in the House and the expertise you can provide um. I think it was an Australian company who were talking to me, in the end for various reasons I didn’t take up position with them. But they were looking, they decided quite rightly, that they needed a kind of proper public affairs consultancy working for them and I helped them find the right consultancy based here who just do this full time, and are really, really good at it. And I’m, 00:19:54 you know, I wouldn’t want to be doing that full time myself. I would be perfectly happy to say, overall strategy looks like this. And okay, I mean you’ve got the expertise on visa or you know, talk to X or Y, not particularly the depth you need for that period of time. But, and I did an awful lot of that when I was in the voluntary sector when I was (...INAUDIBLE...) we would spend a large part of our lives, getting Bills changed. CW Yeah. PH 00:20:24 So, and then I’d be at the wrong end of it. CW Yes, exactly. PH 00:20:27 So, I absolutely know how to do it.Um, I mean you have to have a compelling case and you have to make the argument in a way that will be attractive to the Minister and the Government that you’re putting it to. So, you need to relate it back to what are their policy goals here? What are their other policies? E.g. better regulation and lifting the burdens for businesses, you know, that kind of stuff. You need to, you know, there’s no point in just coming along and saying,
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00:21:03 this is wrong and stupid. You know and is gonna clobber our business model, you know, not attractive. Um so you need to work out what’s the case you’re making and why should it be of interest to this Minister and this Government. We need to work out who the enemy is here, you know. And who is demanding that particular provision. Has it just kind of gone on by accident? CW Yes. PH 00:21:28 Yep. The timing thing is critically important because of course, all this may start by horribly (...INAUDIBLE...) gleam in the eye of a Commissioner or probably a Directive general (?) from Brussels, years before it ends up as legislation. CW Yes. PH 00:21:46 And if you can get the UK Government engaged on your behalf to kill the thing off before it gets anywhere near (?) a Directive or we right it before it becomes a Directive, so much the better. CW Yeah. PH 00:22:01 And, okay if it then emerges on a draft Directive and get in there because once it’s a Directive and just trying to, you know, to moderate the implementation (...INAUDIBLE...) that’s very difficult etc and then it’s about, obviously getting to the Minister or the official, doing the second reading of the whole thing, getting in before it goes into Committee, trying to get a, you know, the necessary amendment moved in Committee, getting the Minister to say, well, (...INAUDIBLE...) withdraw, not to push that to the vote we will want to take another look at it. Then you’ll go in and try and get them to bring it back. And next at the Report stage, you then have a 00:22:43 parallel operation with the Lords which it can often get stuck down there. You know, all of this now, you’ve absolutely got to know what you’re doing. CW Yes. PH 00:22:50 And you’ve got to understand timescales, where the pressure points are and then it’s about execution. And that’s where, I’m not setting myself up as a consultant to do this stuff all the time because that’s not what I want to be doing. I spent so much of my life doing that. But, that’s where either a law firm or another firm just, they have the people who will be drafting the documents, making sure that they’re talking to the right people, introducing your client to those people, all that stuff. Because, and if 00:23:32 necessary and desirable, putting a media strategy alongside it. The media strategy maybe to have no media coverage at all, possibly avoid it, but you know. CW Yes exactly. PH 00:23:38 You’ve got to decide what the media strategy is. And then, you’ve just got to do the leg work. CW Yeah, and that sort of thing er, we would probably be able er to do I imagine, with some kind of guidance, maybe from you or another advisory board member about what it is we need to be doing. PH 00:23:55 How many people are you going to have...and how big’s the, sorry my mobile’s going and I forgot the answer. CW 00:23:58 That’s alright, no problem. PH Just to give me a sense of the size of the firm. CW 00:24:03 Well I think, for the London office we’re going to be looking at about 20 people um. And of course some part time staff with some people working on retainers, but 20 full time people. So, I’m recruiting those people now. PH Right, okay. CW Which is great um and I’ve been sending offers out to about five. I’ve been looking to kind of continue to expand over the next couple of months. So, I think it’s most important to get the right kind of people with very different kind of backgrounds.
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PH 00:24:28 Absolutely and including some Brussels expertise in that. CW Yes, I would like to um. I’ve said to the Board in the states that I think we should be trying to do that because it’s a world I know very little about so, why don’t we get some people who specialise in that. PH 00:24:43 That’s really important. And I think there’s a very good person, an absolutely brilliant man who you can think about having as an adviser or a retainer called Julian Priestly. CW Oh right, PH Now Julian used to be Secretary General, if I remember correctly he was Secretary General of the socialist (?) group and then he was Secretary General of the European Parliament. Basically, he has been in Brussels since he was very young and he worked with me and Kenneth when Neil was a Commissioner. He just, he knows the system backwards. He lives there, he knows everybody, he’s very well respected, he’s a civil service figure, even though he did work for a socialist group at one point, he’s very much a civil servant, a European civil servant. CW 00:25:43 Do you know him from your time in Government? PH oh absolutely yes. No, no he’s an old friend, when he worked for Neil, I used to work for Neil so, I’ve known him, he’s very good. And anyway, so if you want. CW No, no, that’s a really good thought. PH 00:25:58 Yeah but he, he would be somebody um who again, wouldn’t necessarily be doing all the legwork but he could do quite a lot of it for you. And he’s absolutely ear to the ground so he knows what’s coming up and you know. CW Yes, well that can be quite, just as important really can’t it? Knowing what’s coming up so that you can respond to it well in advance, as you were saying about the legislation. PH 00:26:20 You really would want somebody else who was doing more of the drafting, yep. CW Yeah well that sounds like a really good thought, um I’ll definitely put him in my list. PH 00:26:31 You can put him on your list and as I say, if you want the introduction that’s fine. CW Oh well that’s really kind of you, thank you. PH 00:26:36 um, the other thing that’s important when it comes both to your point of domestic Bills and regulation is the various trade associations, they’re very important, I mean for instance, if, if you’re in the private health care space selling into NHS, there’s something called the NHS (...INAUDIBLE...) partner’s network which is for private and not public companies, now working for the NHS. CW Oh right. PH 00:27:04 Yeah um in defence, I don’t think I know, anyway there’s a trade association (...INAUDIBLE...) they’ve all got some staff of their own networks, of their own events and their own, you know, all of that. CW Yes, yeah I suppose in some ways the more people you have on your side working with you and for you the better. PH 00:27:26 Absolutely, private equity, you know, they’ve got a British trade association and the European trade association. CW Oh have they? PH One of the things I do is help them discuss you know, then help that operation in Europe (...INAUDIBLE...) CW Yeah. PH 00:27:42 The CBI has a full time operation in Brussels. CW Oh do they? Oh that’s good, yeah, yeah it might be worth speaking to them. PH 00:27:48 You know that sort of (...INAUDIBLE...) CW Yeah, it sounds like a good option. Okay, well I think over the next um ten days or so, I’ll be drawing up a kind of shortlist and speaking to the States and then I’ll let you know um how we’re going to progress and when someone’s
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coming over. Because I think it would be really important for you to meet them. PH Yes, yes, that would be. CW 00:28:08 And get a better sense of the company and what we’re about. PH Absolutely. CW 00:28:12 And also we can think a bit more about what your role might be and you might want to give that some though as well. PH Yes, yes absolutely. CW 00:28:19 And does that sound okay? PH Absolutely fine. CW Okay perfect, really nice to meet you, thank you for coming. What have you got planned for this evening? Anything fun? PH 00:28:28 Oh god, two votes. CW Oh, I didn’t realise you had to um run back. PH No, no, oh god yes, I’ve got a seven o’clock vote. CW Oh dear. PH 00:28:36 Position’s (?) (...INAUDIBLE...).a bit and then another one at ten o’clock and in between catching up on e-mails. CW Oh that is a late night isn’t it? PH 00:28:42 Yeah but that’s standard, this is Monday and Tuesday night in the House of Commons. One of the reasons why I’m standing down from the election, fed up with it, (...INAUDIBLE...) it’s crazy. CW 00:28:55 Well it’s very unsociable isn’t it? Especially, how do people with families do it? PH oh please, that’s a whole other (...INAUDIBLE...) We started changing the hours um when we (...INAUDIBLE...). CW 00:29:09 Yeah well that’s it, I thought it used to be the case that you finish at ten but I thought all that had changed and it had got much better. PH No, we changed it a bit. It did get significantly better for a short happy period, nine months or so, exactly. CW 00:29:23 Thank you, really nice to meet you. Have you got a coat or anything? PH I have got a coat. CW Great, they probably hung it up in here. [chat while getting coat] PH 00:29:42 Okay just, you’ve got my number haven’t you? CW Yes, I will give you a call if um I have any further questions. [getting other coat] CW 00:29:51 Are you going to jump in a cab or have you got time to walk back? PH I think I will walk back, keeps me safe (?). CW 00:29:57 Yes, I guess as long as you’ve got time, I myself have lost all track of time. PH It’s twenty to seven so sorry, I’ve kept you. CW No, absolutely fine. Alright, have a nice evening. PH Very nice to see you, thank you very much, goodbye.
61. Letter to the Commissioner from Rt Hon Patricia Hewitt, 27 June 2010
Having now had the opportunity of studying the full transcript of the interview with “Claire Webster” as well as the transcript of the telephone conversation in which she introduced herself, I am in a position to respond to the specific queries raised in your letter dated 23 March and in your recent letter dated 2 June. Before doing so, however, I would like to emphasise two points. Firstly, as is apparent from the transcript, the context of my meeting with Ms Webster was my availability and interest in taking on work after I had ceased to be a Member of Parliament: my intention to stand down from Parliament had already been announced in June of last year. Secondly, as is again apparent from the transcript, I strongly endorse the statement in the relevant guidelines that “it is in the public interest that former Ministers with experience in government should
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be able to move into business or into other areas of public life ... provided there is no cause for any suspicion of impropriety.” Responses to the numbered questions listed in your letter of 23 March
1. Give me a full account of the circumstances in which you came to be interviewed by someone who turned out to be a journalist. I believe the transcript of the short telephone conversation between Claire Webster and myself on 25 February speaks for itself.575 I would only add that over the last year (and particularly since I announced I was standing down from Parliament), I have received a number of approaches from businesses, consultancies and recruitment firms about possible advisory or non-executive positions; and therefore there was nothing unusual about the Anderson Perry approach. I believed that there would be no harm in having a preliminary meeting, and decided that I would only carry out the usual due diligence on the company and its clients if anything came of the initial conversation. I was therefore only prepared for an informal chat when I met with Ms Webster. I went to St James’s Square on 9 March and introduced myself to the receptionist who telephoned Ms Webster to inform her that she had a visitor, Ms Webster came out to the reception area to meet me and took me into a meeting room. None of this was out of the ordinary and I had no reason to suspect either that she was a journalist or that there were hidden cameras in the room. 2. Confirm what you are reported to have said during that interview and whether each such statement is true. a) That it was “very do-able” to put business clients in touch with a Minister but “you have to be quite careful about how you do it” and what you meant to imply by that It is highly desirable that a Minister should have a dialogue or contact with businesses in the sector for which they have responsibility, and in an appropriate case I would not hesitate to do my best to initiate a dialogue between a Minister and such a business. In any case where I was being paid as an adviser, however, I would always declare my interest to the Minister (or official) at the start of the conversation. By stating that a client should be “quite careful about how you do it” I was referring to possible problems such as: not acting improperly or putting the Minister in an embarrassing position (e.g. by trying to interfere in a procurement or planning process)
not going about it in the wrong way (e.g. by improperly getting an appointment at the Minister’s constituency surgery)
not simply relying on writing to the Department (since the Minister might never see the letter)
not asking an MP to do anything that would breach the Code of Conduct (e.g. an MP asking the Minister for something that would benefit only one company—and wasn’t therefore for the public good)
I was always very conscious of the need to be careful myself if I was approaching a Minister on an issue where I had a financial interest, in particular by declaring my interest immediately and ensuring that I was not seeking to benefit only one organisation. b) That you suggested five ways for your client to meet a Minister and, if so, whether you have advised any outside body or private company to lobby in any of these ways and what were the circumstances;
If a company or voluntary organisation has a matter of legitimate concern that it wishes to bring to the attention of a Minister, then the five suggestions I made in the meeting are all normal and proper ways that any competent public affairs executive would use to approach a Minister with the issue. As a constituency MP, I sometimes advised voluntary organisations and businesses in Leicester on how to make their views known, but I was never paid by such an organisation for that advice. c) That you put Partnerships in Care in touch with those working on Lord Bradley’s inquiry, to enable PiC to give evidence to that inquiry and for Lord Bradley to visit one of PiC’s establishments —and, if true, how that came about, how you achieved it and why it was necessary;
The discussion of my role with PiC arose after I had made the point that public services were increasingly being outsourced and that the private sector had potentially an important and valuable part to play, including in healthcare: see pp.14–19 of the transcript of the interview. As explained on p. 21, I took the view that it was
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unfortunate that the Bradley Inquiry appeared to be talking more to the public than the private sector, and particularly so since PiC had in fact submitted its own evidence to the Inquiry quite independent of any input on my part. I had at least one conversation with Lord Bradley regarding his Inquiry into the treatment of prisoners with mental health problems. I do not remember when that was, but it was before he drew up his report. When I spoke to Lord Bradley I made it absolutely clear that I worked as an adviser to Cinven, the owners of PiC, and that PiC was an excellent provider of specialist mental health services, funded by the NHS. I declared my interest partly bearing in mind paragraphs 12 and 16 of the Code of Conduct for MPs, but also because I would never have a conversation under false pretences. In fact, Lord Bradley was neither a Minister nor a servant of the Crown when he undertook his Inquiry, but that did not affect my attitude towards the conversation. I recall that I explained to Lord Bradley why I felt that the independent sector could make a valuable contribution to his Inquiry and I suggested that he should meet or visit PiC so that he could see their work for himself. I remember also telling him that PiC had submitted evidence to his Inquiry, but that I wasn’t sure whether he had personally seen it. I do not remember whether or not Lord Bradley did in fact visit PiC—when I said “I think” to “Ms Webster”, that reflected my lack of clear recollection on this point. The views I expressed to Lord Bradley, although they were only expressed after I had made clear to him that I was employed by Cinven, were views that I firmly believe to be in the public interest. The Government has for many years pursued a policy of encouraging diverse providers to offer NHS services. As Health Secretary, I strongly believed that NHS patients and commissioners should be able to get the best services, whether from the public, private or not-for-profit sectors, and I remain of that view today. But I also knew that parts of the NHS did not support that policy, with the result that there is not always a `level playing field’ for independent sector providers. d) That you persuaded the Chairman of the Health and Criminal Justice National Advocacy Group to invite PiC to join the Advocacy Group—and, if true, how you achieved this; I did not claim to Ms Webster to have persuaded the Chairman of the Health and Criminal Justice Programme Board to invite PiC to join the Advocacy Group. (There are in fact two separate bodies; PiC is a member of the National Advocacy Group.) According to the transcript I stated: “I was able to persuade the chairman of that taskforce that there would be a private sector, independent sector representative on that taskforce and because Partnerships in Care had been the most active it was their person who was then put on the taskforce”
I did indeed raise the issue of the independent sector’s involvement in mental health provision with the Department of Health. I enclose the official Departmental minute of the meeting held on 21 May 2009, from which it will be seen that I made my financial interest in Cinven, the owners of PiC, absolutely clear and that the issues raised were ones of general concern and of public interest.576 An internal Departmental investigation, carried out immediately after the Dispatches programme and revealed in response to a Freedom of Information request, confirmed that all relevant officials “were fully aware of [my] role as paid consultant to Partnerships in Care” and that “no breach of the Ministerial Code or any other impropriety had taken place”.577 e) That PiC was your client—and, if so, what remuneration you received from PiC or indirectly from Cinven and for what services; As published in the Register of Members’ Interests, I was appointed a senior adviser to Cinven, which owns PiC, from 1 January 2008 at an annual fee of £60,000 (and an expectation of around 18 days’ work). The appointment was renewed from 1 January 2009 at the same fee (with an expectation of around 16 days’ work). After July 2009, in accordance with the new rules on registration, I declared each of the quarterly payments I received from Cinven (£15,000 + VAT for approximately 30 hours’ work over three months). Towards the end of last year we agreed that less time would be needed in the new year, with the fee correspondingly reduced. My final entry in the Register, published on 12 April, includes the payment of £6,250 + VAT for approximately 15 hours’ work between January and March 2010. I advised Cinven on policy-related issues, particularly in relation to healthcare and the proposed European regulation of private equity. Without wishing to labour the point, in my view advising a reputable business as to how present its case effectively cannot conceivably be regarded as a breach of the Code of Conduct.
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In this context, let me make it clear that the discussions relating to Cinven and PiC to which I have referred do not in any way constitute “paid advocacy” as prohibited by the Code of Conduct and the Resolution of the House as modified in 2002. The Guide to the Rules on this point quotes the Guidelines from the Committee on Standards and Privileges as follows: “When a Member is taking part in any parliamentary proceeding or making any approach to a Minister or servant of the Crown, advocacy is prohibited which seeks to confer benefit exclusively upon a body (or individual) outside Parliament, from which the Member has received, is receiving, or expects to receive a financial benefit, or upon any registrable client of such a body (or individual). Otherwise a Member may speak freely on matters which relate to the affairs and interests of a body (or individual) from which he or she receives a financial benefit, provided the benefit is properly registered and declared.”
I have never sought to “confer benefit exclusively upon a body” from which I receive a financial benefit. I have declared my financial interests both publicly in the Register and privately in every relevant conversation with a Minister, a departmental official or others. f) That you responded “Exactly” to the interviewer’s statement that you had got PiC “into the system ... with a view to getting further contracts, presumably, and being able to expand their work” I was simply agreeing with the obvious proposition that if the independent sector was to be included in NHS tenders, then PiC, like other private organisations, would seek to tender for “further contracts”, which would of course be entirely a matter for the NHS commissioning authorities. I should make it clear that I have not lobbied, nor would I lobby, on behalf of PiC to neither obtain such a contract; nor indeed have Cinven or PiC ever suggested that I should. My concern, as pp.20–21 of the transcript make abundantly clear, was simply to secure a level playing field for public, private and not-for-profit sector providers, in line with government policy and my own beliefs. g) That you spoke to “both officials and Ministers” about changing a carbon reduction regulation that helped Cinven and other private equity companies—and, if true, how you achieved this; From discussions with Cinven it was apparent that the proposed carbon reduction regulations would impact in a discriminatory manner on companies owned by a private equity fund. In the interview with “Ms. Webster” I referred to this as “a wrinkle” and explained why it appeared to be irrational and counter- productive: see pp. 25–26 of the transcript. I talked to the relevant Minister (Joan Ruddock MP) about this issue. I began the conversation by explaining my employment with Cinven, a private equity firm, and stressed that this was a point of general concern, not specific to one company. This conversation was, I recall, followed up by a brief exchange of e-mails. 3. Confirm whether you have at any time been paid £3,000 a day for consultancy or other services and if so, by whom and whether you registered these payments. As referred to earlier, from July 2009 MPs have been required to register each external payment, with details of the organisation making the payment, services provided and hours worked. The payments that I have received and hours worked are therefore already a matter of public record and recorded on the Register of Members’ Interests. As is apparent from p. 43 of the transcript, the figure of about £3,000 per day (which was in respect of my services to Cinven) was arrived at on the basis of dividing the total annual fee of £60,000 by 18. 4. Confirm what subsequent communications you or your legal advisers had with the reporters. I enclose correspondence comprising a letter from Vera Productions to myself dated 15 March, a reply to Vera Productions from my solicitors dated 17 March, a response from Channel 4 of the same date, a further letter from my solicitors dated 18 March and the response of the same date from Channel 4. 5. Confirm, if any of the allegations are true, whether you considered you had an obligation to make a Register entry or declaration, or both, in respect of any financial interest you had in these alleged activities. I can confirm that I made a full disclosure of the details of my involvement in all the companies concerned, including details of each external payment since July 2009, in the Register of Members’ Interests. 6. Confirm, if any of what you said was untrue, why you spoke as you did. Whilst this was an informal meeting I believe that everything I said to Ms Webster gave a fair representation of work I had done. Responses to the questions listed in your letter dated 2 June. 1. Remunerated directorships and employment at time of interview, and whether registered in accordance with the rules? I confirm that all four of my appointments—namely, non-executive director, BT Group plc; senior adviser, Cinven; special consultant, Alliance Boots; and member, Barclays Asia Pacific Advisory Committee—were
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properly registered in accordance with the rules. In respect of the first three I was required to seek, and duly obtained, the approval of the independent Advisory Committee on Business Appointments. 2. Whether relationship between Cinven and Partnerships In Care, and my work involving both, declared to NHS managers and Department of Health officials on each occasion? As mentioned earlier, I enclose the official Departmental minute of the meeting held on 21 May 2009, from which it will be seen that I made my financial interest in Cinven, the owners of PiC, absolutely clear and that the issues raised were ones of general concern and of public interest 578An internal Departmental investigation, carried out in response to a Freedom of Information request, subsequently confirmed that all relevant officials “were fully aware of [my] role as paid consultant to Partnerships in Care” and that “no breach of the Ministerial Code or any other impropriety had taken place”.579 3. Whether my interest as senior adviser to Cinven was declared to Ministers and officials in conversations and meetings relating to the effect of CRC regulations on private equity firms? I declared my interest at the beginning of my conversation with the Minister. I did not in fact speak to officials. 4. Whether in the manner described at p. 29 of the transcript I helped to get a regulation removed on behalf of a company, and whether on such occasion or occasions I declared my interest to the minister or officials concerned? As the transcript makes clear, I did not say that I had helped to remove regulations on behalf of a company. In fact, “Ms Webster” asked “if the Conservatives win the next election, how much will that affect the kind of advice you would be able to give the board?” (see page 28). My answer simply dealt with that possible future situation: I was not describing any action I had taken previously. 5. Whether it is true that I have had regular lunches and coffees with civil servants (whom I knew when a Minister), and if this is indeed the case, whether on such occasions I discuss matters of interest to my clients, and declare my own interest? About once a month, I would have lunch or coffee with such civil servants. On any such occasion, if the discussion touched on matters affecting my clients, I always drew attention to my interest. 6. Whether I have ever taken the action on behalf of a client described in pp 58–61 with a view to changing a directive or legislation whilst a Member of Parliament, and if so, whether I declared an interest? I was not describing any action that 1 had taken as a Member of Parliament. Instead, I was indicating the most effective way in which a case could be presented with a view to changing a proposed directive or regulation. I did so specifically in response to the question raised by “Ms Webster” about how best to change or influence various pieces of legislation that could arise sometime in the future and whom might have “a massive impact” on our client. In other words, both the question and my answer related to what might happen after I had ceased to be a Member of Parliament ... Finally, I can confirm that the interview with Claire Webster took place on the 9th March of this year. Conclusion I apologise for the length of this letter but I wanted to respond fully to each of your questions. I believe that I have carefully followed the Parliamentary and Ministerial Codes and guidelines, including by declaring my private interests both in the Register of Members’ interests and in every relevant conversation. I have only taken on such appointments for companies with which I am happy to be associated and that would not compromise the time needed to fulfil my parliamentary and constituency duties. My private appointments have been approved, where appropriate, by the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments. I hope that I have been able to reassure you on each of the concerns you raised. 27 June 2010
62. Letter to Freedom of Information applicant from the Freedom of Information Officer, Department of Health, 24 May 2010
Thank you for your e-mail of 6 April to the Department of Health requesting, under the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act, details about investigations carried out by the Department following the Channel 4 Dispatches programme Politicians for Hire. Your request has been passed to me for reply. Specifically, you requested the following:
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Could you please provide details of any inquiry carried out by the DOH or any of its Executive Agencies or NDPBs into the actions of Stephen Byers, Patricia Hewitt, Geoff Hoon or Margaret Moran in relation to the claims made by them in the recent Dispatches programme on TV that they may have influenced government policy inappropriately. This should cover both formal and informal inquiries and I need details of:
1 Which documents were inspected and the time and date this happened;
2 Which staff were spoken to and the time and date this happened together with their job titles, what was asked and what the response was;
3 Who instigated the inquiry and why;
4 Copies of all internal communications and documents relating to this issue.
Assurances have been given by government that there is no need for a parliamentary inquiry on this matter due to confirmation having been provided by the relevant government departments within 24 hours that there was no substance to the claim of these politicians to have influenced policy. I need a copy of any such assurances that have been provided by anyone at the DOH to this effect, when this assurance was given and what the objective basis of this assurance was.
If no inquiry has taken place and no assurances have been given please simply say so and do this promptly. There can be little justification for obfuscation and delay in such circumstances if the civil service is, as it claims, politically independent.
As you are aware, on 5 May, we wrote to you to advise that we would require more time to consider the public interest test on the documentation relevant to your request. We are now in a position to respond to your request in full. An internal investigation was undertaken within the Department of Health relating to Patricia Hewitt’s interaction with the Department on behalf of Partnerships in Care. This was instigated by the Permanent Secretary as head of Department, and conducted by staff in his office. This included conversations with Ministerial Offices and a search of correspondence relating to Patricia Hewitt and Partnerships in Care. This occurred on 22 March 2010 and more detailed timings are provided in the e-mail documentation we are releasing to you in the attached PDF file. As part of these investigations, policy colleagues in the Social Care, Local Government & Care Partnerships Directorate were also contacted, and this is also detailed in the accompanying pack of documents. From this, it was established that the Minister for Care Services, Phil Hope MP, had held one meeting with Patricia Hewitt and Partnerships in Care on 21 May 2009 to discuss high secure services and wider mental health issues.580 This meeting was recorded on the register of meetings with external parties and published in the usual way.581 Policy officials and the Minister for Care Services were fully aware of Patricia Hewitt’s role as a paid consultant to Partnerships in Care both before and during the conduct of the meeting. Both the Permanent Secretary and officials from the Propriety and Ethics Team at the Cabinet Office were satisfied that there had been no improper influence on Government policy and decisions. Their conclusion was that no breach of the Ministerial Code, or any other impropriety, had taken place. Partnerships in Care did raise the prospect of independent sector representation with respect to the National Advisory Group being set up on the implementation of the Lord Bradley review. This was after David Hanson’s Written Ministerial Statement of 30 April 2010 which invited comment from all parties, and was the only invitation made. This was an open invitation for expression of interest in membership of the Advisory Group. To be as inclusive as possible, all applications for membership of the group, including the application from Partnerships in Care, were accepted. In no sense, therefore, could Patricia Hewitt’s involvement be said to have influenced the membership of the National Advisory Group. Recorded information relating to this informal investigation, including e-mail trains and the meeting note referred to in the previous paragraph, is attached to this response. Please note that names of junior members of staff have been redacted in accordance with s40 of the FOl Act which allows us to protect personal information which would not otherwise be available in the public domain. S40(2) of the FOI Act exempts us
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from the duty to disclose any information whose release would breach the Department’s obligations under the Data Protection Act. 24 May 2010
63. Timeline for Partnerships in Care involvement in Lord Bradley’s Review and the Health and Criminal Justice Advisory Group, 22 March 2010
Lord Bradley’s review
16th January 2008, PiC write to Lord Bradley asking to be involved in the review 6th February 2008, response to PiC that they will be contacted in due course 6th February 2008, letter from CBI to Lord Bradley regarding involvement in the review 27th February 2008, response to CBI that they will be contacted in due course 2nd May 2008, e-mail from [...] to CBI that “Lord Bradley has been approached by several companies that provide services in this area, and he would prefer not to meet each individually...so he wants the best method of addressing the private provider perspective. 2nd May 2008, e-mail from CBI [...] stating that they will canvas interest in CBI members 23rd June 2008, CBI confirm attendance of CBI and Partnerships in Care at meeting 2nd July 2008, Lord Bradley meets with CBI and Partnerships in Care National Advisory Group
National Advisory Group
30th April 2009, publication of WMS (covering Government response to Bradley) by David Hanson, inviting comment on nature and constituency of NAG, by 31st May 2009 May 2009, response from PiC to Bradley report, self-nominating for membership of NAG 12th May 2009 Letter from CBI responding to Bradley report, emphasising importance of independent sector on the NAG and offering to nominate from membership 15th July 2009, [name], Chief Executive, Partnerships in Care writes to [Director-General, Social Care] regarding membership of the NAG 22nd July 2009 [Director-General] responds to [Chief Executive], agreeing private sector membership of the group 28th July 2009, Paper to National Programme Board regarding proposals for membership, of the NAG, including all nominations and self-nominations, including self-nomination by PiC 30th July 2009 Letter to [name] from [Director-General] regarding interest in chairmanship of NAG 5th August 2009 [name] confirms interest 3rd September 2009, submission from [official] to Phil Hope, setting out suggested TOR and membership of NAG (including all nominations, including self-nomination of PiC) Phil Hope writes to ministerial colleagues setting out suggested set up of NAG (with suggested membership list including PiC) 29th September 2009, letter to Phil Hope from [name] agreeing suggested membership 7th October 2009, letter from David Hanson to Phil Hope agreeing membership and asking for Faculty for Forensic Medicine, Royal College of Physicians, and IPCC to be included as members 7th October 2009, letter from Vernon Coaker to Phil Hope nominating LGA for membership 22nd October 2009, Phil Hope sends appointment letters for NAG membership (including [name] as Chair) 30th October 2009, PiC accepts membership 22 March 2010
64. Memorandum from the Diary Manager, Private Office of Mr Phil Hope MP, then Minister of State for Care Services and Minister for East Midlands, 22 March 2010
Phil Hope met Patricia Hewitt and some representatives from Partnerships in Care. This was on 21 May 2009. I have attached the agenda below if this helps. AGENDA
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1. Introduction to PiC. 2. Role and significance of independent sector providers In meeting the needs of psychiatric patients who require treatment in conditions of security with particular emphasis on offenders and prisoners.. 3. Key issues from the Bradley Report for independent sector providers. 4. Strategic engagement with the Independent sector and the needs for a competitive level playing field. 22 March 2010
65. Note of Meeting between Rt Hon Patricia Hewitt, Partnership in Care Chief Executive, Mr Phil Hope, then Minister of State for Care Services, and others, which took place at Department of Health, 21 May 2009. Note circulated 5 June 2009
Summary of points raised by PiC [in 21 May 2009 meeting]
x PiC are mainly involved in medium secure mental health provision. Patricia Hewitt explained that she is a paid adviser to Cinven (parent company of PiC).
x PiC feel that commissioning of mental health services (particularly medium secure services) is weak especially in London. They are of the view that there is no strategic capacity planning at SHA level and a lack of coordination between PCTs which is resulting in both over and a lack of capacity throughout the region. PiC feel that there is a lot of capacity within the independent sector that is currently under utilised as Commissioners are not involving the independent sector in this building capacity. They claim that MH Trusts and FTs are building their own rather than putting out to tender so that the independent sector can get involved. P Hewitt feels that there is a default position to commissioning that is: public good, private = bad.
x P Hewitt made the point that acute commissioning hubs are only just being set up In London when the policy was signed off at the end of 2005/early 2006. P Hewitt also asked what WCC means for MH. PlC are already involved with specialist commissioners, and chair the independent sector contribution to the Independent sector/specialist commissioning group.
x They feel London SHA have been slow in signing up to the NHS contract unlike the rest of the country and that cooperation with the independent needs to improve.
x PiC cited the North West [Region] as a good example of embracing the private sector involving the instep sector by going out to open tender to deliver services,
x PiC feels that the assessment process is slow and that the instep sector has trained psychiatrists that gives them the capacity to get involved and help speed up the process. They also raised the point that prisoners can often be assessed In one place and then moved around and this raises issues around where costs lie and who provides the funding. hey feel that a more streamlined funding arrangement is needed.
x They felt that the Bradley report has helped highlight the issues around low and medium secure kW provision. PiC raised the prospect of indep sector representation with respect to the National Advisory Group being set up.
Outcome
x P. Hewitt will submit a note outlining the points she has raised for the National Programme Board to consider. This will be sent to both MS(CS) and David Hanson (Mai) as the lead on Bradley report.
x MS(CS) explained that work is underway to ensure that there is a strong resonance for mental health in World Class Commissioning but that their points around commissioning will be fed back to the WCC team. 411/0- can you take this forwards
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x MV explained that a Health and Criminal Justice National Programme Board will be set up to look at Bradley and especially care pathways.
x MS(CS) explained that membership of the National Advisory Group would be for the incoming (independent) chair to make recommendations on membership.
x P Hewitt will meet with the London SHA CE to discuss the issues raised around London in more detail.
5 June 2009
66. Letter to Rt Hon Patricia Hewitt from the Commissioner, 1 July 2010
Thank you for your letter of 27 June responding to my letters to you of 23 March and 2 June about this complaint following the interview which you gave an undercover reporter in March this year when you were still a Member of Parliament. I was grateful for your letter and to see the attachments. I would be grateful if you could help me on some matters which arise from your response. They are as follows: 1. I have noted your response about what you said about the five ways to meet a Minister. I note that sometimes you advised businesses and other organisations in your constituency on how to make their views known, but were not paid for this. I am not sure, however, whether the implication is that you have not given advice to any of the companies or organisations who employed you about meeting a Minister in any of these ways. That was the question I asked in my letter of 23 March and it would be most helpful if you could either confirm that you have not done this or, if you have, what advice you gave to which of the companies employing you and whether, in any case where it was necessary, you declared your interest to the relevant Minister or officials. 2. I am writing to Lord Bradley to ask for his help on the evidence you have given on what you told the undercover reporter about your links with his review. I note from the Department’s timeline released under the FOI (I was grateful for a copy)582 that there is no reference to your conversation or meeting with Lord Bradley, but there is a reference to the CBI confirming that they and PiC would meet Lord Bradley, which they did on 2 July 2008. Could you let me know whether you had any contacts with the CBI on these matters either before or after this meeting in relation to the Bradley review and, if so, what they were? 3. I note that you told the undercover reporter: “So I was able to get them, basically, in front of Bradley” ... Is that an accurate representation of the outcome of your work in relation to the Bradley review in as much as it affected PiC? 4. In relation to the Health and Criminal Justice National Advisory Group, I note that you consider that you did not persuade the Chairman to invite PiC to join the group, on the basis (as I understand it) that you persuaded him that there could be an independent representative on that group and PiC were chosen because they were the most active in the field. It would appear from the evidence you have given, however, that you met the then Minister (Mr Phil Hope MP) on 21 May 2009 with senior PiC representatives and DOH officials, but as far as I can see, you did not meet the Chairman of the group. Could you let me know whether or not you met or spoke to the Chairman as your letter implies? It would also be helpful to have a copy, if one is available, of any paper you submitted to the Minister to follow up your 21 May meeting. 5. The timeline also included with your evidence suggests that the Chief Executive wrote to nominate himself to the Group and this was subsequently accepted by the Department. Could you let me know whether you were aware of PiC’s letters of May 2009 and 15 July 2009 in which PiC nominated itself for the “NAG” (presumably the National Advisory Group) and whether you advised PiC to write as they did? 6. Finally in relation to the Advisory Group, you said to the undercover reporter that: “It’s now kind of over to them because, even though I will keep a watching brief them for as long as is needed, but basically I’ve kind of got them into the system, where they can build the relationships, they can make the arguments,” (page 23). Is that an accurate summary of the assistance you gave to PiC–that basically you got them into the system?
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7. On carbon reduction regulation, I intend to ask for help from Ms Joan Ruddock on her meeting with you. Before doing so, however, I would be grateful to know whether you still have copies of the e-mails to which you referred following up your meeting with her. It would also be helpful, based on your knowledge of the sector, if you could let me know which other private health providers are owned by private equity funds. 8. And finally in relation to the carbon reduction regulations, you told the reporter (page 26) that you had “spoken both to officials and Ministers.” You have identified a meeting with a Minister. I note from your letter of 2 June that you did not speak to officials. Could you therefore confirm that in this respect the statement that you gave the undercover reporter was inaccurate? 9. Contacts with civil servants. I note that you had lunch or coffee with civil servants about once a month and you always drew attention to your interests if discussions touched on matters affecting your clients. Could you let me know from your recollection how often the conversation did touch on such matters and what they were? Could you also identify the civil servants you had coffee or lunch with where the discussions of interest affecting your clients took place? I would be very grateful if you could let me have a response to this letter within the next two weeks. Meanwhile, I am writing to Lord Bradley and will let you have a copy of his response. I propose to write to Ms Ruddock once I have the further information I have requested at point 7 of this letter. I look forward to hearing from you and I am grateful for your help. 1 July 2010
67. Letter to Rt Hon Lord Bradley from the Commissioner, 1 July 2010
I would welcome your help on an inquiry I am conducting following a complaint against the Rt Hon Patricia Hewitt in respect of an interview she gave to an undercover reporter in March 2009 whilst she was still a Member of Parliament. I enclose a note which sets out the procedure I follow in inviting evidence from witnesses. My inquiry is subject to parliamentary privilege and I would ask, therefore, that you do not disclose this letter or your response to others. I will show your response to Ms Hewitt during the course of this inquiry, and you can expect it to be published along with the other evidence I will have received once the inquiry is completed. In essence, the complaint I am inquiring into is that Ms Hewitt may have been engaged in lobbying activities in a way which was contrary to the rules of the House; that her conduct during an interview with a person who subsequently revealed herself as a journalist was contrary to the rules; that that conduct was not such as to maintain or strengthen the public’s trust in the integrity of Parliament; and that it had brought the House of Commons into disrepute. The matter on which I would welcome your help is in relation to the report you produced on imprisonment and mental health in April 2009. At the time, Ms Hewitt was in remunerated employment as a Senior Adviser to a private equity fund called Cinven, which wholly owned a private sector health provider called Partnerships in Care (PiC). According to the certified transcript of the conversation, Ms Hewitt told the undercover reporter: “I was able to get them [Partnerships in Care], basically, in front of Bradley and I got Bradley to go and, actually I think he visited, visited one of their establishments, he took evidence from them.” Ms Hewitt has subsequently told me she has had at least one conversation with you regarding your inquiry into the treatment of prisoners with mental health problems. She does not remember the date other than that it was before you drew up your report. She says that when she spoke to you she made it absolutely clear that she worked as an adviser to Cinven, the owners of PiC, that PiC were “ an excellent provider of specialist mental health services,” funded by the NHS. She recalls that she explained to you why she felt that the independent sector could make a valuable contribution to your inquiry and she suggested that you should meet or visit PiC so that you could see their work for yourself. She remembered also telling you that PiC had submitted evidence to your inquiry but that she was not sure whether you had personally seen it. She does not remember whether or not you did in fact visit PiC. I would be very grateful if you could confirm or otherwise modify Ms Hewitt’s evidence to me in relation to this matter. In particular, it would be helpful if you could: 1. confirm that Ms Hewitt did have at least one discussion with you and, that when she did so, she declared her interest as a senior advisor to Cinven, the owner of PiC; 2. tell me whether you consider that what Ms Hewitt told the undercover reporter, including that she got PiC “basically, in front of Bradley”, is a fair and accurate summary of how you saw her role and the effect it had in introducing PiC to you;
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3. let me know the date of Ms Hewitt’s meeting or meetings with you, whether you in fact visited PiC or one of its services, or had a meeting with PiC and if so, the dates. It would also be helpful to know whether Ms Hewitt facilitated these contacts with PiC; 4. let me know if Ms Hewitt was accompanied by anyone else, including a PiC representative, to any meeting with you. Any other points you may wish to make about Ms Hewitt’s role as reported to the undercover reporter and in her evidence to me would, of course, be most welcome. There was an additional matter on which I would welcome your help. I attach a document produced by the Department of Health following the Channel 4 programme which included extracts from Ms Hewitt’s interview.583 The document sets out a timeline for PiC’s contacts with your Review and the new Advisory Group, and it was disclosed following an FOI request. Ms Hewitt sent it to me. As you will see, it makes no reference to Ms Hewitt’s meeting with you. You will see that someone (presumably from your team) contacted the CBI on 2 May saying that you wanted the best method of addressing the private sector perspective and that on 23 June the CBI confirmed that they and PiC would attend your meeting on 2 July 2008. I would be grateful if you could confirm that sequence. Could you also let me know whether Ms Hewitt’s meeting with you had any influence on your meeting with the CBI and PiC on 2 July, and, if so, whether to the best of your knowledge it was facilitated by Ms Hewitt? If you could let me have a response to this letter within the next two weeks, I would be most grateful. Thank you very much for your help with this. 1 July 2010
68. Letter to the Commissioner from Rt Hon Patricia Hewitt, 15 July 2010
Thank you for your letter dated 1 July, acknowledging my response to the above complaint and the attachments. Before turning to the further questions listed in your letter, I should like to comment on your introductory paragraph where you refer to “the interview which [I] gave an undercover reporter...” I did not in fact “give an interview.” You will have noted from the transcript of the telephone conversation between “Ms Webster” and myself on 25 February, that after explaining why she was contacting me and responding to some expression of interest on my part, she said: “ I was wondering if you might want to pop...to our office in St. James’s. I don’t know if you might have time to drop in there for a cup of coffee and perhaps have a chat about it and see if this is the kind of thing you might be interested in doing?” The ensuing meeting on 9 March was precisely that: an informal chat on the lines envisaged in that telephone conversation. You will readily appreciate that I am concerned that the context in which the meeting took place should not be misunderstood. My response to your numbered questions is as follows. Whether I advised any of the companies or organisations employing me as to how to secure a meeting with a Minister in any of the ways which I described?
I have not in fact given advice along the lines described to any of the companies or organisations employing me. I am sorry if my reply to your previous question on the point did not make this clear. 8. Whether I had any contact with the CBI in relation to the Bradley review either before or after my meeting with Lord Bradley?
I had no contact whatsoever with the CBI either before or after my meeting with Lord Bradley in connection with his review. 9. Whether the words “So I was able to get them, basically, in front of Bradley” accurately represents what I had accomplished as far as PiC was concerned?
The words accurately summarised the position: namely, I had drawn Lord Bradley’s attention to PiC’s existence and its role, and to the fact that it had submitted evidence to his committee; and I had suggested to him that it would be worth his while to pay a visit to one of its establislunents. 10. Whether I met or spoke to the Chairman of the Health and Criminal Justice National Advisory Group, and whether I submitted a paper to the Minister following the meeting on 21 May 2009?
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The Chairman of the National Health and Criminal Justice Programme Board was [name], Director General for Social Care in the Department of Health. Although he was not present at the meeting with Phil Hope, the Minister for Social Care, on 21 May 2009, one of his officials was and [the Director-General] himself received a copy of the minutes. I did happen to meet [him] informally in June or July 2009 (I do not have a note of the date, although I remember it was after the meeting with Phil Hope). The first time I was aware of his appointment as Chairman was when he told me about it in the course of this purely informal discussion; I recall him saying that he was chairing the “taskforce” that was following up Lord Bradley’s recommendations. I reminded him of my interest in Cinven, the owners of Partnership in Care—something of which he was already aware—and repeated my view that I hoped the independent sector would be included in this work. As I said in my letter to you of 27 June, there were in fact two separate bodies—the Programme Board (chaired by [name]) and the National Advisory Group, sometimes referred to as the National Advocacy Group (chaired by [name of second individual]). In my discussion with Ms Webster, I simply had in mind a taskforce. I have had no contact with [name of second individual] on this matter. The minutes of the meeting on 21 May 2009 refer to a “note” of the points I had raised. I did not submit a note or paper following the meeting. I refer again to the internal Departmental investigation carried out immediately after the “Dispatches” programme that confirmed that all relevant officials “were fully aware of [my] role as paid consultant to Partnerships in Care” and that “no breach of the Ministerial Code or any other impropriety had taken place” (Annex 2 to my letter of 27 June). Every organisation that nominated itself for the National Advisory Group, including PiC, was appointed; I neither sought nor obtained any “exclusive benefit” for PiC. 11. Whether I was aware of PiC’s letters of May 2009 and 15 July 2009 in which PiC nominated itself for membership of the Group, and whether those letters were written on my advice?
Those letters were not written on my advice, and I cannot recall whether I actually saw either of them at the relevant time. At the meeting with the Minister, and in my conversation with [the Chair of the Programme Board], I was making the case for the inclusion of the independent sector, and not specifically PiC. 12. Whether my comment “..basically I’ve kind of got them into the system....” is an accurate summary of the assistance I gave to PiC?
All I had in mind was that PiC was now on the Department of Health’s radar screen in relation to mental health provision. 13. Whether I have copies of e-mails exchanged between myself and Ms. Joan Ruddock, and whether I am aware of other private health providers owned by private equity funds?
I have not retained copies of the e-mails. My recollection is that at the end of our brief conversation Ms. Ruddock asked me to e-mail her summarising the issue so that she could check the precise position. She then e-mailed me explaining the change that had been made to the regulations and offering to put me in touch with relevant official(s). I think I e-mailed her back thanking her and saying that I would like to talk to the official(s) concerned. There was no further response from her. Although there are many privately-owned health providers, I do not know which are specifically owned by private equity funds. The point I was impressing on the Minister was one of general application to private equity-owned companies in all sectors and had not been raised with the private health sector in mind. There was no reason for me to mention Partnerships in Care, or the health sector, in relation to the carbon reduction regulations and I did not in fact do so. 14. Whether I spoke to officials as well as to the Minister about the carbon reduction regulations?
I in fact spoke only to the Minister, but had planned to speak to officials as well. The way I put it in my conversation with Ms Webster was simply a mistake. 15. Whether I can recall the frequency with which my informal conversations with civil servants (who were former colleagues) over lunch or coffee touched on matters affecting my clients, and whether I would identify the civil servants in question where such discussions took place?
As the response to the Freedom of Information request makes clear584 (Annex 2 to my letter of 27 June), “policy officials ... were fully aware of [my] position as a paid consultant to Partnerships in Care”. (In fact, as correctly stated in the minutes of the meeting with Phil Hope, I was a paid adviser to Cinven, owners of PiC.) I
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can only recall one informal conversation with an official that related to my financial interests and that was my discussion with [the Chair of the Programme Board], as explained in my reply to Question 4 above. Otherwise, these discussions covered topics of mutual personal interest and were essentially social in nature. In summary, I wish to stress that I registered my financial interests publicly in the Register of Members’ Interests; I drew attention to those interests in every relevant conversation with Ministers and civil servants as well as in my conversation with Lord Bradley; and I neither sought nor obtained any exclusive benefit for Partnerships in Care or any other organisation in which I had a financial interest. The Register speaks for itself; the documentary evidence provided by the Department for Health confirms the latter two points. ... 15 July 2010
69. Letter to Rt Hon Lord Bradley from the Commissioner, 15 July 2010
I wrote to you on 1 July inviting your help with this inquiry about a meeting which Ms Patricia Hewitt had with an undercover reporter in March this year. I am writing now just to let you know that Ms Hewitt has provided me with a further comment about what she said during the meeting in relation to your review. I asked Ms Hewitt whether her words “so I was able to get them, basically, in front of Bradley” accurately represented the outcome of her work in relation to your review in as much as it affected PiC. Ms Hewitt responded, “The words accurately summarised the position: namely, I had drawn Lord Bradley’s attention to PiC’s existence and its role, and to the fact that it had submitted evidence to his committee; and I had suggested to him that it would be worth his while to pay a visit to one of its establishments.” You may wish to take into account these further comments from Ms Hewitt when preparing your response to my earlier letter, for which I am most grateful. 15 July 2010
70. Letter to Ms Joan Ruddock MP from the Commissioner, 15 July 2010
I would welcome your help with an inquiry I am conducting into a complaint against the Rt Hon Patricia Hewitt in respect of a meeting she had with an undercover reporter in March 2010 while she was still a Member of Parliament and which, without her knowledge, was recorded. I enclose a note which sets out the procedure I follow when inviting evidence from witnesses. My inquiry is subject to parliamentary privilege and I would ask, therefore, that you do not disclose this letter or your response to others. I will show your response to Ms Hewitt during the course of this inquiry, and you can expect it to be published along with the other evidence I will have received once the inquiry is completed. In essence, the complaint I am inquiring into is that Ms Hewitt may have been engaged in lobbying activities in a way which is contrary to the rules of the House; that her conduct during an interview with a person who subsequently revealed herself as a journalist was contrary to the rules; that that conduct was not such as to maintain or strengthen the public’s trust in the integrity of Parliament; and that it brought the House of Commons into disrepute. When she was the Member for Leicester West, Ms Hewitt had registered in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests that she was Senior Adviser to Cinven, a private equity firm. Cinven is the sole owner of a health services provider called Partnerships in Care. The matter on which I would welcome your help is in relation to an informal discussion which Ms Hewitt has told me she had with you about carbon regulations. Ms Hewitt told the undercover reporter that the carbon reduction commitment regulations were fundamentally a good piece of policy. But she said that it had “ a bizarre wrinkle in it, whereby if you’re a private equity company … and you own … ten different companies within one firm… Under the CRC regulations, you will be treated as one entity.” So “you end up with some very small companies which, if they were owned, in a free standing way, they wouldn’t be covered by the regulations at all.” Ms Hewitt went on to say… “private equity people have come to this rather late in the day, so they’ve only quite recently even started talking to me about it.…. we have achieved one thing …which is to say if there is a larger company within a private equity portfolio that if it were free standing would be registered anyway, and that’s fine, they can register in their own right. … at the moment they’re insisting, the whole portfolio gets regulated. Now I’ve spoken both to
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officials and Ministers about it and the advice I’ve given them is, look, you are going to have to register to start with, and it’s dotty but the first year effectively is a trial year, and nobody gets charged anything they just go through the process… And I think what we’ve got to do is build a much more compelling case as to why this is wrong in principle, and cumbersome, unnecessary, distorting in practice and then get it changed… you keep talking to the officials, because it’s very helpful if the officials are putting the right recommendation up to Ministers. But in this case, because it is already in place, and also so the chances are it will be a new Minister after the Election, whatever the outcome, so we need to make sure the Minister kind of sees this from our point of view.” In her evidence to me, Ms Hewitt has said that she spoke to you as the relevant Minister about the carbon reduction regulations. She has told me that she began the conversation by explaining her appointment with Cinven, a private equity firm, and stressed that this was a point of general concern, not specific to one company. Her recollection is that at the end of your brief conversation, you asked her to e-mail you summarising the issue so that she could check the precise position. You then e-mailed Ms Hewitt explaining “the changes that had been made to the regulations” and offering to put her in touch with relevant officials. Ms Hewitt thinks that she e-mailed you back to thank you and to say that she would like to talk to the official or officials concerned. There was no further response from you. Ms Hewitt has added that: “The point I was impressing on the Minister was one of general application to private equity-owned companies and in all sectors and had not been raised with the private health sector in mind. There was no reason for me to mention Partnerships in Care, or the health sector, in relation to the carbon reduction regulations and I did not in fact do so.” Finally, Ms Hewitt has told me that she does not have copies of the e-mails. She did not speak to any officials about this matter. I would be most grateful if you could either confirm or else let me know in what respects your own recollection differs from Ms Hewitt’s recollection of this conversation and the e-mails which followed. It would be helpful if you could recall the dates of this conversation and of the follow-up e-mails and let me know whether any record was made in the Department. If you could obtain copies of any such record, and of the e-mails referred to, that would be most helpful. Could you also confirm that Ms Hewitt declared to you her interest because of her employment with Cinven, but did not refer to PiC? In this context, were you aware from what Ms Hewitt had told you that a change in the regulations would benefit some of the companies which Cinven owned? Any other points you may wish to make would, of course, be very welcome. If you could let me have a response to this letter within the next two weeks, I would be most grateful. I will, of course, show your response to Ms Hewitt when I receive it. I am most grateful for your help. 15 July 2010
71. Letter to Rt Hon Patricia Hewitt from the Commissioner, 20 July 2010
Thank you for your letter of 15 July responding to mine of 1 July asking for further help with my inquiries into this complaint. I have noted the points you have made and thank you for your help with them. They raise one or two matters which I should explore with you further as follows: 1. I note what you say about the interview and that your meeting on 9 March was “an informal chat.” While this may be more a point about language than substance, I note that in the telephone conversation of 25 February, the reporter said that she was looking “to produce a board for the UK company that can kind of advise us and our … companies” and asked whether it was “the kind of thing you might be interested in getting involved in.” You said in principle yes. The reporter subsequently invited you to have “a chat about it and to see if this is the kind of thing you might be interested in doing.” And you agreed to that meeting. I note too that at the meeting you set out the relevant parts of your CV, answered the reporter’s questions, noted that you were interested in taking on another major board position (page 41 of transcript) and, discussed your day rate (page 43) The reporter concluded that they would be drawing up a short list and speaking to the States and then would let you know how they were going to progress the matter when someone was coming over whom they would then like you to meet. It would appear on the face of it therefore that you were aware that the company were looking to employ board members when you went to the meeting and that the contribution you would make to the board, your experience and your fees were all discussed in a series of questions and answers. This might seem to go beyond an informal chat. Since you raised the point, it would be helpful to know whether this meeting followed the lines you had expected and, if not, why you made no reference to this during the discussion.
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2. I note that you have not given any of the companies who employ you advice along the lines you described about how to meet a Minister. It would be helpful to know, therefore, why you set out these ways to meet a Minister in the way that you did, on what experience your advice was based, how you expected your advice to be implemented and whether you considered pointing out that you had not advised any of your current companies to adopt any of these strategies. I will, as you say, now write to Ms Joan Ruddock MP. I have also written again to Lord Bradley to show him your response to point 3 in your letter. Thank you for the information about your whereabouts over the summer period. That is very helpful in knowing how to contact you. If you could let me have a response to this letter by 24 August, I would be most grateful. I will, of course, let you have a copy of the responses from Lord Bradley and Ms Ruddock when I receive them. Thank you again for your help. 20 July 2010
72. Letter to the Commissioner from Ms Joan Ruddock MP, 26 July 2010
My recollection is that Patricia Hewitt spoke to me briefly in the lobby one evening and told me she advised a private equity company and there were issues with the CRC. I recall telling her that I was familiar with the issues because we had received representations from private equity firms. She did not specify any particular company and I did not tell her anything that was not available to anyone enquiring on that point. I later e-mailed her from my Blackberry—having checked with officials that the information I had given was correct. My e-mail—to my recollection—simply said the information was correct and officials would be happy to talk to her/the company if she wished. She e-mailed her thanks and said she would contact officials—she didn’t ask anything further. As I am no longer the Minister I do not have access to the Blackberry or departmental e-mail records and I’m afraid I cannot recall dates. However I can confirm that at no time was Partnerships in Care mentioned to me. I hope this is helpful. 26 July 2010
73. Letter to Ms Joan Ruddock MP from the Commissioner, 28 July 2010
Thank you for your letter of 26 July responding to mine of 20 July asking for your help with my inquiry into a complaint against the Rt Hon Patricia Hewitt when she was a Member of Parliament. I was most grateful for this response. I hope I am right in taking from your letter that you confirm Ms Hewitt’s recollection of your exchanges. There were two points which I asked you about in my letter and which you have not covered. They were: 1. The date of the conversation you had with Ms Hewitt. I appreciate you may not be able to recall precisely the date, but the month and year would be helpful. 2. Whether you were aware from what Ms Hewitt told you that a change in the regulations would benefit some of the companies which Cinven, the private equity company, owned. I note that Ms Hewitt told you that she advised a private equity company, but could you let me know whether you took from that that some of the companies which Cinven owned would benefit from a change in the regulations? I was most grateful for your prompt response. If you could let me have a response to these two questions within the next week, despite the recess, that would be much appreciated. I would then plan to show your response to Ms Hewitt. As you know, you can expect your letters to be published with any memorandum I submit to the Committee on Standards and Privileges, along with the other evidence I have obtained. Thank you for your prompt help with this matter. 28 July 2010
74. E-mail to the Commissioner from Ms Joan Ruddock MP, 28 July 2010
I’m sorry but I am just leaving for a month away. I cannot do a letter now and have nothing useful to add. I do not recall when this conversation took place and it would be necessary to find out if DECO can trace the e-
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mail from my use of the departmental Blackberry. I do confirm Ms Hewitt’s account of the conversation. Her enquiry was not significant in my mind as it related to a provision that was in the public domain and being consulted upon. I was familiar with the issue because of companies affected were regularly talking to civil servants. Your final question is speculative. The official consultation provided the basis for me to make decisions. I do not recall mention of any specific company names. 28 July 2010
75. Letter to the Commissioner from Rt Hon Lord Bradley of Withington, 28 July 2010
Thank you for your letter dated 1 July 2010 regarding your complaint inquiry into the Rt Hon Patricia Hewitt. I would like to make the following comments in response. 1. I did have one telephone conversation with Patricia Hewitt about my review on 20 May 2008 and she did inform me that she was an advisor to Partnerships in Care. 2. It is certainly not the case that this telephone conversation enabled Partnerships in Care to have particular access to my independent review. Following the announcement of my review on 4 December 2007 there was a general call for evidence from all interested parties including the private sector. A written submission was received from Partnerships in Care on 20 March 2008. My review team also contacted the CBI on 2 May 2008 about the best method of addressing the private providers’ perspective and managing the many requests to meet the private sector. As a result, the CBI nominated Partnerships in Care to represent the private sector and I met both organisations together on 2 July 2008. The telephone call with Patricia Hewitt therefore had absolutely no influence on this process. 3. I was invited to visit a Partnerships in Care facility (Kneesworth House in Hertfordshire) by the organisation and contact was made by my review team to explore possible dates, but it was not possible to arrange such a visit before I completed my report. 4. I did not arrange a meeting with Patricia Hewitt, with or without, Partnerships in Care to discuss my review. 5. Finally I can categorically state that Patricia Hewitt had absolutely no influence on the findings in my report or its recommendations. Please do not hesitate to contact me again if you require any further information. 28 July 2010
76. Letter to Rt Hon Patricia Hewitt from the Commissioner, 29 July 2010
I have now heard back from Ms Joan Ruddock MP in response to my request for her help on this inquiry. I attach a copy of my letters to her of 20 and 28 July, and Ms Ruddock’s responses of 26 and 28 July. As you will see, Ms Ruddock confirms your account of your conversation with her. You will note that, for information, I sought Ms Ruddock’s help on when your conversation took place. She has no recollection of the timing. While I appreciate you may not know the exact date, it would be very helpful in terms of setting out the narrative if you could let me know or give me an estimate of the month and year when you recall this conversation taking place. I appreciate that you will not receive this letter until after you return to the country on 17 August, but hope that you might be able to let me have a response letting me know whether you can help me on the date of the conversation and letting me have any comments you may want to make on Ms Ruddock’s evidence before you go abroad again at the end of August. Meanwhile, there is the outstanding evidence from Lord Bradley which I will, of course, forward to you once I have received it. Thank you for your help. 29 July 2010
77. Letter to Rt Hon Lord Bradley of Withington from the Commissioner, 2 August 2010
Thank you very much for your letter of 28 July responding to my letters to you of 1 and 15 July. I was most grateful for your help with my inquiry.
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You kindly offered to help me with any further information I might need. There were two points on which I would very much appreciate some further help. They are: 1. Can you recall what Ms Hewitt said to you in your telephone conversation of 20 May 2008? In particular, could you either confirm or modify Ms Hewitt’s recollection of that conversation, as set out in paragraph 5 of my letter to you of 1 July? I do recognise the difficulty in recalling a conversation of more than two years ago, but I would appreciate any help you can give me on this. 2. You referred to the written submission from Partnerships in Care of 20 March 2008. Do you recall whether you had seen this submission yourself before Ms Hewitt telephoned you? And do you recall whether, following the conversation, you asked to see that submission or, if not, what were the arrangements for the Chairman to be informed of written submissions received by the inquiry? If you could possibly let me have a response to this letter within the next week that would be most helpful. But I do appreciate that we are now in the recess so it may take a little longer. Once I receive your response, I will show your letters to Ms Hewitt for any comments she may wish to make. As you know, you can expect our correspondence to be published as part of the evidence which I have obtained in support of this inquiry. Thank you again for your help with this. 2 August 2010
78. E-mail to the Commissioner from Rt Hon Patricia Hewitt, 23 August 2010
Thank you for your letter of 20 July. My response to your two questions is as follows. 1. I can confirm that this was indeed “an informal chat”. “Ms Webster” made it clear, both in the initial telephone call and in our discussion, that she was having exploratory discussions with a number of people before reporting back to her employer . I did indeed provide information about myself, as we all do during informal conversations. You ask “whether this meeting followed the lines you had expected” and I can confirm that it did. A formal interview could only have taken place once I knew the name and nature of the company planning to employ me—information that “Ms Webster” was not in a position to give me. As a result, I did not come away from my meeting with her feeling much clearer about whether this would turn into a serious proposition which I could then consider. As I said in my letter of 15 July, I was concerned about your reference to “the interview which [I] gave an undercover reporter” with its suggestion that this was akin to a TV interview. As you say, this may be more a point about language than substance, but I am sure you will understand that I am concerned that the context in which the meeting took place should not be misunderstood. 2. This was an informal discussion. “Ms Webster” asked whether it was possible for companies to meet Ministers. Off the top of my head and given my years of experience, I gave examples of the ways in which organizations can legitimately meet Ministers. Nothing more or less. As I said in my letter of 27 June, the five suggestions I made are all normal and proper ways that any competent public affairs executive would use to approach a Minister. “Ms Webster” did not ask whether I had advised any of the companies I worked for along those lines and there was no reason for me to explain that I had not in fact done so, since we were talking about a hypothetical situation that might affect one of her employer’s clients in future. Thank you too for your letter of 29 July and the copy of your correspondence with Joan Ruddock. I do not remember the exact date of my conversation with Ms Ruddock, but it was either late 2009 or early 2010. I note that Ms Ruddock confirms my recollection of the conversation—including the fact that I declared my interest—and I have nothing further to add to what she has told you. I believe that you first wrote to Lord Bradley in early July. Am I right to assume that you have not yet had a reply from him? If that is the case, I would be most grateful if you could encourage him to respond as soon as possible. I am conscious that you first wrote to me on 23 March, although your enquiry was of course delayed by the Dissolution and by the need to obtain a full transcript. I do hope, however, that you will be able to bring this matter to a speedy conclusion. 23 August 2010
79. Letter to the Commissioner from Rt Hon Lord Bradley of Withington, 23 August 2010
Thank you for your further letter dated 2 August 2010 regarding your complaint inquiry into the Rt. Hon. Patricia Hewitt. I would like to make the following comments on your two points.
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1. My memory of the short telephone conversation on 20 May 2008 (pre-booked through my review team) was that Patricia Hewitt explained to me her view of the importance of the independent sector to my review and that they should be included in my review process. I confirmed that the independent sector would be included, and that besides any submissions made by individual organisations, contact had been made by my review team with the CBI to determine future contact with my review. There was no further discussion with Patricia Hewitt after this telephone call before the publication of my report in April 2009. 2. All written submissions were first processed by my review team and then all were read by me. I do not recall whether I had read the Partnerships in Care [submission] before the telephone call with Patricia Hewitt but I certainly did not discuss their submission with her during the telephone conversation. I hope this is helpful. 23 August 2010
80. Letter to Rt Hon Patricia Hewitt from the Commissioner, 1 September 2010
Thank you for your letter of 20 August responding to my letters of 20 and 29 July about this complaint and about the evidence I sought and received from Ms Joan Ruddock MP. I was grateful for your responses to the points I raised in my letter of 20 July. To be clear, I was not suggesting that you were giving the equivalent of a television interview. I used the word “interview” because I was suggesting that it was a job interview, albeit, as you say, at its preliminary stages. While I note that you were unclear about whether it would turn into a serious proposition and that you did not know the name and nature of the company planning to employ you, the proposition as set out on page 2 of the transcript was that the position was to produce a board for the UK company of Anderson Perry to advise that company and their clients. I note also that, at page 67, the person you met said that they would be drawing up a shortlist and that she would then let you know how they were going to progress the matter and when someone from the States was coming over whom you could meet. That might suggest that this was a preliminary meeting or discussion among a number of possible candidates about a job with the named company and its unnamed clients. If you wished to comment further on this, please do so, although I suspect that we have taken this as far as we need. Thank you, too, for suggesting when you might have had your conversation with Ms Joan Ruddock MP. I am most grateful. You asked about Lord Bradley’s evidence. I wrote to Lord Bradley on 1 July, seeking his help with this inquiry. I attach a copy of that letter. Following your letter to me of 15 July, I wrote to him again to let him know of one of the points made in your letter. I enclose a copy of that letter of 15 July. Lord Bradley responded to my letter of 1 July with his letter of 28 July. I enclose a copy. I wrote to Lord Bradley again on 2 August and he responded on 23 August. I enclose copies of that correspondence as well. As you will see, Lord Bradley confirms that, in your telephone conversation, you did inform him that you were an adviser to PiC, but his evidence does not appear to concur with what you told the undercover reporter and confirmed in your letter to me of 15 July, that it was your intervention that put PiC “in front of Bradley”. Lord Bradley states that he was invited to visit PiC by PiC itself; that he asked the CBI to nominate a representative from the private sector; and that the review team’s process meant that he read all written submissions. He has stated that your telephone call had “absolutely no influence” on the process for nominating a private sector provider to his review. In the light of Lord Bradley’s evidence, it would be helpful to know whether you accept that the statements you made to the undercover reporter about the effect of your work to put PiC “in front of Bradley” were mistaken, or exaggerated, and whether you were aware, at the time you made the statement or subsequently, that this was, according to Lord Bradley’s evidence, an inaccurate statement of the effect of your telephone conversation with him. I hope that, subject to your responses to this letter, I am nearing the end of my inquiry into this complaint. [Procedural matters.] It will be very helpful if you could let me have a response to this letter within the next two weeks so that, subject to that response and to concluding my all my inquiries in relation to other former Members, I can move to preparing my draft memorandum. I look forward to hearing from you.
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1 September 2010
81. Letter to the Commissioner from Rt Hon Patricia Hewitt, 13 September 2010
Thank you for your letter of 1 September and the copy of your correspondence with Lord Bradley. Thank you for explaining your use of the word “interview” in your letter of 20 July. As I hope I have previously made clear, I did not in fact regard the meeting with “Ms. Webster” as a kind of preliminary “job interview” but rather as an exploratory discussion or informal chat, as she had suggested in her telephone call. In response to your specific question in regard to my dealings with Lord Bradley, I can categorically state that there was no conscious attempt on my part to exaggerate the influence I may have had. As I said in my letter to you of 27 June, in the context of an informal discussion, I was simply trying to give “Ms Webster” a fair representation of work I had done. My recollection of my telephone conversation with Lord Bradley is that he was not sure whether he had in fact seen PiC's evidence before we spoke; I also mentioned the possibility of a visit to him. I did not know about Lord Bradley's interaction with the CBI, as described in his letter to you of 28 July (point 2), until you sent me a copy of that letter. I did not ask to meet Lord Bradley myself (point 4) nor did I ever suggest to “Ms Webster” or anyone else that I had influenced Lord Bradley's findings or recommendations (point 5). Of course it is hardly surprising that after an interval of two years, recollections will differ somewhat on a single telephone call. But I note that in relation to the Code of Conduct, Lord Bradley has confirmed both that I declared my interest in PiC and that I neither sought nor obtained any “exclusive benefit” for PiC . Both points, of course, have also been confirmed by the Department of Health. I look forward to receiving a copy of the relevant draft factual sections of the memorandum you are preparing for the Committee. 13 September 2010
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4 Rt Hon Geoff Hoon
82. Letter to Rt Hon Geoff Hoon MP from the Commissioner, 23 March 2010
I would welcome your help on a complaint I have received from Ms Justine Greening MP about your conduct in respect of an interview you gave to an undercover reporter, in respect of an alleged possible appointment. I attach the complainant’s letter of 22 March585 inasmuch as it affects the complaint against you. I know you will have seen the Sunday Times report of 21 March on which this complaint is based, as well as the Channel 4 Dispatches programme of 22 March. In essence, the complaint is that you may have been engaged in lobbying activities in a way which is contrary to the rules of the House; that your conduct during an interview with a person who subsequently revealed herself as a journalist was contrary to the rules; that that conduct was not such as to maintain or strengthen the public’s trust in the integrity of Parliament; and that it brought the House of Commons into disrepute. The Code of Conduct for Members of Parliament provides the following rules of Conduct: “9. Members shall base their conduct on a consideration of the public interest, avoid conflict between personal interest and the public interest and resolve any conflict between the two, at once, and in favour of the public interest.
10. No Member shall act as a paid advocate in any proceeding of the House.
11. The acceptance by a Member of a bribe to influence his or her conduct as a Member, including any fee, compensation or reward in connection with the promotion of, or opposition to, any Bill, Motion, or other matter submitted, or intended to be submitted to the House, or to any Committee of the House, is contrary to the law of Parliament.
12. In any activities with, or on behalf of, an organisation with which a Member has a financial relationship, including activities which may not be a matter of public record such as informal meetings and functions, he or she must always bear in mind the need to be open and frank with Ministers, Members and officials.
13. Members must bear in mind that information which they receive in confidence in the course of their parliamentary duties should be used only in connection with those duties, and that such information must never be used for the purpose of financial gain.
[...]
15. Members shall at all times conduct themselves in a manner which will tend to maintain and strengthen the public’s trust and confidence in the integrity of Parliament and never undertake any action which would bring the House of Commons, or its Members generally, into disrepute.”
The Code provides also in respect of the registration and declaration of interests as follows: “16. Members shall fulfil conscientiously the requirements of the House in respect of the registration of interests in the Register of Members’ Interests and shall always draw attention to any relevant interest in any proceeding of the House or its Committees, or in any communications with Ministers, Government Departments or Executive Agencies.”
The Guide to the Rules sets out categories of registrable interests including Category 2 as follows: “Remunerated employment, office, profession, etc: Employment, office, trade, profession or vocation (apart from membership of the House or ministerial office) which is remunerated or in which the Member has any financial interest. Membership of Lloyd’s should be registered under this Category.”
585 WE 7
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The rules in relation to category 2 set out in the Guide for 2005 (which may be the one most relevant to this part of the complaint) includes the following in paragraph 19: “All employment outside the House and any sources of remuneration which do not fall clearly within any other Category should be registered here if the value of the remuneration exceeds 1 per cent of the current parliamentary salary. When registering employment, Members should not simply state the employer company and the nature of its business, but should also indicate the nature of the post which they hold in the company or the services for which the company remunerates them. Members who have paid posts as consultants or advisers should indicate the nature of the consultancy, for example ‘management consultant’, ‘legal adviser’, ‘parliamentary and public affairs consultant’.”
The Guide to the Rules also sets out the requirements where a Member has an agreement for the provision of services in his or her capacity as a Member of Parliament. It includes the following: “Any Member proposing to enter into an agreement which involves the provision of services in his capacity as a Member of Parliament shall conclude such an agreement only if it conforms to the Resolution of the House of 6th November 1995 relating to Conduct of Members; and a full copy of any such agreement including the fees or benefits payable in bands of: up to £5,000, £5,001–£10,000, and thereafter in bands of £5,000, shall be deposited with the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards at the same time as it is registered in the Register of Members’ Interests and made available for inspection and reproduction by the public.”
More detailed provisions are set out in paragraph 49 to 54 of the 2005 guide. Section 2 of the 2005 Guide deals with the Declaration of Members’ Interests. You may wish to read this in full. Paragraph 55 of the 2005 guide provides as follows: “In 1974 the House replaced a long standing convention with a rule that any relevant pecuniary interest or benefit of whatever nature, whether direct or indirect, should be declared in debate, or other proceeding. The same rule places a duty on Members to disclose to Ministers, or servants of the Crown, all relevant interests. The term ‘servants of the Crown’ should be interpreted as applying to the staff of executive agencies as well as to all staff employed in government departments.”
The rules in relation to lobbying for reward or consideration set out in section 3 of the Guide. You will wish to read this in full. Paragraph 72 of the 2005 Guide provides as follows: “This Resolution prohibits paid advocacy. It is wholly incompatible with the rule that any Member should take payment for speaking in the House. Nor may a Member, for payment, vote, ask a Parliamentary Question, table a Motion, introduce a Bill or table or move an Amendment to a Motion or Bill or urge colleagues or Ministers to do so.”
Paragraph 73 provides: “The Resolution does not prevent a Member from holding a remunerated outside interest as a director, consultant, or adviser, or in any other capacity, whether or not such interests are related to membership of the House. Nor does it prevent a Member from being sponsored by a trade union or any other organisation, or holding any other registrable interest, or from receiving hospitality in the course of his or her parliamentary duties whether in the United Kingdom or abroad.”
I would welcome your comments on the allegations made against you in the light of this summary of the rules. In particular, it would be helpful if you could: 1. Give me a full account of the circumstances in which you came to be interviewed by someone who turned out to be a journalist;
2. Confirm what you are reported to have said during that interview and whether each statement is true, particularly in relation to the following:
a. That one of the challenges you were looking forward to was translating your knowledge and contacts around the international scene into something that “bluntly, makes money”, and, if true, the nature of the knowledge and contacts you had in mind;
b. That you have been offered a chairmanship of a foreign defence firm for “an embarrassing” amount of money; and, if true, whether you have consulted ACOBA about this appointment;
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c. That you said that “I am quite happy to give strategic advice … and in the right circumstances, I don’t mind leading a delegation in to see a Minister”, and, if true, what were the circumstances you had in mind for such a delegation;
d. That you said that “if a former Minister asks to see the defence Minister … I don’t think there would be any difficulty”, and, if true, what benefit you believed you would be conferring on those using your services;
e. That you continue to see people in the MoD and that they brief you on the defence review and, if true, whether you accept that you linked this statement to your agreeing with the interviewer that you could give a steer on defence policy which would help clients with what they were bidding for, and whether you have declared your financial interests to those people in the MoD;
f. That you had a meeting with a private equity fund in the USA and agreed to give them “a fairly accurate account of what’s going on” in terms of the [NATO] defence policy which you are developing, subsequently referring to talking to these firms about buying market share in Europe, and, if true, what these funds have paid or propose to pay for this service; and whether you have registered any payments in the Register of Members’ Interests;
g. That you said your rate for consultancy or similar services was £3,000 a day, and, if true, whether you have provided any such remunerated services to date for that or any other rate and, if so, whether you registered the payments in the Register of Members’ Interests;
3. Confirm what subsequent communications you or your legal advisers had with the reporters;
4. Confirm, if any of the allegations are true, whether you considered you had an obligation to make a Register entry or declaration, or both, in respect of any financial interest you had in these alleged activities.
5. Confirm, if any of what you said was untrue, why you spoke as you did.
Any other points you may wish to make to help me with this inquiry would, of course, be most welcome. I am writing to the Channel 4 programme makers to invite them to let me have any unbroadcast parts of your interview and, if they do so, I may need to ask you about these. I would be grateful for a response to this letter within the next three weeks. You will appreciate, I know, that we are now very close to the Dissolution of Parliament. I do not expect, therefore, to be able to conclude this inquiry before then. I will, however, resume it once Parliament has been re-established and I know I will be able to look to you for cooperation on this after you have left the House. I enclose a note which sets out the procedure I follow. If you would like a word about any of this please contact me at the House. I look forward to your help on this matter. 23 March 2010
83. Transcript of Rt Hon Geoff Hoon MP’s interview on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, 26 March 2010
Interviewer: Do you believe you have done anything wrong? Mr Hoon: I certainly got it wrong. I should have known better. I have paid a considerable price since then for the mistake I made in agreeing to what I thought was a private conversation. I obviously did not know that that private conversation was being filmed and recorded for broadcast, and I should not have said some of the things that I did say. Interviewer: Why did you say them? Mr Hoon: I had been invited by what was described as an American company. They said that they were looking to set up an advisory board in the United Kingdom. That company appeared to have a proper website and addresses in the United States—indeed I recognised the building in the United States that they were using as an address. They had very smart offices—or I should say they appeared to have very smart offices—in London. It did appear to check out. I was invited to go along for what was described to me as an informal chat. It was never described as a lobbying company, and indeed, in the course of the conversation, when what
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sounded like lobbying was described to me, I made it quite clear that I was not personally interested in lobbying. Interviewer: You made it clear—I have the transcript the transcript in front of me—that you did not want to be a lobbyist because you thought you were rather bigger than that. And here is what you said at one point, from the transcript of the programme: “There will be opportunities for American companies in particular to look around at some vulnerable European companies—because companies will become vulnerable as their Governments cut back on defence spending. So that is one reason why I am talking to American private equity firms.” So here is a former Defence Secretary saying, “I would like to help American companies come and buy up vulnerable defence companies”, presumably in Britain as well as in the rest of Europe, and make a bit of money from it. Mr Hoon: I accept that in the course of that conversation I said a number of things that, because I thought I was engaged in an informal chat, was not leading to any particular position. I recognise that I was guilty of showing off, which is I think the best expression that I can use. I was trying to impress and demonstrate my knowledge and experience and background in a particular sector. Interviewer: Come on, Mr Hoon. You were trying to make money: “One of the challenges I think I am really looking forward to is sort of translating my knowledge and contacts about the international scene into something that, bluntly, makes money.” That is what it’s about. It is all very well to say, “I didn’t know I was being filmed”, and everyone will understand how embarrassing that is for you. But the fact is that you were saying, “Here I am, come and get me”. You actually say in the transcript: “I think Parliament will be dissolved at the beginning of April or around that time, and after that, you know, I’m yours.” I’m yours. What do you think people in your constituency will make of that? Mr Hoon: People in my constituency knew that I had, many weeks before this conversation, announced that I would be standing down from Parliament. I don’t think they would believe it unreasonable for me to start thinking about my future once I am no longer a Member of Parliament and have become a private citizen. In effect, if I was in any other job, people would say that I was working my notice. Therefore, I don’t think that if someone was leaving one job, they would necessarily say that it is so wrong for them to be thinking about what they might do after that job. Interviewer: I’m sure that there will be many people listening, fair-minded people, who would agree with that statement as far as it goes, and will say, “Look, you’re not going to be an MP after 6 May and it is perfectly reasonable for you to go and find employment elsewhere. You will have a very big pension and pay-off, but, nonetheless, it is perfectly fair for you to look for another job.” Nobody sensible would object to that. The problem is, you are a former Defence Secretary—a very, very sensitive post. You were responsible for sending people to war. You have been Government Chief Whip. You know everything about what goes on at Whitehall. And here you are saying, “look, I am talking to American equity firms because I know that there are companies in this country [companies with whom you incidentally have dealt as Defence Secretary] who are going to be in a vulnerable position. I can help you. After April, I’m yours.” That isn’t just looking for a job. It is selling your influence. Mr Hoon: I don’t accept that at all. I made it clear that I did not want to be engaged in lobbying. I made it clear that I was looking to provide strategic advice. And indeed, in the context of what you are quoting to me, I was actually talking not about the United Kingdom specifically. I was talking about Europe in general. I was talking about the opportunities that necessarily exist at all times for people who understand the commercial position of companies, to be able to provide that kind of strategic advice. Interviewer: But the problem is that you, along with Patricia Hewitt, Stephen Byers and Sir John Butterfill, were secretly filmed sitting there chattering about what you could do for these companies. The company turned out to be fake, of course. Anybody watching it would conclude that the real problem here is that that is the culture of politics. To you and the others such a culture seems perfectly natural. But to those who elected you, it seems unnatural. What do you say to them? Mr Hoon: I understand that concern. I am not in any way saying that I got this right. I freely admit that I got it wrong and that, therefore, it is right that I have been subject to considerable criticism since then. But, again, and I come back to the same point, I knew by then that I would no longer be a Member of Parliament now in a matter of weeks. I knew that at that stage I would need to find some employment. You mentioned my pension. It is not payable for many years in my case. Therefore, I think that anyone about to leave one job would, not surprisingly, use their knowledge, experience and skills drawn from their previous positions, to try to earn a living in the future. That is what happens in all interviews. I don’t think that I was in any different position from anyone else who leaves or loses a job and is thinking of moving to another.
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Interviewer: But that is not the view of people like Jack Straw, who says that there is anger in the PLP as well as incredulity about their stupidity—that is you, Patricia Hewitt and Stephen Byers—in allowing themselves to be suckered in a sting like this. Alistair Darling says that when you get a call like that, the best thing to do is to put the receiver back down. Why is it that your and their view of the way politics works appears to be so different? Mr Hoon: I didn’t say it was perfectly normal. I recognise that there is some criticism that can understandably and rightly be made by colleagues who feel very strongly about this. All I am saying is that most people, when faced with a situation when they know that they are leaving a job, working their notice, would think about their future. I was invited along for what was described as an informal chat. I accept that some of the things in the cold light of day when they appear in print or broadcast on television, do not look good. I am not pretending that they did. All I am saying is that I went into the interview with a very clear view of what I want. I don’t want to be a lobbyist. I want to provide strategic advice to companies. I said both of those things in the interview. And I made clear that this was a matter only after I had become a private citizen and was no longer a Member of Parliament. Interviewer: But there is a context here, isn’t there? People look at, I guess, a couple of things. One is the way that the expenses system, by common consent, has been abused by many people in the House of Commons, going far beyond the normal recompense for money spent on public duties, to building up a treasure chest. They also look, if I may say so with reference to you, at Mr Blair, who it is said may have made £20 million since he left office—we don’t know the exact figures, of course. And they say to themselves, “Is that what comes as a result of a period in public service.” Don’t you understand that a lot of people feel greatly let down by a system which they have been brought up to have faith in? Mr Hoon: I do understand that and I do recognise the anger about expenses, which is why it is so important that the system should be property and independently reformed. You mention a particular case and I am not going to comment on that case. But I don’t really believe that that is typical. I am not sure what the average length of time that people serve in Parliament is these days. It used to be seven years. I think it might be around two terms—that is ten years. In that period of time there will be— and I suspect it will be the case in the General Election—Members of Parliament who lose their seat and will find it very, very difficult in their mid-life to find alternative employment. I was aware as Chief Whip that several colleagues who lost their seats in 2005 spent actually years trying to find something else, because the skills and experience of a former Member of Parliament is not readily translatable into other walks of life. Interviewer: How deep do you think that the damage has been to the system in the last year—not just in the episode which you find yourself caught up in, but in the expenses scandal? Mr Hoon: I think that there is real damage. I think it important that after an election a new Parliament sets new standards and moves on from what has been a very troubling period for Members of Parliament. But I still very strongly believe that people who stand and are elected to Parliament are people of integrity and high standards who want to serve the public. And I think that that will go on in a new Parliament. I think that the new rules will be accepted by the Members of Parliament and I think that this will give renewed confidence to our political and public system. Interviewer: Do you think that some revenge is being taken on you for trying to get rid of Gordon Brown a few weeks ago? Mr Hoon: I hope that nobody has been as petty as that. I think that that would be quite wrong. I was a little disappointed to discover that after 35 years in the Labour Party I had been suspended and told about it by the BBC 10 o’clock news. I am sure that in the rush to tell others about the suspension, it was overlooked and no one actually contacted me. Interviewer: Maybe they were pretty angry. Mr Hoon: I recognise that some colleagues were angry. I have also had a number of colleagues who have expressed considerable sympathy about the way in which I was set up. Interviewer: It is a funny old world, isn’t it? Here you were a few weeks ago, with Patricia Hewitt, another person caught up in this particular episode, making it known that you had the support of half-a-dozen Cabinet Ministers in trying to get rid of the Prime Minister. Now you find yourself suspended from your party, the chance of a peerage gone, and facing very difficult and embarrassing public questions. How things change. Did you believe when you took on Gordon Brown that you did have the support of half a dozen Cabinet Ministers? Mr Hoon: I made it clear at the time that I thought that it was important that the Parliamentary Labour Party should clarify its view about the leadership question. I went no further than that. I made no— Interviewer: But what did you believe about the support you had?
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Mr Hoon: I think it is important to rely on what I said at the time. What I said was that it was important to have these questions resolved—in fact those questions were resolved. And it is important that the Labour Party supports Gordon Brown going into what will be a vitally important election for this country. Interviewer: What are your feelings now after the last three days? Mr Hoon: Obviously I am very disappointed. I have readily said to you that I got it wrong. I think that it is important that I do have the opportunity of moving on from being a Member of Parliament. I have been in public life for 25 years. I have fought a number of elections. I am looking forward to doing something new and different. And, obviously, I am concerned that these events should not get in the way of that career change. Interviewer: Perhaps one of the ways of making sure that that is the case is to apologise to those who elected you. I can’t speak for them, but they may feel let down. Mr Hoon: I certainly would unreservedly apologise to anyone who feels that I have let them down. I have made it clear that I got it wrong. I equally made clear that I was looking to move on after the election. There was no suggestion in anything I have said and in anything I said to you today that compromised my ability to represent my constituents. I will be going to Ashfield today. I will be in the constituency and I will carry on doing the work on behalf of my constituents until I stand down from Parliament, until the Dissolution of Parliament. That is right and proper. Interviewer: Thank you. 26 March 2010
84. Letter to the Commissioner from Rt Hon Geoff Hoon MP, 30 March 2010
My thanks for your letter of 23rd March 2010 following a complaint you have received from Justine Greening MP. I will set out my responses to your requests in the order in which you have raised them. 1) I was approached, initially through my parliamentary office, by an undercover reporter posing as Claire Webster, supposedly on behalf of a US communications company named Anderson Perry Associates, which she said had recently set up a UK office and had clients looking to expand their operations in the UK and Europe. She went on to say in her e-mail, a copy of which I enclose, “To meet our clients’ needs we will be forming a European advisory board consisting of a number of authoritative figures from the political, regulatory and diplomatic arenas. We are also looking to hire consultants who have an intimate knowledge of government affairs to work for us on a retainer basis.” She went on to indicate that she would like me to visit their offices in St James’s for what she described as “an informal chat”. The e-mail provided a link to a high quality website which I examined. It apparently gave details of the company’s address in the United States. The address was in a building that I recognised. The telephone for both their office in the United States and at [...] St James’s Square was professionally answered. After speaking to Claire Webster an appointment was made for me to have what Vera Productions and Channel 4 later described as “a preliminary meeting where nothing was agreed or committed to” on 3rd March 2010. Other than making the practical arrangements for the meeting I have no particular recollection of what was said during the telephone call. The later private conversation I had with the undercover reporter was surreptitiously recorded. Despite the clear breach of the Ofcom Code involved, an issue pointed out to Channel 4 both by myself and subsequently by lawyers acting on my behalf, the material broadcast and used in the Sunday Times was entirely without my consent or permission. I had decided some time before these events that I would be leaving the House of Commons before the next election. An announcement to this effect was made on 10th February 2010. My lawyers have produced a transcript of the Channel 4 broadcast of Monday 22nd March 2010 as it applied to me. I have seen copies of material that appeared in the Sunday Times on Sunday 20 March 2010. Despite a series of requests neither Channel 4 nor the Sunday Times were willing to provide a full account of the allegations they were proposing to make. I have not seen a full transcript of my interview. To the extent that I can therefore I confirm that the words used in the Sunday Times and on the Despatches programme appear to be accurate. I do not know the extent to which they might have been taken out of context. I have asked Channel 4 for a transcript of the full interview. 2) Before dealing in detail with the specific issues raised in your letter it might be helpful to put the nature of the secretly recorded interview into context. I am standing down from the House of Commons. I made clear that nothing I said referred to my current position as a Member of Parliament. I had assumed that in my own time it would be permissible to participate in a general and private conversation about possible opportunities
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arising after the dissolution of Parliament. I acknowledge that in the course of the interview there was an element of exaggeration and immodesty in my remarks as I sought to achieve a favourable outcome. a) When I referred to using my knowledge and contacts around the international scene I was referring to the fact that over the past 25 years I have developed a good understanding of how international organisations operate. I was a Member of the European Parliament for 10 years. I have held ministerial positions in Defence and the Foreign Office. I have in the last six months been engaged in voluntary unpaid work on behalf of the NATO Secretary-General. I have been lead to believe that such experience might be of use in the commercial world and that in common with many people who have left public life that I might secure a position providing strategic advice through precisely the kind of advisory board that was being described. As your letter indicates I specifically referred to my ambition to give “strategic advice”. I did not have any specific “contacts” in mind because as I made clear elsewhere in the interview, a part not broadcast or otherwise referred to, individuals move from one job to another fairly quickly and what is useful is to have an overall understanding of how international organisations work. b) The “embarrassing amount of money” referred to a figure suggested to me by a head hunter as being the likely amount on offer from an overseas company. Although he led me to believe that this offer was to be made shortly it has not so far materialised. In those circumstances I have not yet contacted ACOBA. I would expect to do so only if I have a firm offer of an appointment or employment from the company itself. I spoke to [...] at ACOBA and she confirmed that this was the correct approach. c) Since my understanding of what was being discussed was a position on an advisory board and since I have no ambition to be involved in lobbying I made clear that I did not want to be “some sort of lobbyist”. I know however from my own experience of ministerial life that there could be times when a director or a chairman of a company would meet a minister. I indicated that “in the right circumstances” I would be willing to help to arrange that although I added “but that’s not what I want to spend my life doing” indicating that I thought this would be exceptional. d) As to the reference about a former Minister asking to see the Defence Minister, I regret that this was no more than my showing off and trying to impress. It is likely that as a former Secretary of Defence I could get to meet with whoever happened to be in the position at the time but I would have to put forward a reason and I do not believe that could be based on any kind of representation of a third party—unless that was in itself for legitimate reasons unconnected with my former position. My comment would not therefore confer any benefit on anyone considering employing me. e) The reference to “where Defence policy is going” was in relation to the voluntary unpaid work that I was doing on behalf of NATO to advise the Secretary General about the new strategic concept. I was nominated to serve in an independent capacity and the only briefings I had were in relation to the British Government’s views on this. It is a public process, based around a series of seminars in different NATO member states, and will conclude with the publication in early May of a document that will be available to everyone. I was simply trying to demonstrate that I retained a continuing interest in and knowledge of defence policy. I was not in any way seeking to trade on knowledge or information that was obtained confidentially. Indeed it is almost five years since I stopped being Secretary of State for Defence. The only information I have about the Defence Review is from publicly available sources such as the recent Green Paper. As a result I can “give a steer on defence policy” but only as a result of my own personal knowledge, experience and reading. I do not have any financial interests that would need to be declared to anyone at the MOD because as an MP I would have to declare any outside financial interests in the Register of Members’ Interests and I have none to declare because I have none. f) The meeting “with a private equity firm” was in the United Kingdom and was with a UK based fund and had taken place that morning. I was referring to the relationship between overall NATO policy and the national defence policy of member states. I do have my own thoughts and ideas about what this might mean for companies involved in defence which is why I indicated that I might be going back after standing down as an MP to talk about it. I have not received any payment for offering to do this nor have I discussed any particular amount of money for doing so in the future. g) The only work that I have been offered is for one day some weeks after the Dissolution of Parliament. I am willing to give details if that is thought necessary. 3) I enclose copies of the correspondence that I and my legal advisors have had with Vera Productions, Channel 4 and the Sunday Times.586
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4) For the reasons I have set out I do not believe that I had any obligation to make a Register entry or declaration or both in respect of any financial interest I had in these alleged activities because no financial or other interests arose. 5) I have set out where appropriate the truth or otherwise of the words that I used. In reviewing my involvement in these events I have come to the conclusion that not only was I deceived about the nature of the interview but also as to the nature of my likely involvement with the fictitious company. I have been advised that I should be thinking about joining advisory or other company boards once I step down as a Member of Parliament. This is what I thought I was being approached about. The initial questioning was however designed to elicit my interest in lobbying. When I made clear that I was not interested in work as a lobbyist I assumed that I was being asked about work on behalf of the proposed advisory board. I was however still being asked, probably scripted, questions designed to elicit my willingness to engage in what could with appropriate editing and commentary subsequently be described by Channel 4 and the Sunday Times as lobbying. The Sunday Times and Channel 4 then edited the material to make it look as if I was talking about lobbying when I was referring to my possible involvement on an advisory board. 30 March 2010
85. E-mail to Rt Hon Geoff Hoon MP from Anderson Perry Associates, 17 February 2010
I spoke to one of your assistants today and she suggested that I e-mail you. I work for a US communications company called Anderson Perry Associates and we have recently set up a UK office. Our clients operate in the US and Middle East but a number are looking to expand their operations in the UK and Europe. To meet our clients’ needs we will be forming a European advisory board consisting of a number of authoritative figures from the political, regulatory and diplomatic arenas. We are also looking to hire consultants who have an intimate and expert knowledge of government affairs to work for us on a retainer basis. Your name came up in research and I would like to invite you to our offices in St James’ for an informal chat. I would also be happy to speak to you on the telephone in the first instance. Our office number is [...] and my mobile is [...]. Here is a link to our website—www.andersonperryassociates.com 17 February 2010
86. Letter to Rt Hon Geoff Hoon MP from the Commissioner, 31 March 2010
Thank you for your letter of 30 March responding to mine of 23 March about this complaint in respect of the interview you gave to an undercover reporter. It was most helpful to receive this. I am still awaiting a response from Channel 4 to my request for the interview which you gave. In the meantime, it might be helpful if I raised a number of points which arose out of your letter: 1. Could you confirm the date of your interview with the reporter? Your letter says that it was on 3 March 2010, which is consistent with the manuscript note on the e-mail which you sent me. But your letter of 16 March to the production company587 refers to the interview having taken place on 23 February.
2. You say in your letter (point 2(f)) that the meeting you had with a private equity firm was with a UK- based fund. The transcript of your interview says that you were “… talking … to American private equity firms …” Were these different talks to the talks you had with the UK private equity fund on the day of the interview? And, if so, did you speak to them in the same way as to the UK fund and offer them a briefing on the relationship between overall NATO policy and the national defence policy of member states; and was it made clear that you would be charging for those briefings?
There may be other points arising from your letter which I will need to explore with you, but that may be best done once I have all the available information and your initial responses to it.
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I would welcome a response to this letter shortly before Parliament returns so that I can resume this inquiry without further delay. If I hear back from Channel 4 before Dissolution, I will let you know. 31 March 2010
87. Letter to the Commissioner from Rt Hon Geoff Hoon MP, 6 April 2010
My thanks for your letter of 31 March 2010 in reply to my letter of 30 March 2010. You raise two further issues: 1. I am confident that the secretly recorded meeting took place on 3 March 2010. Vera Productions suggested that it was 23 February in their letter of 15 March 2010588 and I appear to have adopted that date in my reply to them.
2. I have also had meetings with two “American private equity firms” in London and a second meeting with one of them in Washington. To the extent that it is relevant both maintain separate European operations. I do not recall offering either of them a briefing but we would have discussed defence policy in general terms. There was no discussion about fees in the course of these meetings.
Please do not hesitate to contact me if you require further information. 6 April 2010
88. Letter to Rt Hon Geoff Hoon from the Commissioner, 2 June 2010
I have now received the certified transcripts of your conversations with the undercover reporter on 3 March which are the subject of this complaint. I attach a copy of the certified transcripts. This material is confidential to my inquiry and subject to parliamentary privilege. If it were disclosed to anyone else during the course of my inquiries, that would, as you know, be a contempt of the House. I would be grateful, therefore, if you did not disclose these transcripts further or use them for any other purpose. I said in my initial letter to you of 23 March that, having read the transcript, I might need to ask you about some further points. These are: 31. On page 11 you say that you might well go and talk to some people in a private equity company about Europe including “defence policy more generally which is what I have been doing across the road … I might well go and spend a day with them and they might pay me a fee …” Would it be reasonable to conclude from this that, when you were a Member of Parliament you received a fee for briefing a private equity company on the work you were then doing on defence policy, namely (as I understand it) the NATO review? If so, what was the nature of that briefing and was the fee at a level which required you to register it in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests?
32. You refer on pages 38 and 39 to various possible job opportunities. Could you let me know whether any of these materialised while you were a Member of Parliament, whether any have since materialised, and if so, whether any required you to draw on your Ministerial experience, particularly in defence?
33. You say on page 45 in relation to work with NATO that, “in a sense I’m devising, I’m developing this policy so they [the private equity fund] will get a fairly accurate account of what is going on.” I am having some difficulty in reconciling that with point 2e in your letter to me of 30 March, when you say that the advice to the Secretary General about the new strategic concept was a public process, based around a series of seminars in different NATO member states. Were you in any sense exaggerating your role in explaining it to the reporter?
34. You say on page 46 that you were seeing officials in the MOD since “they’re both advising me as to what the Government position is but also working separately on the … defence review.” I asked you about your contacts with people in the MOD at point 2e in my letter to you of 23 March. In your response of 30 March, you said that “The only information I have about the Defence Review is from publicly available
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sources such as the recent Green Paper.” Could you let me know whether you have in fact had any discussions with MOD officials, either about the NATO work, the Defence Review or any other matter? If so, did you think it necessary to declare your interest, in particular in your proposed work for the private equity fund?
35. On page 54, apparently referring to a document in your coat pocket you said: “… this is hot from the press, I’ve just got this from Washington. But it’s the kind of thing that I think if you had one or more defence clients who really wanted to kind of understand where things are going, then I’d be very happy to come and present that.” It would be helpful to know the nature of the document to which you referred, who produced it and whether it was provided to you in confidence.
36. One further point. In your interview on the Today programme on 26 March,589 you said, “I certainly got it wrong … I should not have said some of the things I did say…I was guilty of showing off…I was trying to impress and demonstrate my knowledge and experience and background in a particular sector.” Could you let me know why you believe you got it wrong and, in particular, the points which you should not have said, and why?
There may be other points, in relation to the context of your discussion or to specific points you made, to which you would wish to draw to my attention. You are very welcome to do so. I appreciate you may need a little time to read through the transcript, but it would be helpful if I could have a response to this letter by the end of this month. 2 June 2010
89. Dispatches ‘Politicians for Hire’—Transcript of Telephone Conversation with Rt Hon Geoff Hoon MP on 18 February 2010
Telephone conversation between [reporter], under the name Claire Webster (“CW”) and Geoff Hoon (“GH”) CW calling GH GH Geoff Hoon speaking. CW Hello Geoff, it’s Claire Webster here calling from Anderson Perry. GH Hello! CW Hi. I’m sorry I missed your call before I was just in a meeting. GH No, no it was me that was... We’re apologising to each other because I just came off an aeroplane this afternoon. I hadn’t got back to you more quickly which I would normally have expected to do. CW Oh that’s absolutely fine. Have you been somewhere nice? GH Well it was sort of work, it was a bit of a busman’s holiday. I have been to Slovenia—which is a lovely place. I wonder if you’ve ever been? ...I’d strongly recommend it... [Chat about how idyllic and delightful Slovenia is, not transcribed] CW I’ll bear it in mind for future holidays [laughs] [More chat about how nice Slovenia is and where to go, not transcribed] GH ...I’ve just had a couple of days skiing, so erm it’s a nice country. CW It does sound good. The reason I contacted you as you probably saw from the e-mail, we’re looking to set up our UK advisory board for our company. We’re quite well established in America. GH Yep CW Erm, but some of our clients are saying, look, we want to expand in the UK. Erm, so we’ve just, I’ve just set up an office here in the UK in the last month or so... GH Fantastic. CW ...and one of the first things I want to do is set up the advisory board to kind of give us advice on what we should be thinking about doing and how we should progress really in the UK and I just wondered if that was the kind of thing you might be interested in getting involved in? GH Yeah. Sure. I mean, that’s the kind of, I’m talking to one or two people at the moment and that’s
589 WE 83
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certainly the kind of thing that people are suggesting. And indeed my defence background, in particular, probably would depend to some extent, I’m not trying to talk myself out of a job but it what kind of clients you have, but obviously I was six years in the Defence department and Transport I’ve done and one or two other things so umyeah. CW I think that would probably work quite well for us actually. GH Yeah, yeah. In fact I’m off to Washington next week to... I mean I’ve got some work there but I’ll also be talking to one or two people over there so, so it does sound, it does sound quite a good fit if I can say so. CW Yes yes it does. Well, I don’t know if you’ve, um you’re not in London at the moment presumably from the phone number I’ve just called you on but... GH No I’m not CW Perhaps when you are going to be in London you might want to pop into our office, we’re in St James’s and perhaps we can have a cup of coffee GH That would be perfect. I’m back from Washington the weekend of the kind of 27th so the week commencing the 1st? Any good? CW Yes that’s absolutely fine. What about, is it Tuesday the 2nd? GH I’ve just got my diary up. Tuesday the 2nd’s not brilliant but I could, I could certainly do something. Erm. CW What day’s better for you? GH Well [PAUSE] erm it’s really a question of fitting in around your timetable. [CW laughs] I’m the one that’s being erm... CW Well I’m quite flexible on Tuesday or Wednesday, actually. GH Wednesday I’ve got a bit more space so why don’t we do Wednesday? And what sort of time would be good for you? CW I don’t know. Sometime in the afternoon for a cup of coffee? What do you think? GH Yeah. About three o’clock? CW Yeah, three o’clock’s fine. GH That’s lovely. CW Alright, did I drop you an e-mail with our address on it? [GH gives CW his personal e-mail address—“I’ll give you a personal one and it’ll come direct to me” [...] CW (Confirming Wednesday 3rd) GH Excellent. CW I’ll see you then, take care. Good luck in Washington. Bye. GH Bye.
90. Dispatches ‘Politicians for Hire’—Transcript of Rt Hon Geoff Hoon MP meeting, 3 March 2010
Roll M2U00147 to 149 File M2U00147 Set up
CW 00:22:32 Oh hi, sorry are you on the phone? Claire Webster. GH Nice to see you. CW Nice to meet you, come on through, I’ve got a room. GH Thank you. CW Thanks. Would you like a cup of tea or coffee? GH Coffee would be very nice actually. CW I’ll see what I can do. GH 00:22:47 I’ve just come from a, a lunch of ambassadors. CW Oh really? GH The (...INAUDIBLE...) across the road, so. CW Oh god. GH So coffee’s probably quite a good idea.
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CW 00:22:56 Yeah, no I bet. Let me pour you a cup. I think I might just stick to water. How was, ah, Washington? GH 00:23.05 Um, cold. CW Was it? I bet actually. GH But, ah, no it went very well, okay, three days of NATO work and then I did a couple of days of, ah, Hoon work. CW Oh really, how did it go? GH 00:23:18 Well I think I, I, ah, [family reference] so I’ve got to get a job. But, ah, it, it. I mean I, I always, I’ve been to Washington over many, many years, you find your contacts there, it went well. CW Oh good. GH Mainly on the defence side obviously but, um. CW Yeah, it would be an interesting. Do you think you might, ah, be based out there, or are you thinking about doing consultancy work maybe? GH 00:23:46 I, I don’t think I’d ever be permanently based there, um, but I could see, I could see that I could do some work there. CW Yeah. GH 00:23:55 Because there seems to be quite a demand at the moment amongst, particularly amongst some of the defence companies who are looking to expand into Europe for UK based, or European based more accurately, people. CW Yeah. GH Em, so I could see me, perhaps, spending part of my time there, ah, but I haven’t, I haven’t got the kind of, I put the bits of the jigsaw puzzle together. CW No, but it’s an exciting time actually for you, I imagine, isn’t it? GH 00:24:18 Yeah, well it is. No, it’s, I mean the, but in a sense also, I don’t know if this is a sign of middle age, on the way up, or at least on the way through, you take all sorts of risks . You know, in my twenties, you know, I went to the bar, um, which is quite a tough thing to begin with. CW 00:24:35 Yeah. GH And I can’t recall ever having any worries. I’m sure I did at the time, you know, where’s my, most barristers say, where’s my next case coming from? CW 00:24:42 Yes, it’s a bit like being self-employed, isn’t it? GH Exactly, it is, no you are. And, and, ah, and some days you think, you know, it’s all going, crashing down around my ears. I can’t recall being quite so concerned. I think the difference is, [family reference] I’m still responsible for. [Family references] GH But it costs. CW Oh, I bet it does, I bet it does. CW 00:25:15 Well let me tell you a bit about us. We’re an American company based in San Francisco in America. I think they describe our work as bespoke consultancy, which basically means we pretty much do everything. So sometimes that can be kind of standard err communication work, so dealing with err press and various kind of media issues but I think in practice, it means helping our clients with whatever they need help with. So if they’re doing a big investment we might err liaise with the other side, they’re investing with do some due diligence on them you know all that kind of thing. GH So you hold their hand, basically. CW 00:26:03 Basically, yes I think that’s a really good way to describe it. So. GH I looked at the web site, so I, but it’s not that informative actually. CW Well no what I think one of the things about the kind of business we do is it’s quite kind of discreet, you don’t necessarily want everyone to know what you’re doing all the time, and and they seem to find that it works. So in the last month or so l’m kind of in charge of setting up the London office erm which is great which is here. Nice building nice area. GH (...INAUDIBLE...) CW 00:26:29 Yeah, really exciting and over the next couple of months.
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GH You’re based here OK. CW 00.26.55 That’s right and over the next couple of months erm, I’m looking to set up an advisory board for us and our clients. So that will involve kind of getting strategic advice really from the people that are on it and I’m looking for between 4 and 6 erm, members. I think that’ll be quite a good balance erm, and I’m also looking for consultants to work more specifically err with clients in their areas erm and that will kind of fluctuate in terms of how much work there is there. You know the better we’re doing the more work there is, I suppose is the best way to describe that. Erm, so I just wanted to get a scene of you and what kind of think you might interested in doing. GH OK. CW 00:27:13 Erm, I don’t know what your time commitments are and what you. GH I don’t know, to be honest. Erm, I mean I, working my way towards creating some sort of portfolio so the description would fit with the kind of thing that I have in mind erm, it I likely to be have some American involvement partly because of my background in defence and also because I’ve been in 46 states, I’ve lived in America [family reference]. CW Oh great. GH Pretty regularly there, speak fluent American. CW Brilliant. GH 00:27:48 [Family reference] I, I might have stayed there but err I wanted to go into politics but that wasn’t very easy in America. CW No, I bet. GH 00:28:11 But we still pretty regular visitors we go [family reference] quite a lot and be there for holiday this summer. CW Oh nice. GH So that you know that would, that fit very comfortable. Erm, I’m probably reasonably resistant to lobbing but I, I don’t know I don’t know whether you? CW 00:28:32 Well to be honest I think we kind of need to almost make it up a bit as we go along in terms of what we think erm, will be erm, required. Erm, and what we think our advisory board can kind of help us with and what they can do. Erm, but it would be very much I think on a kind of case by case basis but if. GH And and you know I’m a barrister I mean I’ve, you know represented some pretty guilty clients in my time, so I’m quite used to, and in fact I think it fits with what I want to do in the future, that you sort of proceed from one thing to another and it maybe that some of the things that I do are kind of one offs. CW Yeah. GH I mean I saw someone in the city this morning erm and they, they probably have a requirement there, it was a private equity company, they’re floating off a business but they’re not going to do for 18 months and 18 months I think I will be very useful to them. CW Yes. GH 00:29:19 In the meantime I might well go and talk to some of their people about Europe, about some of the regulator issues, some of the legal issues that I’m familiar with, as well as a defence policy more generally which is what I’ve just been doing across the road so. CW Oh right. GH So you know I might well go and spend a day with them and they’ll pay me a fee so I am, I think one of the exciting things as you rightly say after being a little unkind is erm, is just sort of seeing what works. CW Yes exactly and once you know how things work and what you enjoy doing. GH 00:29:50 Exactly. CW Then you do more of it. GH Exactly exactly and and in truth I don’t quite know cause I’ve never done this before I’d say 25 years in politics I’ve been barrister I’ve been a law professor. Erm That’s about it really so this is.
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CW 00:30:08 Well your political background is great really and something that really erm, impresses err foreign clients especially, as well as UK ones, but I think certainly from an international. GH 00:30:15 Yeah exactly and I do you find that fascinating and indeed one of the challenges, I think which I’m really looking forward to is sort of translating my knowledge and contacts about the sort of international scene into something that, bluntly, makes money. CW Yeah. GH Because in the end people are only going to employ me if they think I’m useful to them. CW Yes, yes well no I’m sure that’s true. I suppose and one of the things we’ll be looking to do over the next year or so I suppose erm, will be helping our clients expand... End of file File M2U00148
CW 00:00:00 ...in the U.K., so some of, we’ve got defence clients which might be erm of interest to you. GH Would it embarrass you to tell me who they are, cause I’m obviously talking to people at the moment and one or two things are going to turn into jobs I think. CW Oh well, that’s good, erm I think maybe the best thing for me to do is maybe to describe the kind of thing that they do. GH Yeah sure. CW 00:00:20 Erm and certainly at a later stage you can meet them, so that would. GH That’s fine, no all I want avoid is having been in Washington I mean, I was talking to people last week, so I don’t want to sort of get into a you know a silly situation where you, where I’m actually talking to the same people as you’re describing as your clients. CW 00:00:35 Yes, no, that, that may well erm be tricky. Erm well kind of broadly we’ve got erm a client in the US that makes erm chassis for erm MPV vehicles, so they have a contract in the US to kind of make MPV’s. GH Right. CW Erm, and I think they’re looking to expand that kind of work in the UK and they want to build their relationship with the MoD. Erm, similarly we have erm a client in Asia, that’s erm involved in erm mending aircraft. GH Right. CW Erm and again they would, they want to expand and kind of develop their erm network over here I think. Erm so I don’t know if you’ve already been talking to erm, those people. GH No, no that’s fine no, no that’s ok, I mean I can quite specifically say I met erm Private equity firm in Washington on Friday morning who and very similar to what you’ve described they represent or they own I should say, not represent, they own erm a Californian based manufacturer. CW Oh right. GH 00:01:32 And they want to come into the UK, so. CW What do they manufacture is it kind of parts or something? GH Erm they manufacture UAV’s. CW Oh right, ok, great. It’s a good business. GH Yeah well and I think it’s a great place to be. CW Yeah. GH It’s a massively erm potential value is enormous but they ... CW Yes. GH But in the exact way you describe they were looking for me to sort of help them through establishing themselves in Europe. CW Yeah, and do you think that’s something that would be, how easy is it for us to erm do that, because one thing I wanted to gauge and kind of be able to feed
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00:02:08 back to my board, is erm how we kind of go about that process, how do we build a relationship? GH 00:02:10 Oh yeah and I, I think I have some, you know I spent 6 years in Defence erm I have some clear views about how you could do that. CW Yeah. GH So, you know I’d be quite happy to, if that’s part of it. I think the only bit I’m slight, I don’t say nervous would be quite right, but I’m not, I don’t know, I take a strong position on these things. But I’m a little bit concerned, I do not want to be seen to leave politics and then sort of go back a, a sort of lobbyist, I mean I’m quite happy with strategic advice, I would certainly give the kind of advice that 00:02:44 you’ve just described, erm and, and in the right circumstance I don’t mind leading a delegation into seeing a Minister, but that’s not what I want to spend my life doing. CW No. GH And I, and the sort of the more strategic view, the consulting, and sort of practical understanding of how Government here, and probably our Government in Brussels works, I, I’m definitely interested in that. CW 00:03:04 Yeah well one thing I was going to ask you actually, that erm may well feed into that is if the erm Conservatives win the next election, how will that erm affect things you might be able to help us with. Presumably, erm you know all the well many of the Ministers in Government, but of course many of them might be leaving. GH 00:03:21 But I don’t think it will make much difference, I, I erm very, strongly believe that defence should not be party political, And it never was when I was running the show, I would brief my conservative counterpart, excuses me on, on issues on a regular basis, for example the work that I’m doing for NATO is what I was in, in Washington, erm I would be seeing both William Hague and Liam Fox to tell them what I was doing. I will also be seeing the Foreign Secretary of Defence Secretary but erm, I mean I would in a way I would leave you to judge, 00:04:00 but I can give you names of very prominent Conservatives. Erm and I think you could say that I was pretty handy, and indeed I could go one stage further, I, I think that erm irrespective of what party political background you’re from, if a former Minister asks to see the Defence Minister albeit from a different political party I don’t think there would be any difficulty. CW 00:04:23 Ok. GH Erm and indeed you know there’s a sort of sh, shared kind of understanding that erm we’re all really in the same position you know in that sense, so I, I actually I mean I have encouraged companies who’ve asked me these kinds of questions to say look, go find yourself some ex politician, because actually they can open doors for you in a way that, and I mean it doesn’t really matter whether they’re Conservative or Labour. CW 00:04:47 Erm, oh that’s quite interesting actually, because that’s one thing erm the erm board at the States said, oh you know whoever you are talking to, make sure you ask what the change, potential change in Government might mean. GH 00:04:57 I think, I think it can make a, could make a difference in, in more politically content, party contentious areas, so perhaps health or education, or something where there’s a kind of strident parliamentary debate, but even there I still think there’s a recognition that we’re all kind of all broadly in the same place. But I think defence, I, I just, I just do not, I think it would be wrong for it to be party political. CW 00:05:22 Yeah. Well that’s great, also if you already have a relationship with erm people, then you know it makes it far easier doesn’t it, to be able to pick up the phone and ask whatever. GH Yes exactly. CW 00:05:31 And in terms of, erm I always hear erm I’m not from a lobbying background, I’m erm my background is kind of PR. GH Right.
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CW Erm but I kind of hear from erm public affairs, kind of professionals, that actually the people you really need to be talking to are the civil servants, do you think that’s right? GH 00:05:47 Erm, well I think it depends what you’re trying to do, I mean I don’t think there’s any easy answer to that. I, erm you know if, if we were talking about, let’s say, let’s be specific here the example you gave er of a company wishing to sell its equipment to the Ministry of Defence, in the end, probably have to talk to a number of people. CW Yeah. GH 00:06:26 You clearly have to talk to the people responsible for procurement, you’d clearly have to talk as well to the military, to persuade them that they really want this piece of equipment. Erm and equally, ultimately you have to talk to the politicians to make sure that they were persuaded by the arguments coming from lower down the system so, it’s not either or I’m afraid. CW It’s everybody. GH It’s everybody, and I know that’s not an easy answer. CW Yeah. GH 00:06:35 But you won’t, you won’t make a sale of that kind without getting all of those things lined up. CW Erm, and would you be able to help us do you think, erm so with those 3 different areas to help us erm liaise with those people? GH Yeah. CW Because even erm knowing who they are, I know it sounds like a very, obviously I am aware of who erm a Minister would be, but I’m not necessarily aware of who you need to talk to in an army or. GH 00:07:00 And and neither, and if anybody tells you they can do that for you, don’t believe them, because people change so quickly. CW Yeah. GH I mean irrespective of the party political change, you know, places like the MoD at senior levels the military probably only send a year in some of those positions. CW Right. GH 00:07:18 and they’re constantly moving on so I might pretend to you that I know exactly who it is who’s doing those jobs. I think I would have a good feeling, as, as other people would for how the system works, and more over, at what level to go in at, at any given time. CW Yeah. GH Erm and I think it’s the people in a year’s time, they won’t be the same people there. CW 00:07:40 No well I suppose, yes I suppose that’s true, one thing I don’t know a lot about at all actually is the military erm in terms of the army and how it all works, so. GH 00:07:48 Yeah well we have a very, very integrated system, more integrated I suspect than any other country in the world, including, including the United States, and it means that you’ve got at the high levels in the Ministry of Defence, military people working alongside civil servants, sometimes, it’s a joke, it’s quite hard to tell which are which, cause you can see that they’re competing with each other. CW 00:08:08 Yeah. GH You know the military are trying to demonstrate that they’re as clever as a civil servant. And the civil servants are trying to demonstrate that they’re as robust as the military. I had a lovely man who worked for me on, erm and he worked on a budget, now you would have imagined that he was a civil servant. CW Erm. GH 00:08:37 He never wore a uniform, he was actually a Rear Admiral and I used to joke with him that I’d never, that you know he’d outgrown his uniform as he was very, very fit, and he wore his uniform on his last day. Just to show that he could still get into it. But, you know I took him to meetings in the Treasury,
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erm and he was an expert on the MOD’s budget. CW Oh really. GH And, and so there’s a tremendous mixing in of people. CW Yeah. GH 00:08:47 Erm and that again is why, don’t believe somebody who says, “I can tell you who to go and see”, because they won’t be there by the time. CW Yeah, yeah. GH You’ve got this, this issue. CW No, no I’m sure that’s true, but I suppose just being familiar with the way that it all works, and indeed once you have identified who you need to talk to then it’s far easier for you to speak to them. Erm, you know with your background. It’s always a problem you see, because if I call up as Claire Webster from Anderson Perry as nice as I might be to them they don’t know who on earth I am. GH Yeah, exactly, well and I think that’s probably where, you know I’ve been talking to Investment Bankers who’ve got some similar ideas and I think that’s where I can, you know if I were presumably if I write a letter somebody will think, well it might be worth seeing him. CW 00:09:32 Yeah no I’m sure that’s true. Erm what else was I going to ask you, I suppose there’s always a kind of tricky question of, erm money, I don’t know erm how much you, how much thought you’ve given it really. GH A lot. CW Ok. That makes this conversation far easier. GH Well I mean let’s; let’s separate if you forgive me, two things out. I mean in the sense of the question you’ve just asked me, it will be more, more about the sort of consultancy part. CW Yes. GH I mean I’m quite interested in the advisory part. CW Yeah, well I think we’ve. GH Have you got me in mind for that? CW 00:10:04 Yes, yes I have definitely, erm and I think with the advisory board erm that work would probably be, I think, certainly for the first 6 months, we’ll probably look at doing a meeting every other month. GH 00:10:16 Right. CW Though it may need to be increased to every month erm. GH Ok. CW And I think we’ll just have to kind of give it a go. We’ll also of course going to need a Chair of the Board, and I don’t know if that’s something you might be interested in doing. GH 00:10:25 I was, if you’ll forgive me out of modesty I was going to come on to that, because one of the things that I believe that I can do pretty well is chair a meeting. And I think, I’m not just saying me, I think any politician who’s done the kind of thing that I have done, I mean I’ve chaired meetings of the Defence Council with pretty powerful egos around the table, and getting the result out of a meeting is something I know how to do. CW Yeah. GH 00:10:50 So that would very much interest me, but, but so would the advisory one, I’m not simply saying that’s all I would want to do, but it would be something that I think could do. CW Yeah. GH Given my background, so that would be. CW Yes well I would have, I’m pleased you’re interested in that, that was the kind of thing I hoped. GH Yeah, but it does depend, I mean that, that, that work load would be fine because I’ve got a couple of things that are going, come on stream I think fairly soon so I can pay the university fee erm and, and then I’m, I’m probably going to take a little more time to figure the rest, simply, you know because want to
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do something, things that are interesting, but also if I’m blunt financially rewarding. CW 00:11:29 Yes, well also I suppose it’s important to get the balance right isn’t it, of what you want to do. GH 00:11:32 Yeah it is, but I think it does need to be, fun’s not the right word, but I think it needs to, from your side and mine, we both need to kind of get along with each other and, and it, it should work. CW CW Yeah no I agree, I think that’s important. Erm I think certainly for the Advisory Board I think it would be a kind of mixture of erm giving advice to the company about ok, now you should think about, I don’t know looking erm in this area or expanding this area of operations, that kind of strategic advice, and erm maybe erm some of the kind of informal kind of consultancy work, erm depend, as and when our erm clients kind of required it really. GH 00:12:10 How would you organise the, I’m being blunt again, how would you organise the paying for that? In the sense of how would you dec..., well I mean I’m in negotiation with quite a big company at the moment, and basically they’re going to pay me I think 3 or 4 days a month that’s the kind of drawing it up. But they will pay me a salary over the year of 3 or 4 days a month. CW 00:12:28 Yes. GH Of an amount like I find frankly embarrassing, but I’m not going to say that. CW Well, good for you. GH But, but that’s how it works. Now do you some of the people I know work on a kind of more daily basis and. CW 00:12:40 Well I think again it’s a mixture erm really, because I think probably for the Advisory Board, erm if we kind of work on the basis that it’s a meeting every other month, then we can work out at a kind of yearly salary. GH Ok. CW Erm for that and amend as necessary, and of course if there were to be extra work, so erm if you wanted to do more consultancy work because a particular client has an issue then I think the best way to do that is probably on a daily rate GH Ok. CW 00:13:08 That you would erm invoice us for, erm. GH That’s fine, I mean I think if in the end, what I want, the reason I’m sort of being blunt about this is that I want, one or two people I have I’ve talked I’ve, I’ve in a sense have said well you know we’re really interested in working with you but it depends on when it comes up. CW Yeah. GH Erm and the problem from my point of view about that is that that kind of blocks me, you know. CW Yeah. GH 00:13:32 You know I’ve had account, big accountancy firms say that to me and it’s quite flattering in one sense, cause you know like they’re a world, worldwide company, but it means that I’m sitting and waiting for them. CW Waiting for work, yeah. GH 00:13:43 Exactly, and there’s nothing in it for me and frankly there’s no incentive on their part to think oh well we’ll go and use him, but if they were paying me a sort of retainer. CW Yes, that’s what I was going to suggest, maybe that’s the erm best way forward. GH Exactly, it is, then at least there’s some incentive for them to say well actually we’re gonna use this guy cause we’re giving him money, so we might as well occasionally take advantage of him. CW 00:14:02 Yes, have you, yeah. GH It’s a kind of, so if they did that and then said on top of which, was what you’re saying, if you want to do more that’s fine, that would be good. CW Well yes exactly and I think you’ve got to almost have the basics covered haven’t you, erm so you know where you are then you can just top it up. Erm
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and in terms have you given any thought to what your daily rate would be? GH 00:14:20 Erm, I, I mean I’ve been offered three thousand pounds for a day’s work, erm and in, I mean I, that’s about right. CW Yeah well I think that is about right actually and that’s the kind of area, amount that I was thinking, with of course expenses on top. Erm and there would be meetings in the States, erm every now and again and of course there would be first class travel and accommodation erm to do with that. GH 00:14:49 Sure, but I mean the other thing I’ve always believed in, I’m glad you said that, is that when I was at, way back when, when I was quite a young barrister, I always used to go to the scene of the, not just always the crime, because it wasn’t always criminal, but I always used to go and have a look. CW Erm. GH 00:15:07 And I’ve always believed that that is enormously important, just to get a feeling for what people are like, what it’s. Because when I went to court, occasionally it made the difference between winning or losing cases, because I can actually, you know even if it meant going, you know a dark evening, somewhere strange, if you’re talking to a jury, or indeed a judge, and you’ve been there, it makes an enormous difference. CW Yeah. GH 00:15:30 And, and so I’m glad you’ve said what you said, because I don’t think I would just want to sit in an office here. CW No. GH you know if you’ve got a erm a one of my great friend is the Dean of the Law School in San Diego, so you know I’m more than happy to go to California like a shot CW Yeah me too. GH There you go. So you know, but I say that seriously as well, because I think if I’m going to do the, a job properly I don’t want to just get a piece of paper, I can read pieces of paper, getting a picture of what it’s like is, makes such a big difference. CW 00:16:01 Yeah, and I think it would be erm, what I’ve got to do over the next week or two is draw up a kind of short list of people, and then erm one of the guys will be coming over from the States, and I think there will be an opportunity to meet one of the Directors from the US, and also to meet erm one or two of the clients, which I think would be quite interesting. GH Yes. CW 00:16:17 Erm depending of course on their diary and also what the best fit is, I think it would be quite good for you to meet one of the defence clients. GH But I mean I’m perfectly willing, I mean my diary is not great at the moment because I’m doing all this sort of NATO consultation stuff, but as soon as I mean parliament will be dissolved in the next few weeks, and although I’ve got one trip I think to Iceland in April. CW 00:16:39 Erm that’ll be nice. GH Erm. CW I’ve always wanted to go to Iceland. GH 00:16:43 So have I, I’ve never been it’s the one NATO country I haven’t been to so I volunteered to go to Iceland, well actually I’m now going to see if I can go for the weekend before my meetings and, and just have a look, cause everyone says it’s fascinating. So apart from that, I mean that’s the bad period for me erm in, in the sense that I’m sort, of mentally pencilling in the beginning of May for the start of my new life. CW 00:17:04 Yes, well that’s one thing I was going to ask you actually, erm because the Board in the States are quite keen to get things going quite quickly, and I didn’t know how soon you’d be interested in starting work. GH 00:17:13 Well I think, does that timescale work for you? CW Erm yes I didn’t know if you’d be able to do anything earlier, that was the only erm question.
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GH I could do, well I could, April, as I say apart from this trip to Iceland there’s almost nothing in my diary for April. CW Right. GH Erm, basically because I think parliament will be dissolved at the beginning of April, around that time. Erm and after that you know I’m, I’m, I’m yours. CW Great. GH So if, if you want to move that quickly I can do so. CW Yeah I think so, that would be really great. GH Ok. CW 00:17:43 Erm and I think that would give us a good opportunity just to, kind of get things, moving, erm and it would be exciting actually, I’m really looking forward to it. GH No I mean its soun, it sounds very much, it sounds to me this erm as I say, at the tender age of 25 I thought long and hard about living in America, and, and last week erm demonstrated to me that there are some really tremendous opportunities to somebody who knows America and erm and, and gets on with Americans, and as I say I hope to be doing a few things over there in due course. CW 00:18:14 Just erm, just to remind me sorry when I feed back to my board, what other things are you considering at the moment, something with erm a Hedge Fund is that right, or is it private equity, sorry. GH Erm, ok, the most likely thing is some sort of Chairmanship with erm a continentally based defence company who have erm interests in the U.K. Erm that would be probably 3 or 4 days a month as I mentioned. That’s probably the, I mean that’s the things that’s closest to. CW Yes to us, yeah. GH Signing up, I mean I think that’s, it’s not quite a done deal but it’s pretty close. Erm, I’m then hoping to go on the board of a FTSE 100 company as a non exec. CW Ok. GH 00:19:04 Erm that, if I tell you this company are the subject of a takeover at the moment. So erm. CW Oh how exciting. GH You know work out who it is. CW Yeah I will, well I’ll be hitting Google. GH but that, that’s the only slight doubt on that, because I’ve been kind of you know the offer has been made but it’s subject to to what happens. I think it’ll be ok. After that, erm I am talking to some private equity companies, erm I’ve had some quite positive responses, but I haven’t had anything, I haven’t had 00:19:42 anything that’s close to those two. Erm, and yeah there’s a slightly more, I mean I, I have been talking at great length, over a long period to some U.S. investment bankers, erm and, and they want to, but they’re being quite ambitious, they want to kind of build a business around me, they want to expand into Europe. CW Oh wow. GH 00:19:56 It’s quite exciting, but they want to get someone, to be frank they want to get somebody who knows what he’s doing, rather than me. So the idea is erm I mean it’s not unlike what you’re describing the idea as like I’d be a kind of figure head and they would then do some work around that. Which is quite exciting. CW Yeah. GH Erm, but, but that’s still, you know I mean I hope it happens it will be exciting if it does happen but it might not, you know I’m pretty realistic about that. CW Yeah. GH So, in a sense I’ve still got quite a lot of space to fill in and what you’re describing does sound as if it might. CW Yeah it might fit.
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GH It might fit quite well. CW 00:20:30 Ok, yeah that sounds good, I think most of the meetings would be in London as I say, but you know every now and again. GH 00:20:35 And I’m going to be predominantly based in London, we have a house here, em, ah, that would work really well. CW Okay, great well. GH Do any of those, those things seem incompatible with what...? CW No, I don’t think they are, em, and I think it’s just useful for me to be able to kind of drop them a note saying look he’s thinking of other things, but I don’t see a problem with any of that. GH 00:20:52 Do you need anything else from me, a CV or? CW Em, if you’d like you could, em, e-mail me a CV that would be a useful thing. GH It’s only a, it’s not very professionally done. CW 00:21:00 Don’t worry. GH I’ve never done this before. CW No. GH 00:21:03 So but I, it sort of sets out the dates of what I’ve done. CW Yeah. GH And I think, I think in particular you know I, you know I, I do have a very strong US background, having taught law in Kentucky and travelled around America a lot, so I’m quite keen, I’m, you know, personally quite keen to kind of develop that part of my experience. CW 00:21:22 Yeah, no that sounds like a good, um, fit really. Ah, one thing that I think is coming up, um, well it may even be ongoing that one of the clients has mentioned to me, is that, the defence review at the MOD. GH Yeah. CW Do you have any thoughts on what’s going to happen with that? GH Lots. CW Okay. GH 00:21:38 I mean they published, as you may be aware from your client, a Green Paper already. CW Yes. GH 00:21:43 But frankly the Green Paper doesn’t really tell you very much because, in advance of the general election nobody was going to. CW Not going to say much. GH (...INAUDIBLE...) that position now. I’m afraid, I think, one of the consequences undoubtedly, whatever happens after the election, whoever wins the election, is that there will be probably some defence cuts, and, and the review will be really all about identifying challenges in order to, um, meet the constraints of the, of a smaller budget. CW Mm. GH 00:22:11 Um, the work I’m doing on NATO, um, we’ve got to try and make fit with that because I’m particularly interested in the capability area, what kind of equipment we have. CW Yeah. GH 00:22:22 I carry around with me a paper that we are working on now, and indeed I’ve just written a paper for the National Defense University of Washington, on how we see the development of those capabilities. So I mean I, I can probably send you to sleep talking about this, um, but I’m quite happy, you know, if. I mean one thing, I, I’ll give you an example, I went to see a private equity fund this morning, as I mentioned, but they didn’t want me straight away. But one of the things that they do want me to do is come back and maybe talk, in strategic terms. CW Yeah. GH 00:22:52 About the relationship, if you like, between NATO at the higher level and National Defence Policy, which is the strategic defence review, one down, and
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how it actually all fits together. So I would be quite happy to do that for your clients. CW Yeah, that would, I think it’s quite useful to get a briefing on those kinds of things. GH 00:23:08 Yeah, yeah, and I can actually talk about it from, I mean in a sense I’m devising, I’m developing this policy, so they will get a fairly accurate account of what’s going on. CW 00:23:17 Yeah, yeah, I suppose you’re, um, up to date with it all. GH Yeah, exactly. CW Em, how easy do you think it would be, em, after the election, to kind of get a steer, em, on where kind of, ah, defence policy is going? Because what’s, what clients always seem to want is a kind of heads up. GH Yeah, yeah. CW On, ah, what’s coming up and what they should be looking at. What they should be bidding for. GH 00:23:36 Yeah, no I mean it will take some time, but, but the team, and I know some people on the team in the MOD who are working on this, because they brief me about this. Because I mean I’m, I’m doing this NATO work as, as Geoff Hoon, not as a representative of the Government, but obviously the 00:23:54 Government are quite interested in, in what I’m doing, so I do see them. So, so some of the people I, I, I see are doing both, they’re both advising me as to what the Government position is but also working separately on the, the, ah, defence review.
CW Yeah. GH 00:24:10 The only thing I would say to the clients is that it isn’t going to happen straightaway. So in a sense, if you want to give them practical advice, I think the best you could say at the moment is what I’ve just said to you, one, look at the Green Paper, it might give you some clues, but not that many. CW But not much. GH 00:24:29 Bear in mind that there almost certainly will be defence cuts financially, if, where does that lead? I mean I had some quite strong views on what that will mean in terms of, for example, consolidation. CW Yeah. GH 00:24:40 I think that there will be opportunities for American companies, in particular, to look around at some, ah, vulnerable European companies, because companies will become vulnerable as their own Governments cut back on defence spending. CW Yeah. GH 00:24:56 So I, I foresee, it’s one reason why I’m talking to American private equity firms, I foresee a period where we may well see American companies, in effect, buying market share in European, or buying the national champions who are not getting the support that they need to, to continue. CW 00:25:16 Yeah, well that was quite, em, that would be quite a good thing to be looking out for almost, wouldn’t it, just in advance, who that might be, so that you’re kind of ready, ah, when it does happen. GH Yeah, yeah. CW 00:25:27 No, that’s a really good thought. Alright, well what I’ll do is, em, probably this week I’ll have a chat to the guys in the States and I’ll be back in touch with you. GH Okay, very good. CW And I’ll let you know when they would be coming over, I think it would be, ah, really useful for you to, ah, meet with one or two of them. GH 00:25:41 Yep. CW To get a bit more of a sense of the company and then they can get a sense of you. GH Yeah, sure.
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CW And then we can just take it from there really. GH Okay. CW Alright? GH 00:25:49 Okay. CW I really appreciate you coming in, it’s been really nice to chat to you. GH No, entirely by coincidence I was just across the road. CW 00:25:53 Oh well, incredibly handy. What are you doing for the rest of the day? GH 00:25:56 Um, I think I’ve got to go back and vote at some stage. Fortunately the, the Commons finishes reasonably early on a Wednesday so, ah, I think some friends for dinner tonight. CW Oh, that sounds pleasant. GH Yeah, and you? CW Yeah, really good. Actually I’m going out for dinner. [Reference to restaurant] GH Oh yeah. CW Do you know it, it’s lovely? GH Yeah, yeah, yeah. CW 00:26:14 It does great French onion soup. GH Very good. CW So I’ll, I’ll be pigging out this evening. All, all the time when I have the French onion soup there I really enjoy it, but then of course I’m so full to have anything more. GH Right. CW 00:26:27 It’s a bit of a shame. But I’m looking forward to it anyway, I love it, so. GH Good. And you, are you based in London, or are you based in? CW Yes, yeah I am, in west London. GH Okay. CW So it’s very handy for me. Door’s heavy. IN LOBBY GH Just, sorry, I should have asked you this before? CW Yeah. GH 00:26:41 Why is the company suddenly sort of expanding its activity in Europe? CW Because of our clients really. GH Oh, I see. CW 00:26:47 Em, our clients are kind of saying, actually I’m more and more interested in doing business in the UK, why haven’t you got an office there? GH Okay. CW 00:26:54 Em, that would be really useful. GH Does it alter? Because the reason that I have a purpose in that (...INAUDIBLE...) part of my background is in Brussels and it, and it actually seems to me, when I talk to Americans that they sort of understand the UK, cos these... CW Yes we always sound a bit similar. GH Yeah, we sort of speak the same language. But the bit that they don’t get at all is, is the European Union. CW Yeah. GH 00:27:14 And I really am good at that, ah. CW Yes, well of course you have, um, quite a background there, don’t you? GH Yes, I do. CW 00:27:19 Yeah, that is a good thought, um, and certainly I have tried to, ah, kind of push them a bit towards thinking about, em, Europe. GH Yep. CW 00:27:26 Em, because it’s not something I’m overly, overly familiar with, the structure of how Brussels works. GH We could work together. CW Yeah, well that sounds good. What a really good thought, thank you. Did you
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put a coat in the cupboard? GH Yeah. CW Hi, could we just get Mr Hoon’s coat please? GH Is this whole building yours? CW Oh no, unfortunately not. GH Oh right. CW 00:27:47 We’re just, um, ah, negotiating on the floor upstairs actually, so we’re got a bit of space, but we’re hoping to get more and just expand. GH And is this likely to be where you would be based? CW 00:27:54 Yes. GH Yes. Woman Which coat is yours? GH The nicest one! GH The worst thing is they all look the same. That’s mine, the one with the scruffy things (...INAUDIBLE...) CW Yes, it’s handy, isn’t it, to remember what’s in your pocket, just in case you have to try and get your coat from someone. GH 00:28:22 I mean this is the kind of thing we’ve been working on, this is, I mean this is hot from the press, I’ve just got this from Washington. But it’s the kind of thing that, I think if you had one or more defence clients who really wanted to kind of understand where things are going, then I’d be very happy to come and, ah, present that. CW 00:28:41 Yeah, that would be good, I think they’d be really, em, quite excited to meet you anyway. GH Okay. CW 00:28:46 With your background, I think, that kind of carries quite a lot of weight. GH Brilliant. CW 00:28:50 But I’m really excited, ah, to meet you, I’m really. GH Okay, well I hope you can make it work. CW Yeah, definitely, I’ll be in touch shortly. Have a good afternoon, won’t you? GH Okay, and you. CW Take care. GH (...INAUDIBLE...) CW Bye, thanks, will do.
91. Letter to the Commissioner from Rt Hon Geoff Hoon, received 8 June 2010
My thanks for your letter of 2nd June 2010 following a complaint you have received from Justine Greening MP, and our previous correspondence. I have now had the opportunity of reading the certified transcripts which you have very helpfully supplied. Despite repeated requests, Channel Four refused to make this material available to me. This meant that my answers to the questions you set out in your letter of 23rd March were based on my memory of what was quite a long conversation with the undercover reporter. I note incidentally that the transcript includes material taken from a telephone conversation I had with the reporter. I had always understood that it was a criminal offence to tape telephone conversations without the explicit permission of both parties. I gave no such permission. I will answer your further questions, based on the transcripts, in the order in which you have set them out. 1. I made clear in my previous letter to you that my conversation with the undercover reporter dealt only with my plans for when I had left Parliament. The full transcript bears this out. I refer to “the beginning of May for the start of my new life” and even after a determined effort by the undercover reporter to ask me about my earlier availability, I say that I could do April “because I think parliament will be dissolved at the beginning of April”.
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Nothing I said therefore should lead to the conclusion that I was referring to any outside employment or interests whilst I was still a Member of Parliament. From the context of the conversation set out in the transcripts it is clear that the expression “in the meantime” refers back to what I had said previously about a private equity company having a requirement in 18 months time.
For the avoidance of any doubt I gave no briefings to a private equity company whilst an MP and I have given none since. I have received no fees from any private equity company as an MP or since. No question of registration therefore arises as I made clear in my previous letter to you.
In case there is any confusion about the reference to a briefing “across the road”, this was a lunch organised by the Latvian Ambassador for other Ambassadors from Scandinavia and the Baltic States at the Travellers’ Club on Pall Mall at which I discussed the work of the NATO Group of Experts of which I was then a member. Again only for the avoidance of doubt, no fee for this was asked for or offered, nor would I have expected in such circumstances to receive one. This lunch is referred to at page 2 of the transcript, “I’ve just come from a lunch of ambassadors” “across the road” and at page 49 “I was just across the road”.
2. In relation to job opportunities, I repeat my comments in the previous paragraph that throughout the conversation I was only interested in obtaining alternative employment after completing my term as a Member of Parliament. I had by then indicated to my constituents my intention of standing down at the General Election. I received no job offers whilst still a Member of Parliament and I have received none to date. It is of course possible that I could be offered a position in the future that could draw on my Ministerial experience in defence, although it should be noted that I left the Ministry of Defence in May 2005. I would expect to comply fully with the rules relating to ministerial appointments.
3. The description of the work of the NATO Group of Experts that I gave at point 2e of my previous letter is accurate. This was a public process based around a series of seminars and a public consultation exercise. Their conclusions have recently been published. My reference in the transcript to “devising” and “developing” this policy was to my then role as a member of the Group expecting to play a part in the final drafting of the Group’s report. In fact I stood down from the Group before the final report was completed. The report of the Group of Experts is designed to inform the NATO Secretary General’s drafting of a new Strategic Concept, a process that will take many more months to complete, hence the reference in what I was saying to providing “a fairly accurate account of what is going on”. Given that the Group’s conclusions were always intended for publication I was doing no more than indicating my ability to provide informed comment on material that was, and was going to be, publicly available. The report and related material is available at www.nato.int/
4. I received several briefings from a mixed group of Ministry of Defence and Foreign Office officials regarding what the British Government wanted to see in the report of the Group of Experts. I was appointed to the group in an independent capacity but I was obviously interested in the views of the British Government. I received briefings from officials from other governments as well. All of those briefings were concerned only with the work of the NATO Group of Experts.
I am afraid I do not understand the reference to any declaration of interest in relation to the private equity fund. I had done and have done no work of that kind and do not believe that any question of declaration arises. Is it being suggested that after leaving Parliament there is a continuing obligation to making a declaration if I do some work in the future? I would be grateful for your advice on the question.
5. The document referred to was the near final version of an academic paper that I helped to write with academics from the Washington National Defense University about NATO defence capabilities. It was written for publication although I have not heard whether it has yet appeared in a printed version. It can be found at www.ndu.edu/. I refer to it at page 44 of the transcript.590 The academic paper was to be the basis for that section of the Experts report dealing with NATO capabilities, again
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showing the public nature of the process. Given that I had helped to write the paper it was obviously not supplied in confidence.
6. In the course of the “Today” programme interview, the reference to getting it wrong was my failure to detect that I was being set up by media organisations prepared to go to considerable lengths to entrap me and others into making private comments that could then be presented publicly to our detriment. The transcripts contain repeated examples of the undercover reporter suggesting material in the hope of securing a damaging response.
I accept that I made a number of comments in the course of the secretly recorded interview, during what I assumed to be a private conversation, that appear crass and embarrassing when published. Unfortunately that would probably be true of many private conversations if they were published in the same way. If it is of assistance I would be willing to list the more embarrassing extracts, but unless it is being suggested that any of these involved any breaches of relevant rules I hope that this would not be required. I was not suggesting in the “Today” interview that I believed that I had broken any relevant rules. The reason for making such comments was as set out in the “Today” interview, that I was “trying to impress”.
If there are any further matters that I can assist with I would be grateful if you could let me have any further questions as soon as possible. I mention this because as a result of the General Election this matter has been pending for many months. I would be grateful for any indication that you were able to provide at this stage as to when it is likely to be resolved. 8 June 2010
92. Letter to Rt Hon Geoff Hoon from the Commissioner, 29 June 2010
Thank you for your letter which I received on 8 June responding to my letter to you of 6 June with the transcripts of your discussions with the undercover reporter. I was most grateful for this prompt response. Subject to the questions I raise at paragraph 5 of this letter, I do not believe I have any further points I need put to you at this stage, either in writing or in oral evidence. Nevertheless, if you wished to give oral evidence to me, please let me know and I will make the necessary arrangements. The issue I will need to resolve is whether the nature and impression which you gave the alleged employer during the course of your interview should be held to be such that your conduct did not tend to maintain and strengthen the public’s trust in the integrity of Parliament and brought the House of Commons, or its Members generally, into disrepute (paragraph 15 of the Code of Conduct). You ask why I referred in point 4 of my letter of 2 June to the possibility of your declaring your interest, in particular in your proposed work for the private equity fund, in any discussions you had with MoD officials. The reason I asked this is because the declaration rules extend beyond a requirement to declare matters registered in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. Paragraph 73 of the Guide to the Rules provides as follows: “The rule relating to declaration of interest is broader in scope than the rules relating to the registration of interests in three important respects. As well as current interests, Members are required to declare both relevant past interests and relevant interests which they may be expecting to have. In practice only interests held in the recent past, i.e. those current within the previous twelve months, need normally be considered for declaration. Expected future interests, on the other hand, may be more significant. Where, for example, a Member is debating legislation or making representations to a Minister on a matter from which he has a reasonable expectation of personal financial advantage, candour is essential. In deciding when a possible future benefit is sufficiently tangible to necessitate declaration, the key word in the rule which the Member must bear in mind is ‘expecting’. Where a Member’s plans or degree of involvement in a project have passed beyond vague hopes and aspirations and reached the stage where there is a reasonable expectation that a financial benefit will accrue, then a declaration explaining the situation should be made. Members are also required to declare relevant indirect interests, for instance those of a spouse or partner, and also non-registrable interests of a financial nature where these are affected by the proceedings in question (as, for instance the possession of a second home when the council tax treatment
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of these is under discussion). Members may also think it appropriate to declare non-financial interests of the kinds itemised in paragraph 64 where these are relevant to proceedings.”
The question, therefore, I was asking was whether your possible work for private equity firms—or indeed your chairmanship of a defence company—amounted to relevant interests which you were expecting to have at the time when you had your discussions with MoD and other officials. The nature of the expectation is, as you will see, set out in paragraph 73 of the Guide. It would be helpful if you could just confirm whether you had a reasonable expectation of a future financial benefit on account of your understanding of the Government and NATO’s defence policy, when you had these briefings. If you consider that you did not have such an expectation, it would be helpful if you could explain the purpose of these contacts with private equity firms or the FTSE 100 company.591 You ask fairly about timing. I have been very grateful for your prompt responses. As you will know, you are one of a number of former Members who are the subject of inquiries from me as a result of these interviews. My present view is that I will need to prepare a memorandum for the Committee on Standards and Privileges on these inquiries, although you should draw no particular inferences from that. But it will mean that I will first need to complete my inquiries of the other Members—those inquiries are not yet complete. There may be a possibility that other general issues arise in the course of these inquiries, which I will need to put to you. Secondly, the House will need to appoint a Committee who can consider the memorandum. This unavoidably means that it will be a little time before this matter can be concluded. I appreciate how frustrating that must be for you. What I will need to do when I have completed my inquiries is to prepare the factual sections of my draft memorandum to the Committee. I will send you the factual sections of that draft as they relate to the complaint against you. I will ask that you check these for factual accuracy. I would then add my own conclusions and submit the full memorandum to the Committee. The Clerk would send you a copy of the full memorandum for any comments you may wish to make before the Committee considers the matter. I look forward to hearing from you about the declaration point. Thank you again for your help. 29 June 2010
93. Letter to the Commissioner from Rt Hon Geoff Hoon, 2 July 2010
My thanks for your letter of 29th June 2010 following a complaint you have received from Justine Greening MP, and our previous correspondence. I am replying by return because it appears from your most recent letter that I have not properly explained the nature of the meetings that you are examining, for which I can only apologise. The meetings with private equity had been arranged by a recruitment advisor and were necessarily introductory in nature. I had not met any of the people before; they had not previously met me. For the avoidance of doubt there has been no follow up from these introductory meetings to date and at this stage I do not expect there to be any. I would say that the words of Paragraph 73 of the Guide to the Rules, which you quote in your letter, properly capture what took place, in that I had a vague hope or aspiration that such a meeting might lead in the future to some sort of employment but it was well short of anything that could be described as a reasonable expectation of a financial benefit. I say at page 13 of the transcript “I’m obviously talking to people at the moment and one or two things are going to turn into jobs I think”. At page 10, I make a reference to the fact that “I might well go and talk to some of their people...” and that this might lead to a fee being paid. The language that I use is clearly aspirational and as I have made clear in previous correspondence has not lead to anything specific. I am also concerned that I have failed to properly explain the nature of the meetings with MOD and FCO officials. I recognise that normally when an MP goes to a government department for a briefing he or she derives some benefit from the information received that could in relevant circumstances require the MP to make an appropriate declaration, particularly where in terms of Paragraph 73 “a Member is...making representations to a Minister”. It is important to note however that in the course of these meetings I was not making representations either to ministers or to officials. These meetings with officials were not arranged for my benefit; nor even at my request. They were arranged for the benefit of the British Government. I had been asked as a member of the
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NATO Group of Experts, by those same officials, if I would be willing to attend two or three meetings to listen to their views as to what the draft strategic concept should contain as the process evolved. As such this was an opportunity for the officials to set out what the British Government would like to see emerge from the process of discussion and consultation; they were making representations to me. As I have made clear I had similar meetings with representatives of other NATO governments. I cannot imagine circumstances in which I would reveal the content of those meetings to others—even to other members of the Group of Experts. The officials obviously wished to influence my thinking. I was not in any way trying to influence theirs; hence my previous puzzlement about declarations of interest. Given the nature of the meetings it would have been for the officials to declare any interests, which was obviously unnecessary since I knew that they represented the British Government. I hope that makes your question about whether I had a reasonable expectation of a future financial benefit on account of my understanding of the Government and NATO’s defence policy unnecessary. The officials were not explaining either the Government’s or NATO’s defence policy to me. They were setting out what they wanted to see from a process in which I played a part. I cannot think of anything that I learned from officials during those meetings that had any kind of commercial or financial value. I was not making representations to them or to Ministers. In any event at the time I had no sufficiently tangible future financial benefit within the terms of Paragraph 73 to require any declaration. No specific offers had been made to me at the time; only very general questions of financial benefit had been discussed referring to what other people earned in comparable positions. I was aware of prospects, as I set out at pages 38 and 39 of the transcript. I indicated to the undercover reporter that “the most likely thing is some sort of Chairmanship...that would be probably 3 or 4 days a month”. The vagueness of my explanation shows that nothing had at that stage been decided or any offer made. I go on to say “...it’s not quite a done deal but it’s pretty close”. That has proved to be over optimistic on my part as no such offer has to date materialised, although for the sake of completeness I am still in contact with the company in question. Exactly the same could be said about my reference to a FTSE 100 company, I did at the time hope to go on the board but given that the company in question was subject at the time to a takeover, as I made clear to the undercover reporter, I knew that this was no more than an aspiration and might not in any event be possible. The takeover was successful and this company will in due course no longer exist and neither will its board. For the avoidance of doubt I have had no contact whatsoever with the new company. I apologise for the length of this explanation but I am anxious that there should be a proper understanding of the nature of the meetings that took place. I would of course be willing to provide a further explanation of this material should it prove necessary. I was grateful for your comments about timing. Can I conclude from them that this matter will not be resolved until after the summer recess? 2 July 2010
94. Letter to Rt Hon Geoff Hoon from the Commissioner, 6 July 2010
Thank you for your letter of 2 July responding to mine of 29 June following up our previous correspondence on this complaint in relation to your discussions with an undercover reporter. I was grateful for the clarification of your meetings with the MOD and FCO officials, and of your references to future job prospects in the interview which you gave. On the first of these, I recognise that the meetings with MOD and FCO officials were to enable them to brief you on their views on what should be contained in the draft strategic concept which the NATO Group of Experts, of which you were a member, was preparing. While I recognise the distinction you are making—they were seeking to influence you, not the other way round—there nevertheless remains a question which I may need to address as to whether you should have let them know that you had (in terms of paragraph 73 of the Guide to the Rules) a reasonable expectation of personal financial advantage deriving directly or indirectly from your work on the NATO Group of Experts and, indeed, from your knowledge of what the British Government wanted to see in terms of a draft strategic concept for NATO. I take it from your response that, even if there were such an obligation, it fell because, at that stage, you do not believe that you had a reasonable expectation of personal financial advantage because your possible job offers had not reached a sufficiently advanced stage to justify such an expectation. I would be grateful if you could confirm or modify my understanding of your evidence on this point. The second issue, therefore, is whether in your interview you gave the interviewer an unreasonable impression that you expected to be employed by particular companies in a way which would allow you to make use of the
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information available to you, either as a member of the NATO Experts Group or arising from your discussions with Government officials. I will need to resolve whether it was within the Code of Conduct for you to offer to brief the clients of the fake company on the relationship between NATO and national defence policy, given your statement that you were devising and developing “this policy”, by which you have told me you meant the report of the NATO Group of Experts (page 45 of the transcript); and your statement that you know “some people on the team in the MoD who are working on this, because they briefed me about it” (this statement followed the interviewer’s question about whether you could give a steer on where defence policy was going); and your subsequent statement that the people you were seeing were advising you about the Government position (in the context of your NATO work), but that they were also working separately on the Defence Review (page 46). I will need to come to a view on whether it was likely that you were receiving any briefing on the Defence Review; and, if not, whether you gave the impression to the interviewer that your contacts with these officials on NATO gave you some insight into the Defence Review which you could share with their clients and, if so, whether that was a misleading or exaggerated impression. Any comments you would like to make to help me resolve this matter would be welcome. In respect of your future job offers, I see on page 40 that you referred to a possible job by a US investment bank, where you said that: “They want to kind of build a business around me, they want to expand into Europe.” I assume that nothing has in fact come of this offer, but could you tell me whether it was an exaggeration to suggest that the investment bank was planning to build their European business around you, in the terms in which you subsequently explained that you would be acting as a figurehead chairman? Once I receive your response to this letter, I will review all the evidence which I have received. I hope it will be possible for me to conclude this inquiry at that stage, but if there are points which arise on which it would be helpful to have a meeting in which you can give formal evidence, I will let you know. If you would yourself like to give such evidence, do let me know. Finally, as to timing, I agree that you must be right that this matter will not be concluded by the time the House rises for summer recess on 29 July. If you could let me have a response to this letter within the next two weeks, that would be most helpful. I am very grateful for the speed with which you have dealt with all the matters which I have put to you. 6 July 2010
95. Letter to the Commissioner from Rt Hon Geoff Hoon, 9 July 2010
My thanks for your letter of 6th July 2010 following a complaint you have received from Justine Greening MP, and our previous correspondence. I will attempt to address the further detailed points that you have raised. I am grateful for your recognition that the meetings with MOD and FCO officials were at their behest and that they were seeking to influence my views. I do still have some difficulty as a result in understanding how any question of declaration within Paragraph 73 of the Guide to the Rules could arise. Unless I have misunderstood the requirement of the paragraph, and the rules on which it is based, there is an assumption that the Member is doing something to trigger the obligation to disclose; “debating legislation or making representations to a Minister”. I was listening to the views of officials as they sought to explain the British Government’s views. There is one very pedantic point which arises from this for which I apologise but it is worth making. I was not appointed to the Group of Experts as a Member of Parliament. I was in fact the only member of the group to hold elected office; all of the others were appointed officials or Ministers. I did not attend the meetings with MOD and FCO officials as a Member of Parliament therefore. I voluntarily gave up a great deal of my free time to do this work. I made clear in my letter of 2nd July 2010 that anything said by officials regarding the British Government’s position was strictly confidential. I would never have expected to divulge such information to others, which is why I am having difficulty in understanding how any question of disclosure on my part could arise. It is also difficult to see how the views of the British Government about a draft document that is likely subsequently to be amended by the NATO Secretary-General and Member States and then might or might not be put into practice could have any financial value. I confirm in any event, at the time and since, that I had no reasonable expectation of financial advantage arising out of these meetings. That remains the position to date. I do not anticipate that this will change. I apologise for making what is probably another very pedantic point but you refer in your letter to “possible job offers”. As I made clear in my last letter to you there were no specific job offers, certainly none that could be described as “tangible” or creating “a reasonable expectation that a financial benefit will accrue”.
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I have dealt with some of the further issues that you raise in my previous letters and I will not repeat those points again. The full transcript shows that I was interested in providing “strategic advice”, “the sort of practical understanding of how Government here and probably how Government in Brussels works”, “the advisory part”. It is also clear from the interview that I was only referring to the time when I had stood down from the House of Commons and was no longer a Member of Parliament. It is quite clear from the transcript at pages 36 and 37 that even when invited by the undercover journalist to say whether I could be available sooner I made clear that I would only be able to take up any position after the Dissolution of Parliament. I am having some difficulty in understanding why the second sentence in Article Two of the Code of Conduct does not apply since I only referred to a time when I would be a private citizen. This does have some practical implications. If I was bound by the Code of Conduct in respect of my plans for my future private life it must logically follow that I still have some continuing obligations under the Code. Is this indeed the position? The material you mention at page 45 of the transcript makes clear that I was referring to strategic issues, “About the relationship, if you like between NATO at the higher level and National Defence Policy, which is the strategic defence review, one down, and how it actually all fits together.” I would be able to give such a briefing because of my general knowledge and understanding of defence policy accumulated over many years of working in the area. This was not the result of any specific briefing. At no stage was I given any specific briefing about progress in the Defence Review. Given that the last meeting with officials took place in February, the work on the actual Review could in any event have been only in its very early stages. I recognise that the quotation you set out from page 46 of the transcript seems to contradict this. I was asked by the undercover reporter whether “after the election” I could give “a steer” about where “defence policy is going”. I said that I could, in my own mind referring to the general understanding of defence policy that I had developed over the years. I went on to say that “I know some people on the team in the MOD who are working on this, because they brief me about. Because I mean I’m, I’m doing this NATO work as, as Geoff Hoon, not as a representative of the Government, but obviously the Government are quite interested in, in what I’m doing”. You have quoted from the material originally supplied by Channel 4 which includes the word “it” at the end of the first sentence. This word does not appear in the transcript that has been supplied by the Solicitor on behalf of Media Law Consultancy. Unfortunately I am currently unable to gain access to the actual recording to establish which is the correct version. I would ask you to accept that at no stage have I ever been briefed by officials from the MOD about the Defence Review. If necessary I am sure that they could verify this as a fact. It cannot be a matter of opinion or view. Whether or not I used the word “it”, the context shows that I was referring to the “NATO work”. I go on to state “So I do see them. So, so some of the people I, I, I see are doing both, they’re both advising me as to what the Government position is but also working separately on the, the, ah, defence review.” I went on to say to the undercover reporter that in respect of her bogus clients “if you want to give them practical advice, I think the best you could say at the moment is what I’ve just said to you, one, look at the Green Paper....”, which was of course a publicly available document. The only insights I had about the Defence Review were ones based on my own experience and judgements about how it was likely to progress in the light of such publicly available material. As to the US Investment bank, nothing has come of this. They had discussed with me, unfortunately around the time of the interview with the undercover reporter so it was in my mind, the idea of working with a banking expert to develop their European business. I would have been a figurehead in the sense that I would have been the Chairman and would have led the business. There was no suggestion that I would have been doing any more or any less than the Chairman of any other company. One of the reasons that I was interested in the idea was because it would have given me the opportunity to develop new skills through working in a new environment. Once again this would only have been once I stopped being a Member of Parliament. I am grateful for the detailed questions that you have set out, allowing me to give what I trust are comprehensive answers to the various points raised. If you require further more detailed responses please do not hesitate to contact me. 9 July 2010
96. Letter to Rt Hon Geoff Hoon from the Commissioner, 13 July 2010
Thank you for your letter of 9 July responding so promptly to mine of 6 July in which I asked you some follow up questions to help me with my consideration of this complaint. You made a number of points relating to the interpretation of the Code of Conduct and the Guide to the Rules and these give rise to some further considerations. In particular:
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1. Code of Conduct. It could be taken from your letter that you are arguing that the Code of Conduct did not apply to you at the time of your interview, either because you were discussing only matters which related to your activities once you were no longer a Member of Parliament, or (in relation to your work on the NATO experts group) because the work was purely personal and had nothing to do with your being a Member of Parliament. To make the latter argument, you would need to address the first sentence of paragraph 2 of the Code, which states: “The Code applies to Members in all aspects of their public life.” 2. The declaration of Members’ Interests. I believe you are arguing that you were under no obligation to declare an interest (even if you had had one) because you were neither debating legislation, nor making representations to a Minister (as referred to in paragraph 73 of the Guide to the Rules). The sentence which you have quoted, of course, starts with the words: “where, for example,” which might suggest this is not meant to be a comprehensive description of the obligation, which is, of course, set out in the box above paragraph 72 and includes a reference to the resolution to the House of 22 May 1974 as follows: “In any debate or proceeding of the House or its Committees or transactions or communications which a Member may have with other Members or with Ministers or servants of the Crown, he shall disclose any relevant pecuniary interest or benefit of whatever nature, whether direct or indirect, that he may have had, may have or may be expecting to have.” On the face of it, therefore, it would be necessary for you to argue that the briefing meetings you had with MOD and FCO officials was not a communication within the terms of the resolution of the House of May 1974. I may, therefore, need to address both of these issues of interpretation in the conclusions on this inquiry. If you wish to add to any of the points you have made on either of these matters, please do so. There was an additional point about interpretation which you raised, namely the omission of the word “it” on page 46 of the certified transcript, that word having been included in the transcript of the Channel 4 Dispatches programme which was produced by your lawyers and which you enclosed with your letter to me of 30 March. As a general rule, I suggest that the evidence should be based on the certified transcript. But I would be content to add the word “it” if you would like me to do so. Could you let me know whether you would want me to do this? And could you let me know if you consider the omission of the word material?
I have noted the substance of your responses. I will take account of these responses and of your earlier points in coming to a view, among other matters, on whether you gave the interviewer an unreasonable or misleading impression that, in order to provide briefings to private companies, you were prepared to draw on information available to you from your work with NATO and your briefings from the MOD and FCO officials. In relation to the possible job with a US investment bank, in the light of what you have said, I will need to come to a view on whether your statement that the bank wanted “to build a business around me” was an exaggeration. Your letter does not address this specific point, but if you wanted to respond to this you would be welcome to do so. It would be helpful if you could let me have any final comments you may wish to make on the basis of this letter within the next two weeks, or let me know if you have nothing further to add. Thank you again for your help. 13 July 2010
97. Letter to the Commissioner from Rt Hon Geoff Hoon, 16 July 2010
My thanks for your letter of 13th July 2010 following a complaint you have received from Justine Greening MP, and our previous correspondence. I will attempt to address the further detailed points that you have raised. 1) Code of Conduct I accept that as a Member of Parliament I was subject to the Code of Conduct and that as far as my public life was concerned until the dissolution of Parliament I was bound by its terms in relation to my parliamentary and public duties. It is a matter for you and the Committee to decide whether in what was a secretly recorded private conversation about my future plans for life after Parliament the Code of Conduct should apply. Even Members of Parliament are entitled to a private life as paragraph 2 of the Code makes clear. A private discussion about future employment plans after the dissolution of Parliament would appear to me to fall within the scope of private rather than public life.
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The same issue arises in relation to the meetings with civil servants. They were purely private meetings. I was not attending as a Member of Parliament. I had been invited by the civil servants in a voluntary capacity to help them. Even if that could broadly be defined as part of my public life, it would mean for example that every conversation by a Minister who was also a Member of Parliament was subject to the Code and similarly every conversation between a member and a civil servant. There must be some limits to the application of the Code and I was suggesting that the examples given relate to the work of Members of Parliament in their capacity as Members of Parliament. 2) The declaration of Members’ Interests Very similar issues arise in this respect. I accept that it is perfectly possible to interpret the 1974 resolution to mean that any conversation which a Member has with a civil servant might give rise to the need to make a declaration. I have set out elsewhere that I do not believe that at the time I had any relevant interests to declare. Nevertheless assuming for the sake of the argument that I had, is the scope of the Code so wide as to include meetings that a Member attends in some quite separate capacity? Members inevitably engage in other activities beyond their responsibilities to their electors and Parliament. To take an extreme example, if a Member reports a theft to a police officer a literal interpretation of the 1974 resolution would suggest that if the stolen property belonged to a member of his family he would be required to make a declaration. I was arguing, consistently with what I have set out above, that the Code should apply to those areas where a Member is acting as a Member and that since I had not been appointed to the NATO Group of Experts as a Member of Parliament and was not attending meetings with civil servants as a Member, it is straining the application of the Code to include meetings or activities that go beyond the scope of what could reasonably be described as the parliamentary and public duties of a Member of Parliament. In relation to these meetings with civil servants I have previously made clear, as you fairly accepted in your letter of 6th July 2010, that these meetings were an opportunity for the British Government to influence my thinking. I was not trying to influence theirs. As a result paragraph 74 of the Guide applies. I was not making any representations that “might reasonably be thought by others to influence the speech, representations or communication in question”. I am content to rely on the certified transcript. The inclusion of the word “it” would significantly alter the meaning of what I said in a way that cannot be justified by the facts. I was not briefed by civil servants about the Defence Review as I made clear in my most recent letter. As to the question of drawing on information available from my work with NATO I have previously made clear that this was a public process and I was not privy to any information that would not have been available to any reasonably well informed student of defence policy. At no stage did I suggest that I was willing to draw on briefings from MOD and FCO officials. As to the question of working with a US investment bank, it is clear from the context that I was talking about a possibility that was at the time still some way off. It has not to date materialised. I had listed the kinds of opportunities that could be available and only then mentioned the bank. In those circumstances I would be grateful to know what turns on these words. I have previously conceded that there was an element of showing off in some of my statements. 16 July 2010
98. Letter to Rt Hon Geoff Hoon from the Commissioner, 20 July 2010
Thank you for your letter of 16 July responding to mine of 13 July following up this complaint and our previous correspondence. I was grateful again for this prompt response. My comments on the points you have made are: 1. In the light of your argument about the scope of the Code, I will need to come to a view on the application of paragraph two of the Code to your discussion when I come to resolve this complaint. I will also consider whether I need to come to a view on your arguments about the application of the declaration provisions to your meetings with FCO and MOD officials. 2. I have noted what you have said about the inclusion of the word “it” on page 46 of the certified transcript. In view of the importance you attach to the words used I have listened again to the programme as broadcast. It is clear that the word used was not “it,” which you stated was wrong. But the sound track appears clearly to record you saying: “I know some people on the team in the MOD who are working on this, because they brief me about this.” It would appear, therefore, that you did suggest that officials briefed you about “this” and, as you suggest, in the context of the question you were discussing, “this” would appear to be a suggestion
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that the officials were briefing you about the defence review. I take it from your evidence to me that there was no truth in this suggestion. I would welcome any further comments you may wish to make on this point. 3. My enquiries of you about what you said on page 40 of the transcript in respect of your discussions with some US investment bankers was to find out whether what you said about their wish to “kind of build a business around me” was an exaggeration. In other words, did it go beyond the facts of the matter and, if so, how far did it go beyond those facts? I did not use your phrase “showing off” because, of course, that term gives no indication whether the boast is based on reality or not. I will need to come to a conclusion about whether what you told the undercover reporter at the meeting was wide of the reality and if so whether it brought Parliament into disrepute, taking account of the Nolan principles. I will take account of all the other points in your letter. I do not think at this stage I need to ask for your response to any of the matters covered in this letter, but if you wish to respond, that would, of course, be fine. Subject to that, I consider that I have completed this stage of my inquiries. Having reviewed all the evidence I have received, I have decided that I do need to report the matter to the Committee on Standards and Privileges, although you should draw no inferences from that. As you may know, I am also inquiring into the interviews which a number of others gave the undercover reporter when they were still Members of the House, and my memorandum to the Committee will need to cover all those inquiries. Once they are completed, I will prepare the factual sections of my memorandum to the Committee and show you the parts that relate to my inquiry into the complaint against you so that you can comment if necessary on their factual accuracy. I will then prepare my conclusions and submit my memorandum to the Committee. The Clerk to the Committee will show you the memorandum for any comments you may wish to make before it is considered by the Committee. While it is difficult to be certain about timing, I think it unlikely that I will have completed my work on the inquiries and memorandum until the House returns after its summer recess. Thank you again for all your help with this inquiry. 20 July 2010
99. Letter to the Commissioner from Rt Hon Geoff Hoon, 23 July 2010
My thanks for your letter of 20th July 2010 following a complaint you have received from Justine Greening MP, and our previous correspondence. I will attempt to address the further detailed points that you have raised. I probably do not need to repeat the points I have already made in relation to the scope of the Code. I have given further thought however to the question of its application to the meetings I had with civil servants from the FCO and the MOD. It seems to me that there is a fairness issue. It would be extremely unfair if I was to be criticised for undertaking meetings at the request of civil servants for the benefit of the British Government whilst engaged in a voluntary capacity in work that I was undertaking in my own time. I repeat a previous point; they were making representations to me. I was not making any representations to them and cannot see how that could lead to a requirement to make a declaration. Taken to its logical conclusion it would mean that Members listening to a debate or listening to a Minister outside the Chamber could have to make a relevant declaration. Would an MP sitting at home watching a Minister on television have to make a declaration of a relevant interest? 2. I have read and re-read page 46 of the transcript and in particular the relevant passage marked 00.23.36. I still cannot get access to the recording. I would not of course in any way challenge your conclusions about what I seemed to say. I hope that you would accept that even if I did say “this”, taken as a whole this passage is far from clear. I do not accept that it could be interpreted as suggesting that a second “this” refers to briefing on the Defence Review because as I have made clear before no such briefing ever took place. In my experience of reading transcripts, few people speak in perfectly formed sentences and I am clearly no exception. I know in my own mind that I was talking about the work that I was doing for NATO and the briefing relevant to that. Trying my best to make sense of what I said, I would suggest that the first part of the sentence; “some people on the team in the MOD who are working on this” refers back to the previous exchange about where “defence policy is going”. The second part, even accepting that it includes the word “this” is part of an explanation of the way in which I was being briefed by some of the same people working on the Defence Review but actually on the NATO work. I make this clear in the next passage; “... they’re both advising me as to what the Government position is but also working separately on the, the, ah defence review”. I was not in any way suggesting that they were briefing me on the Defence Review.
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3. It might be helpful to you if I set out the nature of the discussions I had had with a US investment bank. I had been introduced to them by a firm of head hunters. They said that they were interested in employing me but before they could do so they wanted to recruit a senior and experienced figure to work with me. The expression “build a business around me” was therefore an exaggeration. As far as I am aware that person has never been recruited and I have heard nothing from the company since the conversation set out in the transcript. I do not believe that such preliminary conversations fall within the Nolan principles. The discussions were tentative, at an early stage and did not reach any particular conclusion. We had no discussions about terms and conditions or remuneration or indeed what precisely my work would involve. In any event had these conversations lead to an offer, it would only have been after I had left Parliament. There was no suggestion that whatever work I might have been expected to do turned upon my position as an MP or any of my previous ministerial positions, Indeed my interest in it was because it appeared to offer the prospect of a completely new career unrelated to anything that I had done before. I am grateful for the careful way in which you have considered my representations. I hope that I do not have to trouble you again. 23 July 2010
100. Letter to Rt Hon Geoff Hoon from the Commissioner, 27 July 2010
Thank you for your letter of 23 July responding to mine of 20 July about this complaint. I was most grateful for your additional comments. On your first point, I hope I am right in having taken from your evidence that the FCO and MOD officials briefed you face to face and they were not also briefing others at the same time. If I am wrong on this, do let me know. Otherwise, I think this has concluded my inquiry. I set out the next steps in my letter of 20 July so will not repeat them here. I am most grateful for your help with this inquiry and for your prompt responses, which I do appreciate. I will be back in touch when I have completed the factual sections of my memorandum. 27 July 2010
101. Letter to Rt Hon Geoff Hoon from the Commissioner, 29 September 2010
I last wrote to you about this complaint on 27 July, when I said that once I had concluded my work on all the inquiries I was conducting into the meetings you and others had with an undercover reporter, I would prepare the factual sections of my draft memorandum for the Committee on Standards and Privileges. I am now in the course of preparing those factual sections. There were two points, which I do need to clarify with you first. In your letter to me of 30 March, you told me that a meeting with a private equity firm had been with a UK based fund and had taken place on the morning of the interview. In your letter of 6 April, you apparently clarified the status of the private equity firm by noting that you had meetings with two American private equity firms in London, and that both maintained separate European operations. You did not recall offering either of them a briefing, but you would have discussed Defence policy in general terms. In your letter of 8 June, you said that you gave no briefings to a private equity firm while you were an MP or since. The reference to your briefing “across the road” on the day of your meeting with the undercover reporter was a reference to a lunch organised by the Latvian ambassador for other ambassadors. I am having difficulty in reconciling these statements with each other and with what you said to the undercover reporter recorded on page 11 of the transcript. You said there that “I saw someone in the city this morning…it was a private equity company, they’re floating off a business but they’re not going to do so for 18 months…in the meantime I might well go and talk to some of their people about Europe, about some of the regulated issues, some of the legal issues that I am familiar with as well as Defence policy more generally which is what I have just been doing across the road...” Is your evidence that you did indeed have meetings with American private equity firms, but they were a UK fund because they had separate European operations; and that while you had meetings with these firms which referred to your Defence experience, one of which took place in the morning of the meeting with the undercover reporter, you did not give them Defence briefings similar to the Defence briefings which you had given on the same day at the lunch with Diplomatic guests of the Latvian Ambassador.
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Secondly, I do not think I have received an answer to the question I put to you in my letter of 23 March at paragraph 2g when I wrote that it would be helpful if you could confirm that you said your rate for consultancy or similar services was £3,000 a day, and, if true, whether you have provided any such remunerated services to date for that or any other rate, and, if so, whether you registered the payments in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. Could you let me have a response to this please? It would be very helpful if you could let me have a response to this letter within the next two weeks. 29 September 2010
102. Letter to the Commissioner from Rt Hon Geoff Hoon, 30 September 2010
My thanks for your letter of 29th September 2010 following a complaint you have received from Justine Greening MP, and our previous correspondence. I will attempt to address the two further detailed points that you have raised. Both of these questions have been raised with me before and I thought that I had dealt with them. I can only apologise that I have not made my replies sufficiently clear. 1. It might make sense if I went through the relevant parts of my diary for Wednesday 3rd March, the day of the entrapment. At 10am that morning I had a meeting with a UK private equity fund, as I set out in my letter to you of 6th April 2010. This was an introductory meeting arranged by a head hunter. It was not a briefing, although there was some discussion about whether I would go back after the Election to talk to them in general terms about the issues set out in the transcript, including Europe and defence policy. In any event this further meeting did not take place. The reference to two American private equity firms in London involved two quite separate meetings on other dates. They were in the nature of introductory meetings. They were not briefings. Nothing resulted from either meeting, before or after the election. At 1pm I attended a lunch at the Travellers' Club on Pall Mall “across the road” from St James’s Square, where the entrapment later took place. This was a lunch organised by the Latvian Ambassador for Baltic and Scandinavian Ambassadors so that I could brief them on the work of the Group of Experts. Such briefings were regarded as an important part of the role. At 3pm the meeting with the bogus firm and the undercover reporter took place in St James’s Square, a short walk from Pall Mall. 2. I have made clear previously that I have always made all necessary entries in the Register of Members' Interests. I was asked about a daily rate by the undercover journalist. It is obvious from my reply that I did not have a clear answer to the question, not least because up until that date I had not done any consultancy or similar work, “Erm, I, I mean I've been offered three thousand pounds for a day's work, erm and in, I mean I, that's about right.” Ironically, given the circumstances, that referred to an offer made to me by Channel Four to do a television programme after the election. I did not provide any such remunerated services, at that or at any other rate, before the General Election. I remain concerned in the light of your letter that there may be some questions that I have not fully answered. If this is the case please do not hesitate to contact me again. I am also conscious that there has been a great deal of correspondence between us over recent months. As you prepare your factual summary, I would be grateful if your staff could forward a copy of all of the relevant correspondence so that I am confident that I have a complete picture of the factual information that you are relying on. 30 September 2010
103. Letter to the Commissioner from Rt Hon Geoff Hoon, 6 November 2010
My thanks for your letter of 5 November, enclosing copies of the relevant factual sections of the memorandum that you have prepared, as part of your inquiry into the complaint made by Justine Greening MP. …
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There is no evidence at all that I was referring to employment opportunities whilst I was still a Member of Parliament. It is clear from the transcript that I was referring to a time, at the very earliest, after the Dissolution of Parliament. Other references are to a still later time. … The factual finding should also refer, as I made clear in correspondence, to the fact that before becoming a Member of Parliament, I lived and worked in the United States and on the continent and that as a barrister I had previous expertise in European law. As presently drafted, there could be an implication that my knowledge of the “international scene” came only from my experience as a Member of Parliament, which is clearly far from the case. … Given that the extract from the transcript quoted refers to “some of the legal issues that I’m familiar with”, it might be considered fair if the findings of fact referred to my legal qualification as a barrister and that I taught European law at universities in the United Kingdom and the United States. … 6 November 2010
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5 Rt Hon Richard Caborn
104. Letter to Rt Hon Richard Caborn MP from the Commissioner, 31 March 2010
I would welcome your help on a complaint I have received from Mr Greg Hands MP about your conduct in respect of an interview you gave to an undercover reporter, in respect of an alleged possible appointment. I attach the complainant’s letter of 28 March inasmuch as it affects the complaint against you. I know you will have seen the Sunday Times report of 28 March on which this complaint is based. In essence, the complaint is that you may have been engaged in lobbying activities in a way which is contrary to the rules of the House; that your conduct during an interview with a person who subsequently revealed herself as a journalist was contrary to the rules; that that conduct was not such as to maintain or strengthen the public’s trust in the integrity of Parliament; and that it brought the House of Commons into disrepute. The Code of Conduct for Members of Parliament provides the following rules of Conduct: “9. Members shall base their conduct on a consideration of the public interest, avoid conflict between personal interest and the public interest and resolve any conflict between the two, at once, and in favour of the public interest.
10. No Member shall act as a paid advocate in any proceeding of the House.
11. The acceptance by a Member of a bribe to influence his or her conduct as a Member, including any fee, compensation or reward in connection with the promotion of, or opposition to, any Bill, Motion, or other matter submitted, or intended to be submitted to the House, or to any Committee of the House, is contrary to the law of Parliament.
12. In any activities with, or on behalf of, an organisation with which a Member has a financial relationship, including activities which may not be a matter of public record such as informal meetings and functions, he or she must always bear in mind the need to be open and frank with Ministers, Members and officials.
13. Members must bear in mind that information which they receive in confidence in the course of their parliamentary duties should be used only in connection with those duties, and that such information must never be used for the purpose of financial gain.
...
15. Members shall at all times conduct themselves in a manner which will tend to maintain and strengthen the public’s trust and confidence in the integrity of Parliament and never undertake any action which would bring the House of Commons, or its Members generally, into disrepute.”
The Code provides also in respect of the registration and declaration of interests as follows: “16. Members shall fulfil conscientiously the requirements of the House in respect of the registration of interests in the Register of Members’ Interests and shall always draw attention to any relevant interest in any proceeding of the House or its Committees, or in any communications with Ministers, Government Departments or Executive Agencies.”
The Guide to the Rules sets out categories of registrable interests including Category 2 as follows: “Remunerated employment, office, profession, etc: Employment, office, trade, profession or vocation (apart from membership of the House or ministerial office) which is remunerated or in which the Member has any financial interest. Membership of Lloyd’s should be registered under this Category.”
The rules in relation to Category 2 set out in the Guide for 2005 (which may be the one most relevant to this part of the complaint) include the following in paragraph 19: “All employment outside the House and any sources of remuneration which do not fall clearly within any other Category should be registered here if the value of the remuneration exceeds 1 per cent of the current
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parliamentary salary. When registering employment, Members should not simply state the employer company and the nature of its business, but should also indicate the nature of the post which they hold in the company or the services for which the company remunerates them. Members who have paid posts as consultants or advisers should indicate the nature of the consultancy, for example ‘management consultant’, ‘legal adviser’, ‘parliamentary and public affairs consultant’.”
The Guide to the Rules also sets out the requirements where a Member has an agreement for the provision of services in his or her capacity as a Member of Parliament. It includes the following: “Any Member proposing to enter into an agreement which involves the provision of services in his capacity as a Member of Parliament shall conclude such an agreement only if it conforms to the Resolution of the House of 6th November 1995 relating to Conduct of Members; and a full copy of any such agreement including the fees or benefits payable in bands of: up to £5,000, £5,001–£10,000, and thereafter in bands of £5,000, shall be deposited with the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards at the same time as it is registered in the Register of Members’ Interests and made available for inspection and reproduction by the public.”
More detailed provisions are set out in paragraph 49 to 54 of the 2005 guide. Section 2 of the 2005 Guide deals with the Declaration of Members’ Interests. You may wish to read this in full. Paragraph 55 of the 2005 Guide provides as follows: “In 1974 the House replaced a long standing convention with a rule that any relevant pecuniary interest or benefit of whatever nature, whether direct or indirect, should be declared in debate, or other proceeding. The same rule places a duty on Members to disclose to Ministers, or servants of the Crown, all relevant interests. The term ‘servants of the Crown’ should be interpreted as applying to the staff of executive agencies as well as to all staff employed in government departments.”
The rules in relation to lobbying for reward or consideration are set out in section 3 of the Guide. You will wish to read this in full. Paragraph 72 of the 2005 Guide provides as follows: “This Resolution prohibits paid advocacy. It is wholly incompatible with the rule that any Member should take payment for speaking in the House. Nor may a Member, for payment, vote, ask a Parliamentary Question, table a Motion, introduce a Bill or table or move an Amendment to a Motion or Bill or urge colleagues or Ministers to do so.”
Paragraph 73 provides: “The Resolution does not prevent a Member from holding a remunerated outside interest as a director, consultant, or adviser, or in any other capacity, whether or not such interests are related to membership of the House. Nor does it prevent a Member from being sponsored by a trade union or any other organisation, or holding any other registrable interest, or from receiving hospitality in the course of his or her parliamentary duties whether in the United Kingdom or abroad.”
I would welcome your comments on the allegations made against you in the light of this summary of the rules. In particular, it would be helpful if you could: 1. Give me a full account of the circumstances in which you came to be interviewed by someone who subsequently revealed herself to be a journalist;
2. Confirm what you are reported to have said during that interview, and whether each such statement is true in particular in relation to the following:
a. That you said, “There’s a number of ways in which you can influence or at least access Ministers, whether it’s a sector or an individual company, or what. And also on policy as well.” and, if true, whether that should be interpreted as an offer to influence or access Ministers once you had left the House, and whether you have at any time influenced or accessed Ministers on behalf of a sector or an individual company, and, if so, what were the circumstances, and whether you declared your interest;
b. That you said that you might be elevated to the House of Lords and, if so, you would be able to help the fictitious company with “Access to people … all this is all about contacts … it’s not so much always about influencing—it’s about getting information,” and if true, whether this implied that you were offering to the company as a Member of the Lords access to your contacts and information;
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c. That you said that one of your clients, the Fitness Industry Association, had “direct access” to health Ministers and, if true, whether you arranged that access, and, if so, what were the circumstances and whether you declared your interest in so doing;
d. That in respect of another of your clients, AMEC, you said, “I connect them in. If they want a reception in the House of Commons and if they want …. to get advice from government, then I get advice from government and I introduce them to people,” if true, what receptions and other meetings you have set up for AMEC including any on the parliamentary estate and whether on each occasion you identified your interest;
e. That you said that you would be willing to help build relations with civil servants after you had stood down and that it would not be a problem to set up meetings with civil servants and, if true, the basis on which you made these offers and whether you have at any time set up meetings with civil servants on behalf of a client, and if so, what were the circumstances and whether you declared your interest;
f. That you told the interviewer that you charged £2,500 a day for your services.
3. Confirm whether you have at any time been paid £2,500 a day for consultancy or other services, and if so, by whom and whether you registered these payments;
4. Confirm what subsequent communications you or your legal advisers had with the reporters;
5. Confirm, if any of the allegations are true, whether you considered you had an obligation to make a Register entry or declaration, or both, in respect of any financial interest you had in these alleged activities and what action you took accordingly;
6. Confirm, if any of what you said was untrue, why you spoke as you did.
Any other points you may wish to make to help me with this inquiry would, of course, be most welcome. I am writing to the Channel 4 programme makers to invite them to let me have your full interview and, if they do so, I may need to ask you about further points. I would be grateful for a response to this letter by the end of April. You will appreciate, I know, that we are now very close to the Dissolution of Parliament. I do not expect, therefore, to be able to conclude this inquiry before then. I will, however, resume it once Parliament has been re-established and I know I will be able to look to you for cooperation on this after you have left the House. I enclose a note which sets out the procedure I follow. If you would like a word about any of this please contact me at the House. I look forward to your help on this matter. 31 March 2010
105. Letter to the Commissioner from Rt Hon Richard Caborn, 19 April 2010
Thank you for your letter of the 31 March 2010, re: the complaint from the Conservative MP, Mr Greg Hands. As I agreed with you on the telephone, I would like to preface the answers to your questions by giving you and your Committee a little background on my 27 years in Parliament as it relates to the issues under consideration. As I said to the House on the 29th March 2010 in columns 545–548,592 in the whole of my 31 years in elected public office, I have never taken any remuneration above that which was paid for by the office I held. It was only when I announced my retirement from public office that I was approached by a number of organisations enquiring what I would be doing when I left the House of Commons. My response to these enquiries resulted in accepting a number of positions both paid and unpaid, in preparation for my life outside Parliament. In late 2007 I believe it would have been sooner rather than later. However, I want to make it perfectly clear to Mr Hands’s complaint as I did to the House on the 29th, at no time did I engage in any lobbying activity on behalf of any organisation registered in my Declaration of
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Members’ Interests.593 For the record, all my activities that should be cleared by the House authorities, have been cleared and are fully recorded in the Members’ Declaration of Interest.594 Those not recorded in the declaration, but were referred in the Sunday Times entrapment interview are President of the ABAE England, President of the YHA and President of the UK School Games. Also, Trustee of the Football Foundation and the Prime Minister’s World Cup Ambassador. All these are voluntary positions I accepted once I had announced my retirement from Parliament. In my 27 years service to the House and Government I have worked to develop a greater understanding between Industry and Government. This is a point that I made to the House on the 29th March and my submission to the Public Administration Committee on the 8th May 2008,595 which is documented in the Minutes of Evidence. On re-reading my evidence, my answer to Question 585 is particularly accurate with regards to the entrapment that the Sunday Times, tried to lure me into. My reasons for serving for 14 years as a Trustee of the Industry and Parliament Trust was to promote a greater understanding and awareness of the activities of Parliament and Industry. In the role of Trustee of the IPT, I have given numerous talks to Industry on the role of Parliament, its Back Benchers and its Committee structure, and on how Government works with my experience of over 10 years as a Government Minister. Information I naively thought the Sunday Times journalist was interested in, but went on to totally distort what I had said. It is interesting to read the exchange of communications between the HA and the Sunday Times (Ref 6) which shows how a totally distorted interpretation can be placed on what I said. Again, since leaving Ministerial Office, I have given a number of talks on the role of Parliament and Government to many organisations. One of my last initiatives with the IPT and its Chair, Bill Olner MP, was to meet the Speaker of the House and the Finance and Administration Committee to find a closer and more formal working relationship between the IPT and Parliament, this is still ongoing. Now turning to your questions, the circumstances leading up to the entrapment, was a call to my office requesting a meeting with a representative from an American Company, Anderson Perry. I understand from my secretary that Ms Claire Webster rang on a number of occasions to arrange a date, after my secretary consulted me on this appointment, she went ahead and organised the meeting, something she has done on many occasions during her over 25 years of service. There was a difference however, that the reporter insisted to have in the meeting outside of the House of Commons in the Marriott Hotel, just across the bridge from the House of Commons. I only became aware of this on the morning of the interview. Whilst no alarm bells rang, I did find it unusual as I normally have all the meetings in the House of Commons. Question two I told the House on the 29th March 2010, what appeared in the Sunday Times was a fabrication of the information gained in the entrapment with the sole intention to deliberately mislead. I still stand by my statement and I am enclosing the correspondence between the Sunday Times and my lawyers.596 I am also enclosing my response to [name] of the 19th March 2010.597 I want to make it perfectly clear that from, the very start of the entrapment interview I told the reporter that I was not making any decisions about my activities until after the General Election when I would have left the House of Commons. She consistently came back to this issue on a number of occasions and I repeatedly gave her the same answer. I am also enclosing correspondence between the PCC and myself, which may be of interest.598 The Sunday Times made very serious allegations, which were not followed up in the published story of contract fixing, and influencing legislation of which they said that they had evidence from the interview, which I emphatically denied. I still have not received the transcript or the film of the interview even though it has now been requested on two separate occasions. On question three, all my activities that should be recorded, are recorded in the declaration of the Members Interest. On question four, these are, enclosed in my submission to the PCC.
593 The Register of Members’ Financial Interests 594 The Register of Members’ Financial Interests
595 WE 118
596 Not included in the written evidence.
597 Not included in the written evidence.
598 Not included in the written evidence.
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On question five, I do not believe any of the allegations in the Sunday Times are true. All my activities have been within the rules laid down by the House Authorities and at no time have I brought the House into disrepute. On question six, I believe that everything I said in the interview was consistent with what I have said in this letter. I see from your letter that you have approached the Channel 4 Programme for the full interview, it was, as I understand it, the Sunday Times who initiated the entrapment and I hope that you will be able to get the film and the tape recording, which was referred to in the Sunday Times article. Since the entrapment article in the Sunday Times I have received dozens of e-mails, texts and telephone calls of surprise and support and not one communication of criticism, or any indication that I have brought the House into disrepute. I am enclosing for reference a selection of e-mails and letters I have received from the ABAE England, the YHA, the immediate past Master Cutler of Sheffield, [name] and the Director of Forgemasters, [name].599 If you require further evidence, please let me know. Also enclosed for reference is the correspondence between the Fitness Industry Association, AMEC and the Sunday Times. I hope the information and the explanation I have given answers your questions and if you require any further information, or would like to meet, then I am more than willing to make myself available. 19 April 2010
106. Official Report, HC Deb, 29 March 2010, cols 545–548
Mr. Richard Caborn (Sheffield, Central) (Lab): In common, I think, with several other Members who will contribute today, this will possibly be my last speech in the House, after 27 years of representing Sheffield, Central, and after five years before that as a Member of the European Parliament. I was first elected to public office, as an MEP, in 1979, having left school at 15 years of age to start my engineering apprenticeship at the company that is now Forgemasters—a great company that has recently been in the news, and to which I shall return a little later. I warmly welcome the Budget, like many of us who have been championing manufacture and wealth creation for many years. We see it as a Budget that recognises the need for the economy to be rebalanced, with a greater proportion of wealth creation being achieved through manufacturing. Its measures will help us to continue to take the country along that rebalancing journey. The Budget's £2.5 billion one-off growth package is very important, particularly for areas such as Sheffield. There will be investment in the creative industries, digital communications, the medipark and the Advanced Manufacturing Park. That is a reflection of recent policy, particularly the new industrial strategy introduced by the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills when he returned from Europe—I think his experiences as a European Commissioner must have had an effect. I want to remind the House, however, that Sheffield has been modernising and repositioning its economy for more than a decade. We have been modernising to meet the challenges of the globalised world of the 21st century, with our two outstanding universities, a very strong further education college, industrial and commercial sectors that want to work in partnership, and the support of Yorkshire Forward, our regional development agency. We have developed, through those very strong partnerships, centres of excellence such as the medipark, the cultural industries, digital Sheffield and our advanced manufacturing park. The Budget will strengthen all four of those major activities, and those areas will be major centres of employment and wealth creation in the future. Let us consider just one of those, the advanced manufacturing park, which is closely linked to the university of Sheffield under the leadership of Professor Keith Ridgway. The project was set up 10 years ago to address the productivity and the competitiveness of our aerospace industry, which is a sector that has an order book of more than £40 billion and that employs well over 100,000 people, many of whom are employed in the skills sector. The park has grown to be one of the most respected advanced manufacturing parks in the world. The recent investment by Rolls-Royce and the Government in a nuclear manufacturing park, which is to be located alongside the aerospace facilities, will enable the techniques and innovation that have been developed over the years in the aerospace industry to be transferred to the nuclear sector, thus enabling that development to be a smart partner for the nuclear build programme. This is an area of great potential for
599 Not included in the written evidence.
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British manufacturing and technology, addressing the green agenda not just here, but internationally. Twelve nuclear power stations could be built in the UK at the cost of about £60 billion. That is estimated to be about 4 per cent of the world’s order book. Again, that development is encouraged by the announcement in the Budget. I said that we had been working on this project for more than a decade. In fact, it was 10 years ago that I had dinner in the House—in the Churchill Room—with Phil Condit, then chief executive of Boeing, and Professor Keith Ridgway. From that dinner came the start of a £6 million investment to be made in the intellectual property of the university of Sheffield and the vision of Keith Ridgway. I facilitated that dinner and I am proud to have been involved in that project ever since. Today, BAE Systems, Rolls-Royce and many other companies involved in the supply chain are involved in the park, with some of the work being done on blue skies technology and research and development. As I said, the nuclear new build programme and developments in the industry have attracted a good partnership between the Government and Rolls-Royce, which has resulted in a £35 million investment in that nuclear development. In 2008, I organised another dinner in the House, which was similar to the one that took place in the Churchill Room 10 years ago. It enabled representatives of five universities, five captains of industry— Graham Honeyman, chief executive of Forgemasters, was there—and two Secretaries of State to discuss how universities, Government and industry could work together to exploit the nuclear renaissance for the UK for many years to come. On Sunday, the Sunday Times accused me of acting improperly in organising that dinner—the dinner that brought together universities, Government and industry to discuss how we could act collectively in the best interests of UK plc. Throughout my 27 years in the House, I have been doing just that—acting in the best interests of the UK, be it through my post as Chair of the Trade and Industry Committee, in my role for the past 14 years as Trustee of the Industry and Parliament Trust or through my contacts with the trade unions, employers' organisations and industrial groups. Those are all people who want British industry to grow and prosper. That is my record and I am proud of it. If it is wrong in the eyes of the Sunday Times, I plead guilty. A few years ago, the House passed the Freedom of Information Act. The press were rightly at the forefront of the demand for it, but now, when the press use misleading evidence obtained through sting operations—this is evidence that could not be used in court—they believe that it is their right to keep it from those whom they accuse. My lawyers twice requested the information that appeared in the Sunday Times, but they did not receive any response. What people read in the Sunday Times was a deliberate fabrication, which was designed to mislead. I do not believe that we have a level playing field, and when the House returns it ought seriously to consider the balance between freedom of information and what the press are doing through their sting operations and not allowing those whom they accuse in the newspapers, and the nation, to challenge information that cannot even be used in the courts of this land. Returning to the Budget, as I said, I started at Forgemasters as an engineer apprentice at the age of 15. Last week, on Friday, the MPs in Sheffield, the two vice-chancellors, the further education colleges and Yorkshire Forward met to discuss the skills agenda of the future, from our skill shortages, which could be an impediment to growth, to the quality of training needed to ensure that the aerospace and nuclear supply chains are up to scratch. We have concerns, although we warmly welcome the announcement of the promise on the skills agenda. The budget for this area should be increased, and we believe we need a clear focus on delivery. That is something we are working on as a result of that meeting, and we hope to produce some ideas about delivery, which we think is very important, and to remove some of the confusion around it. For the record, I shall continue to be involved in that when I have left Parliament. Finally, I want to conclude on the subject of a significant investment in Sheffield Forgemasters—a 16,000 tonne forging press, which will be one of the largest forging presses, if not the largest, in the world. It has taken nearly three years to develop that plan and bring it to fruition, and I want to put on record my thanks to the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, his Ministers and special advisers, along with Tim Stone from PricewaterhouseCoopers. They have worked very effectively to make this happen. As for Sheffield Forgemasters, it has been said that this would not have happened had it not been for the vision of people such as Graham Honeyman, Tony Pedder and Peter Birtles, but there was also strong support from the work force. Half the company is now owned by the work force and the pride in those young people, particularly the 70 apprentices who work there, has to be seen to be believed. That has put us in a unique position at the beginning of the supply chain worldwide and for the nuclear new build. That, I believe, is very important if we are to capitalise and see an industrial renaissance coming out of that nuclear renaissance, particularly in engineering and manufacturing.
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That was a great day, and it was great to be involved when that £160 million investment was announced by the Secretary of State a couple of weeks ago. The very first job that I completed while serving my time as an apprentice and coming out of that was the building of a 4,000-tonne forging press, so, having represented Sheffield, Central and Forgemasters for 27 years, it will be very pleasing to see a forging press four times greater than that and the investment that is being made. This is probably my last speech to the House, and I say with honesty that in my 31 years as an elected representative, I have never taken a single penny outside the salary that I have earned and been paid. It was only when I decided a couple of years ago to stand down and announced my retirement that a number of companies came to me and asked whether I would be a consultant and help them, probably as a non- executive director—never as a lobbyist. I was approached as someone who has been in the national institutions and who has also been an engineer. I am proud to have done that and I will continue to work for the betterment of British manufacturing, and particularly engineering, in which I believe very strongly, having had a father and a grandfather who were in the engineering industry-indeed, it runs through our DNA. It would be good to see the press talking this side of British industry up rather than talking it down. 29 March 2010
107. Letter to Rt Hon Richard Caborn, from the Commissioner, 18 May 2010
Now that the new Parliament has assembled, I am resuming my inquiries into this complaint in respect of the interview which you gave to an undercover reporter. This letter is a response to your letter of 19 April. I have, as you know, asked for a record of the full interview which you gave the reporter, and, once I receive that, I am likely to need to write to you again about it. In the meantime, I think that it might be helpful if you could help me further on the matters covered in your letter of 19 April, in particular points on which it would be helpful to have a direct response to the questions I asked in my letter of 31 March. These points are: 37. what the undercover reporter originally told you (or your office) about the purpose of the interview; why you accepted her invitation and confirmation that the date of your interview was 10 March 2010;
38. what paid positions or employment you accepted while still a Member of Parliament, with dates of acceptance and the dates when you made any necessary registration in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests (which I assume is the register which you refer to as the “Members’ Declaration of Interests”);
39. specific responses to my question 2. You have given me a general answer but have not addressed any of the specific questions which I asked you in the six subsections of that question (subsections (a) to (f) ). I would be grateful if you could provide me with specific answers to each of the points I raise under each of those subsections. If you preferred, it would be open to you to defer answering these questions until I have resolved the matter of my request for the full transcript. If so, please let me know;
40. I would be grateful if I could also have a specific answer to my question 3, which was whether you have at any time been paid £2,500 a day for consultancy or other services. If so, I would be grateful for the details. Your reference to all your activities having been recorded in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests does not specifically answer that question.
You have referred to the speech you made in the House on 29 March 2010, and I will include the relevant sections of the Official Report in your written evidence. If you wished me to take account of any information in relation to your evidence to the Public Administration Committee, I would be most grateful if you could send me a copy of the relevant sections so that I can incorporate them in your written evidence. It would be most helpful if you could let me have a response to this letter within the next two weeks. I am grateful for your help.
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18 May 2010
108. Letter to the Commissioner from Rt Hon Richard Caborn, 21 May 2010
I thank you for your letter dated the 18th May 2010. Would it be possible to clarify the request you have made for the full interview which was given to the Reporter, does include both the audio and film recording that was referred to in the Sunday Times article. Also could you confirm that I will have access to this information. I understood the purpose of the meeting with Ms Claire Webster was on behalf of an American company, Anderson Perry, who were looking to locate and invest in the UK. My secretary googled the company and provided me with the background briefing for the meeting which was held on the 10th March 2010 (which we believe to be accurate but we have no means of checking back). In answer to question two, my only paid position was after I had announced my intention in 2007 not to stand at the next General Election. I accepted two positions which were cleared by the Office of the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments and are recorded in my acceptance letter to them dated the 29th February 2008.600 These two appointments were duly recorded in a letter to [name], Registrar of the Register of Members’ Interests, in a letter on the 6th March 2008.601 Question three, I would prefer to defer as you suggested any detailed answers until you receive the tapes and film of the interview. Question four, the notional daily rate for AMEC was £2,500 per day and £1,000 per day for the FIA. I say notional as a significant amount of time is required in preparing for meetings, reading background papers and preparing reports. [This] was all built into the daily rate. This I estimate was between two to three days per fee paid day. This is fully covered in the declaration in the Registers of Members’ Interests. Finally, you asked if I would highlight the points to be made in your Report from the evidence session which I attended at the Public Administration Committee. I don’t think this would be helpful because it could be taken out of context. I would much prefer to have the full evidence session that I attended referenced in your Report. I believe the evidence session I was involved in is important as it gives my both views and opinion on Ministers accepting paid positions when they come out of office. I hope that this information is of assistance, but if you require further information, don’t hesitate to contact me and I look forward to receiving the tapes and film recording of the entrapment. 21 May 2010
109. Letter to Rt Hon Richard Caborn from the Commissioner, 24 May 2010
Thank you for your letter of 21 May responding to mine of 18 May about this complaint in respect of an interview you gave to an undercover reporter in March 2010. It may be helpful if I responded to each of your points as follows: 41. I will show you anything which I receive from the production company in response to my request for material of the full interview;
42. I remain unclear what the reporter told you or your office about what they wanted to discuss with you. Unless you provide me with further information on this, I will assume that you agreed to the meeting solely on the information that there was an American company looking to locate and invest in the UK. There was no suggestion at that stage that you would have any role in its activities. If this is wrong, please let me know.
43. I would be grateful if you could identify specifically the paid positions you accepted, when you accepted them and the date of your registration, as requested in my earlier letter. The date of acceptance is not recorded in Register entries. It would also be helpful if you could let me have copies of the letters to which you refer, including your exchange of correspondence with ACOBA, so that I can enter them into the evidence.
600 WE 114 601 WE 115
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44. Could you send me the parts of your evidence session to the Public Administration Committee which you wish me to consider? I had hoped that you would be able to help me on identifying any other points you wanted me to take into account, in addition to your answer to question 585 which you referred to in your letter of 19 April. Without that, I will need to come to my own view on whether the whole of your responses in that session, or any other part of those responses, are relevant to this inquiry. Given, however, the importance which you understandably attach to your views on this matter, it would be most helpful if you could set them out, drawing as necessary on your evidence to the Public Administration Committee, so that I am able to consider them in the context of this inquiry.
I was grateful for the other information you provided in your letter. It would be helpful if you could let me have a response to this letter within the next two weeks. I will contact you when I hear from the production company. Thank you for your help. 24 May 2010
110. Letter to Rt Hon Richard Caborn from the Commissioner, 2 June 2010
I have now received a certified transcript of your conversations with the undercover reporter which are the subject of this complaint. I enclose a copy of the certified transcript. This material is confidential to my inquiry and subject to parliamentary privilege. If it were disclosed to anyone else during the course of my inquiries, that would, as you know, be a contempt of the House. I would be grateful, therefore, if you did not disclose these transcripts further or use them for any other purpose. When I initially wrote to you on 31 March I said that I would show you this transcript and might need to ask you some further points. These points are: 45. You refer in your initial telephone conversation, and at various points in your interview, to your role as a non-executive director of Nuclear Management Partners. Could you confirm this appointment and let me know whether you considered registering it in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests?
46. You refer in a number of places to your proposals for restructuring health and wellness services in Sheffield, including the links you have with your friend who is Chair of the Health Authority (page 18). Could you let me know whether you linked this work to your work as consultant to the Fitness Industry Association, and whether the members of that Association were likely to benefit from these proposals? And in your contacts with Ministers and officials on these proposals, did you make it clear that you were a paid consultant to FIA?
47. In various places (including pages 28, 29 and 42), you refer to the work you did with AMEC and in setting up a consortium to bid for, and win, a major contract. Could you help me on the dates when you undertook that work and whether it involved you making representations to Ministers or officials? If so, did you declare your interest?
48. You refer on page 47 to you setting up “the whole regeneration of the company … I revamped the whole structure.” Could you confirm that this was an accurate statement of the work you undertook for AMEC? How was this major task structured, were you given assistance, and how did you manage to achieve it given your parliamentary duties?
49. On page 51, in response to the question about the kind of further expertise you would have been able to bring if you were to be elevated to the House of Lords, you responded, “Well, access, access to people. You’re in the environment, you’re moving around, you’re doing it all the time. That will give you a much wider view … that would be a base … you’re there all the time … Got access all the time. Access to Ministers, you’ve got access to all the information that’s going around.” Could you help me on whether it is reasonable to interpret those statements as suggesting that as a Member of the House of Lords you could secure access to Ministers for the company who was retaining you on its advisory board?
50. On page 82, in answer to your question about how easy it was to get a Minister to go out for dinner, you said, “I did it with AMEC, Samir Brikho, their MD … he said to me: ‘Why don’t we bring academia, producers … the Secretary of State for Energy and the one for schools’ … and so I set all that up … I’d do it at Westminster because it’s easier for them.” Would you let me know whether you set up for AMEC a
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dinner or dinners in the Palace of Westminster, and if so, what were the arrangements and did you declare a financial interest in booking the facilities and sending out the invitations?
51. On page 84 you imply that you arranged a meeting with the Prime Minister and the Energy Minister for the MD of AMEC. Could you confirm the accuracy of that statement and, if so, the arrangements which you made, including whether you declared your interest to the relevant Departments in setting up that meeting?
52. Finally, could you confirm the date of the interview?
I would, of course, welcome any other comments you may wish to make having seen the transcript, either on the context of your discussion or on particular points which you made. I would welcome a response to this letter, and to my letter of 24 May. I appreciate that you may want a little time to read the transcript, but a response by the end of this month would be very welcome. Thank you for your continuing help with this. 2 June 2010
111. Dispatches ‘Politicians for Hire’—Transcript of Telephone Conversation with Rt Hon Richard Caborn MP on 16 February 2010
Telephone conversation between [reporter], under the name Claire Webster (“CW”) and Richard Caborn (“RC”) (Recording starts a few seconds into the conversation) RC: Let me tell you what my position is I—I—I’m Member of Parliament as you obviously know, you probably know my background. CW Mmm. RC What I’m waiting for is the Election on the 9, on the 6th of May because that will then release me er but there’s a number of things that I er, which will possibly happen then which, er I, er really have to find out before I commit myself any further, er there’s a possibility I might go to the House of Lords, for example, or things like that. So I have got to wait for that to settle down so at the moment er I really don’t want to take anything on that I would have to then either say I couldn’t do or, er, you know, would look at other opportunities. RC So I because I am already doing a couple, I thought I would have finished as a MP some time ago because there was supposed to be an election earlier than now but obviously that didn’t happen but I am a non executive director of Nuclear Management Partners at Sellafield... CW Yes. RC ...which is an American French and British Company and I’m also advising AMEC, the British FTSE 100 company and I just advise the Fitness Industry Association as well but that’s, besides doing other things—in fact the reason I couldn’t talk to you earlier—I’m President of the amateur boxing and things like that so... CW Yes so you’re quite busy at the moment doing those things. So really the situation with you is that you want to see what happens with the election? RC I’ll see what happens on the Election and then really I’ll just reassess that depending on what will, what will happen immediately after that. So, I wouldn’t, I won’t say necessarily, I wouldn’t say no. I’ll have a look at what you’re doing and that, it’s not a no, but if you want to come back at some stage after the 6th May or... CW Yes that might be an idea, perhaps I can do that perhaps we can speak after that time and then by you’ll know whether you’re going into the House of Lords or what was it you...? RC I mean what I shall do, there’s no doubt I shall set, I shall set a, well I’ve got a consultancy now and I shall expand that er if, you know, more than I would if I go to the other place. If I go to the other place then obviously I’d want to spend some time there doing things so er, you know so really the ball’s up in the air at the moment. Er... CW Yes I see that. With your consultancy at the moment is that how you do your work for the other organisations—you do it via your consultancy? RC No; two of them I do. The third one I’m a non executive director—so that’s direct. I’m a non executive director on Nuclear Management Partners which is a combination of three
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companies, URS Washington, US, ARETHA of France and AMEC of the UK—they came together to create that consortium that made the bid that won the bid for the Sellafield— CW Sellafield, yes. RC ...and that was the contract Sellafield which was quite a (...INAUDIBLE...) large (?) contract. So I work with them as non executive director on that. And the other two are consultancies with AMEC and with the Fitness Industry Association. CW And what kind of consultancy work do you do for them? It just be would just be useful for me to know for later on... RC Well I do stuff on the engineering side, at the moment I’m negotiating with forces (?)(...INAUDIBLE...) with a major deal on the largest (...INAUDIBLE...) press (?) in (...INAUDIBLE...)I’m doing a lot on the supply chain of the nuclear power industry working with the advance manufacturing party set up (...INAUDIBLE...) just outside it. I do a lot of advice in those areas. I also, obviously, was Minister for Trade so I’ve been round the world, I’ve got lot of contracts there, and I advise AMEC on our international... see I was down in South Africa, I met with the South African energy minister and their people down in South Africa, so I do that as well. So you know, I make those connections really for UK Limited. CW It does sound like you do have very good contacts, as I’d expect really, through um, your um experience. RC Yes well I had ten years in the as a Minister obviously (...INAUDIBLE...) I did set up the Regional Development Agencies, (...INAUDIBLE...) set up Trade and Investment which was when I was Minister for Trade and then I was six years at Sport, after that was obviously winning the Olympics but we took in Sport as well so in that sense in those are the areas you know I’ve got some expertise in or at least contacts and expertise in, so. CW Mmm. That sounds perfect. I’ll you what I think maybe we could progress this after the election, depending on what happens but I wonder if it might be worth meeting just for an informal coffee beforehand just to touch base and say hello so you know who I am and we could really do something after May. RC Yep, yep. CW Are you going to be contactable by e-mail over the next couple of weeks? RC Yes. If you, if you, there’s two things, it’s [...] CW Yes. RC Or if you ring [name] at the House of Commons which is [...] and arrange to come and have a cup of coffee. She’ll put it in the diary and you could pop into the House if that’s OK with you. CW Yes, yes, that would be a good idea. RC then she’ll sort a time out and you can pop in to have half an hour. CW That would be great. That sounds great Richard. RC (...INAUDIBLE...) I mean I don’t know much about your company either, so... CW I can send you some information if you like. RC If you would. I’ll have look at that. OK? CW Nice to speak to you, thanks so much. Bye. RC Cheers, bye.
112. Dispatches ‘Politicians for Hire’—Transcript of Rt Hon Richard Caborn MP meeting, 10 March 2010
Music and papers rustling
CW 00:27:36 Hello. RC (on phone) CW Yes. RC Can you hear me? CW Oh hello how are you I was just looking for your mobile number actually I was just going to let you know I where, where are we sitting, where are you? RC (on phone) CW Oh me too I’m sitting down by the erm, err by the window. Did you just walk in? RC (on phone)
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CW Thank you. Movement and music still playing [Dialogue about finding the correct location.] RC 00:30:06 So you’re Anderson Perry? CW Yeah, that’s right erm, it was just erm, great to have a chat with you, really. RC Yeah, yeah yeah. CW In the last... (...INAUDIBLE...) RC Tell me a little bit about the set up. CW Yeah yeah I will. RC 00:30:18 I’m not quite, I think I know.... CW Yeah no problem. They’re an American company erm, and in the last month or so I’ve set up the London office, we’re based in St James’ Square. RC Oh yeah. CW 00:30:28 It’s a lovely building there which is really great we’re getting a whole floor ... so it’s exciting erm, and the reason we’re doing it is because so many of our clients have said to us look we’ve got more and more business interests in the UK now and we really need you to kind of help us with those. So... RC What, what you are, you are, it’s engineering in the broadest sense, service engineering? CW 00:30:50 Well no a bit of both actually, it’s what they call it in the States is, there’s another Anderson Perry and I wondered if you’d seen their web site. RC Yeah I’ve got the one from the States and I’ve got, that’s the other one. CW Yes that’s us yes. Yeah but yeah that’s right. RC 00:31:01 You’ve got a whole series (?) on err, it’s basically engineering isn’t it? CW Well actually we’ve got some engineering clients. But actually it’s communications. RC Is it, oh. CW 00:31:11 What they call it in America is bespoke consultancy and what that means you basically do everything. Erm, so sometimes that’s kind of dealing with press and media enquiries and other times that’s helping people with their investments and how supporting what they’re doing erm, so just to give you an idea of some of the clients that we have, we’ve got defence clients in the states who, one of them makes their chassis for MPV vehicles... RC 00:31:37 Oh yeah. CW So they’ve various contracts with the equivalent of the MOD there erm, and there’s, erm, a kind of health client there does elderly care. And they’ve got various contracts to kind of look after elderly people and they’re looking to expand here. And we’ve got a consortium of erm, people in the UAE who are interested in, they kind of do various investments erm but they’re interested in getting more involved in the UK especially in property erm, and kind of infrastructure. They see it erm, actually as a great opportunity erm, about what’s happening here in terms of property and seeing it as a 00:32:13 good time to get involved erm, and to expand. So it’s quite broad what we do actually and it’s quite nice erm, And kind of the plan for the next couple of months is for me to set up an advisory board erm, and that will involve getting about 4 - 6 people together to give us strategic advice and also our clients to strategic advice when necessary. And that’s one of the things I wanted to speak to you about really.
RC 00:32:39 Oh yeah. CW To see if that’s the kind of thing you might be interested in doing when you step down or? RC How did you pick my name up? CW I asked one of my researchers to kind of draw up a list of people that were, there well connected and also had a consultancy background so were used to kind of dealing with business and doing that and then your name came up so
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hopefully we’ve got the right kind of person? RC 00:33:00 No, I, I I, well I’ve been in Government you know I’ve been in Government 10 years, I’ve been in Parliament 27 and my .(...INAUDIBLE...)at the end of this Parliament to be 6th May. Erm, but I’m an engineer by, background as well and I do quite a lot in the, energy industry.. CW Oh right. RC 00:33:20 Yeah, I advise, AMEC CW I think you mentioned them when we spoke on the phone. RC Yeah and I’m also non executive director on err, and this is where I thought the connection had come from, a non executive director on Sellafield which is a big nuclear site erm, which because of the clean up (...INAUDIBLE...). There’s an American company, quite a big American company, who is one of the three in the consortium, URS Washington and they are err, well they’re a huge company, and the bit I’m involved in is the nuclear side and they cleaned up Savannah River which was a big nuclear site in the US. (...INAUDIBLE...) plutonium (...INAUDIBLE...) for the arms industry. CW Yeah. RC 00:34:05 And they came on board, with AMEC and with Areva France which are, is a big energy/nuclear company in France and those three made the bid collectively and I was at at the time but then they asked me to do it as a non executive director, I’m a non exec and that’s where I thought(...INAUDIBLE...) CW Oh right. RC 00:34:24 ...because I looked after the US you see. CW Well it might have been because I asked them to speak to the, the guy that I got to the work I spoke to lots of our clients in the US, just to see if they’d erm, come across people, and to be honest I just got the final list. RC Yeah. CW 00:34:36 I’m not particularly aware of where it all comes from. RC It came from anywhere. CW Yeah so it may erm, it may well be that, but I just wanted to kind of get a sense from you, with I don’t know what kind of thing you’d be interested in and what kind of things you’d done previously to get an idea of your expertise? RC 00:34:49 Yeah well I mean, it, in part, well I’m an engineer by profession and I went into Europe in err, in the European Parliament in 1979 for the first time and I was on the economic and military committee there with Jacques Delores who was our president at the time err and so I worked quite a bit in on the European scene and particularly on the industrial side in European Parliament. I came out in 83. err and into this Parliament, and then in the early 90’s I chaired the Select Committee on Trade and Industry in a period when Michael Heseltine was the President of the Board Of Trade and I chaired that Committee through the inquiries on pit closures, on information super highway erm, the Aerospace (...INAUDIBLE...) and the international trade in South Africa (...INAUDIBLE...). And then I, then I went into Government and, and I was a Minister responsible for setting up the regional development agencies across... CW Yeah. RC 00:35:55 ...across England. I also started planning, new planning processes, then I left there, two years after I set the IVA’s up and I went into trade and I was Trade Minister and created an organisation called UK Trade and Investment which put inward investment which was (...INAUDIBLE...) at the time (...INAUDIBLE...) together to, much more comprehensive approach to, to exporting, on a (...INAUDIBLE...) linked to the regions national and international, through UK Trade and Investment, UK TI as they called it. I did that for two years. CW That’s interesting. RC 00:36:31 Yeah and then I went into sport and I set up, restructured the whole sport, so on my watch was the whole Olympics as well but it, it linked a lot of that...on the health. The other thing I do advise as well is the Fitness Industry
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Association, the FIA. CW Oh right what do they do? RC They are, they bring together all the Lloyds Leisure’s, erm, the, all the, well, public and private sector, all the, all gyms that we’ve got around this place err, First Leisure, Lloyds, and so on, all of those are under the FIA. CW Mmm. RC 00:37:05 And the reason err is (...INAUDIBLE...) that because we’re trying to fund the sports programme to get err a million people more active, by 2012. CW Yeah. RC 00:37:17 And it was to try and use that part of err, which I believe is, is underutilised erm, facility in the UK and link that into sport you know and to the schools to develop (...INAUDIBLE...) Coffee machine in background CW So that children would use those gyms for instance? RC 00:37:33 Yeah, what, what we, we set out to do in 2001 there was less than 25 percent of the school population getting two hours of physical activity or sport. And we created the structure and by (...INAUDIBLE...) the School Sports Partnership where you have one sports provider, eight secondary schools, 30 primary schools, roughly speaking, and that created the partnership where we can be a suitable co-ordinator, which were teachers who have 2 or 3 days a week off, backed up by another teacher which organise the sport and physical activity and we took the average choice of sport and physical activity (...INAUDIBLE...) to no less than 14 choices, sometimes up to 24 and we moved we moved the physical activity from 25 percent when I left in 1997 to 85 percent and that means there are now around three million hours a week more physical activity in our education system than there was 00:38:45 in 2001. CW Oh really. RC It’s been the fastest move of (...INAUDIBLE...) CW That’s great. RC And as we got (...INAUDIBLE...) the Ofsted report. For the first time obesity and overweight have just started to level out in schools. CW Has it? RC 00:39:02 Yeah we think err, the last stats, we can think that now it’s obviously started to have an impact on... and we’re extending that for two in school to three outside school. CW Yeah. RC 00:39:18 So we’re trying to link the prevention but that also changes the culture. And that’s great while you’re getting the very controlled systems in the education system which you can do that and the structure and you do it and the kids are there 9 to 5. CW So what do they do go to the gym effectively? RC You know, they do all sorts, we do they, they’ve got two hours, they can do break dancing, they can do sport, they can do other things and we have, created structures which hopefully gives them a good experience of which they can, We’ve found that where kids have got into, particularly girls because they do (...INAUDIBLE...) CW Yeah like hockey. RC 00:39:55 Whatever, (...INAUDIBLE...) It turns them off, see? So what we said: No that’s crazy! You’ve got to make, you’ve got to make the, the clothing that they wear acceptable to them they’ve got to have choice, they might want to do break dancing, (...INAUDIBLE...) they want to do dance, they might want to do, I don’t know, (...INAUDIBLE...) CW Yeah. RC (...INAUDIBLE...) and as I say you give a choice, of (...INAUDIBLE...) probably less than 14 (?) but some when they’re 21, 24. Then when they come
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out, the experience is, they’re more likely to stop in a (...INAUDIBLE...) physical activity if they’ve had a good experience certainly than if they’ve had a bad experience. CW Yeah. RC 00:40:39 So that’s the rationale. CW That it’ll be part of their life? RC 00:40:42 And it’s all starting to now feed through. Where does that leave us? It’s left us with hopefully, when they leave school, where do you go? So we were trying to do all sorts of things that as well as sport creating the backbone of good structures? The private sector on board, the athletics associations, so they would open up their gyms. Err, for (...INAUDIBLE...) experiences. CW Yeah. RC 00:41:00 And what has been interesting with the FIA is where it is just a gym that has levelled off (...INAUDIBLE...), where when they are in the much wider complex of sport and physical activity. So where you go, where your family can go into, they might want to play badminton, they might want to swim, they might when they go into the gym, they might want to (...INAUDIBLE...) If you create a multi-choice activity for the, for the families then err, then they are more likely to stop (...INAUDIBLE...) exciting, continue. Pouring tea. RC 00:41:41 You’re (?) looking at a fairly big scheme changing. You’re looking at very, very much in its infancy. The Chairman of the Health Authority, who is a friend of mine who I have known for many years and he’s an, he’s an engineer as well. He has been the chair for the Health Authority now err for probably 8 years, probably a bit more. And because I’m sort of finishing, I said you know I’d like 00:42:19 to do this experiment. So what we’re looking at is zoning the whole of Sheffield and asking the Government there to give us much more freedom on how to expand. He’s been to the problems it’s the biggest business(?) in Europe and it’s very much an ambulance service it, it’s a health service but a wellness service.
CW Yeah. RC 00:42:26 And because of that you, we’ve built all sorts of cultures out of it. We’re saying we’re got to break them. And whilst we try to work the Health service into all sorts of different structures, we’re thinking in the economy of scale with half a million people that two big hospitals, teaching hospitals, and a children’s hospital along with two big universities that we ought to look at whether we can actually move the whole cultural agenda to prevention rather than cure. CW Yeah. RC 00:43:00 But we need to have, a, amendment on the legislation to give us, and we don’t want anymore money. But we want to be able to utilise our disciplines so that if people are (...INAUDIBLE...) they’ve got to (...INAUDIBLE...) (eat less?), if people are obese they’ve got to get (the fat?) off (...INAUDIBLE...) CW Mmm. RC 00:43:13 (...INAUDIBLE...) CW Yeah. RC So we’ve got a lot of sticks and carrots but in doing that we’ll link that to err the err industries and and saying be in no doubt we’re going to leave it weeks or two weeks, but where you’ve got a health (...INAUDIBLE...) agenda (...INAUDIBLE...) CW Of course. RC 00:43:33 (...INAUDIBLE...) So it’s a win-win at the bottom line. It’s a win-win on the bottom line at expenditure and you believe (?) cultural shift (...INAUDIBLE...) It’s a bit like schools where you can actually over a period shift the culture there (...INAUDIBLE...) acceptable (...INAUDIBLE...) The reality is, that over the last two or three decades we have systematically taken physical activity out of everyone’s lives by design. It’s the motorcar.
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CW Yes you’re right. RC Town planning, escalators all of them. CW To make life easier. RC Exactly. RC 00:44:08 The television. We have remote controls, everything. So we (...INAUDIBLE...) in the developed world, we are, designing physical activity out of our lives. For the first time now we are designing it back in. and that’s the challenge. We’re saying you can do that any way (?) but moving shifting cultures is much more difficult than putting legislation to statute there’s no resolution. I mean that could be helpful (...INAUDIBLE...) I mean the anti-smoking one was a classic. CW Yeah. RC 00:44:41 (...INAUDIBLE...) So that yes, I have been advising the FIA, I because I’ve got, I’ve got link into sports, err, physical activity, the schools (...INAUDIBLE...) for years now, err this and I advise them on the (...INAUDIBLE...) CW And what are they looking to get out of it are they looking to? RC 00:45:00 They are looking at using their private sector, they are looking to use their assets more effectively, because they are the peer groups of a new organisation (?). See if we can buy that then we could get referrals to the services from doctors, into that, then you can link that together. So basically, you’ve got an asset there that is under utilised. CW Yes. RC Can we use it? CW 00:45:20 For instance a gym in the daytime might be quite empty, yeah. RC Erm, can, can we use that erm and can we utilise that? We’re also looking at taking and it’s not just in there, but moving in to communities and to community clubs, and saying that do you, like the Salvation Army, do you go out the client and then the client comes to you. CW Yeah. RC And then you can bring the client in as well so it means that it’s a two way flow. There’s a lot, lot of ideas, certainly from their point of view it really is, 00:45:55 well it’s improving their bottom line that’s what they’re in business for, if they can do that then, with a social aspect to it as well, then it’s a win-win situation.
CW Yeah, then everyone’s doing well. RC Yes exactly (...INAUDIBLE...) partnership (?) CW How easy is it to kind of liaise with Government and Ministers and Civil Servants and that kind of thing, because some of my clients are going to be looking to expand in the U.K., and to get closer to Government, but I just wonder how you do it practically? RC 00:46:21 Well practically, I mean it’s not very sophisticated, you know, like the FIA, I mean we get direct access to Ministers, particularly Health Ministers. I was a Minister when I was working with them, I was Minister of Sport and I worked with the FIA to try to encourage them to get on board much more and utilising their, you know, their (...INAUDIBLE...) capacity. CW Yeah. RC 00:46:45 Erm and it was from that, well there’s a number of ways in which you can, which you can influence or at least access Ministers, whether it’s a sector or an individual company, or what. And also on policy as well. CW Yeah, well exactly. RC Yeah that’s, obviously an important aspect of this, but obviously we’re in a changing situation. Nobody knows the—, where we’re going to be on the 7th May this year. CW I know, well that’s one of the questions, and that’s one of the things I was wondering about the make-up of the Advisory Board, erm do you think it’s the kind of thing you’d be interested in? RC 00:47:20 Oh maybe yeah, but I mean the only things is as I don’t, what I think I said to
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you before I. I don’t quite know what I’m going to be doing after the 6th May. And I mean there’s a possibility I will be in the House of Lords and, and I’m just going to have to find out exactly what I’m going to do there as well But yeah. I wouldn’t particularly want to get anything in ... I think it would be wrong for you and wrong for me in, in the sense I don’t want to really commit to something I can’t do. CW No of course. RC 00:47:53 So I’d have to, you know, obviously we’d have a. But yeah its seems I would be interested if circumstances arise. CW Yeah. RC Where I’m erm in the House of Lords, I am going to be doing more, I’m going to do more energy. They’ll be a very big announcement next week, which I’ll be dealing with, about the nuclear supply chain, the nuclear power supply chain. CW 00:48:19 Are you still invol, are you still involved with kind of nuclear stuff for Government then? RC Well my, my, the company I used to work at is of course, it called (...INAUDIBLE...) CW Right. RC 00:48:32 (...INAUDIBLE...) Which is a lot of (...INAUDIBLE...) For the energy ...(...INAUDIBLE...).. And one of the things (...INAUDIBLE...) Is there will be an announcement, they’re going to build the largest (...INAUDIBLE...) facility in the world. CW Oh right. RC Which is the start of the nuclear supply chain. And if you, in broad figures, if I tell you that broadly there are probably in this country 8 to 10 generators erm and that will be worth around the 60 billion pounds. CW Oh my goodness. RC 00:49:00 And that only represents 4% of the world’s order book as of today. It shows you, this press, we will be the only one in the western world, that’s including the U.S., the only other one this size is in Japan. One of the big bottlenecks of the nuclear new build, new generators that people (...INAUDIBLE...) is erm is this part of the supply chain. CW Yeah. RC 00:49:28 So that’s that and the other part is, I’ve been deeply involved in the setting up of the advanced manufacturing (...INAUDIBLE...) partnership (?), which is erm, something we did that 10 years ago, on the back of Aerospace (...INAUDIBLE...) that conduit with the MD (?). 9, 10 years ago now with (...INAUDIBLE...) and it was out of that discussion that they decided they wanted to come to Britain, because we did a lot of titanium, we did a lot (...INAUDIBLE...) sheet/machine (?) titanium(...INAUDIBLE...) and that’s now brought British Aerospace there, brought (...INAUDIBLE...) there, Smiths there, erm a lot of the (...INAUDIBLE...) CW 00:50:13 Yeah. RC And we’re moving advanced manufacturing aerospace into advanced British manufacturing for nuclear industry, so there’s a lot for them. And so I’ve got to do a lot to make sure that UK Limited gets a lead position. CW Yeah. RC And so that’s quite exciting. CW 00:50:33 And what was the erm work that you were doing for erm the Sellafield people. More coffee noise. RC I, I, I advise, there was a bid, a consortium bid to get the contract to clean up and to look at all reprocessing of the fuel. CW Yeah. RC 00:50:55 Bearing in mind it was the (...INAUDIBLE...) and I was, because I’d known AMEC for many, many years and AMEC said to me, when I had finished he came to me and he said would I advise them what to do, with a consortium, so
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I said fine, yeah I advised them, I did it. I worked with Areva, I worked with Washington and we won it, we won the contract and it was then they said would I go on and I went on as a non-executive. CW Oh right. RC But I still advise. CW 00:51:30 Erm and what kind of erm how in what way do you advise them, cause I’m just trying to. RC On the board. Oh sorry AMEC? CW Yes that’s right because I was just about the things. RC Oh AMEC, I mean I, AMEC I (...INAUDIBLE...) to me, then when I go down to South Africa, I know the Minister of Energy there people there, I fix their people together and we met the Minister of Energy out there cause they’ve got one nuclear power station. (...INAUDIBLE...) And so I connect them in, if they want a reception in the House of Commons and if they want erm to get advice from Government then I get advice from Government and I introduce them to people. CW Yeah. Coffee machine over following section RC 00:52:08 Erm but they also, they all said to me, (...INAUDIBLE...) nuclear and that as well (...INAUDIBLE...) so a whole series of things, you know. And then that I meet Samir Brikho who’s MD and I say come and have a chat and he’ll have some ideas you know, someone will think about those ideas, so it’s quite right (?)(...INAUDIBLE...) CW 00:52:35 No I was just thinking about what kind of things we would be after from the Advisory Board or from our Consultants, and I suppose one of the things erm we’d be looking to try to erm develop would be our relations erm with Government and Ministers and Civil Servants. And I just didn’t know whether that was the kind of thing you’d be able to help us with? RC 00:52:51 Oh yeah, yeah, obviously I know Ministers. But again it’ll change, it could change, it’s going to change anyway, irrespective of of— CW Yeah. RC 00:52:59 Cause that many of my colleagues will be leaving. so there will be erm quite a big movement of personnel, personnel, it’ll be very interesting, this new, maybe hung Parliament. CW Yeah. RC But that won’t last for very long in my view, hung Parliaments don’t last very long. CW Don’t they? RC No, they’ll be, depending on the composition. Probably a year, eighteen months and then they’ll be another election, probably you know. But increasingly, but there’s a lot in Europe you see. There’s a lot European connections, and into the Commission and the Council of Ministers. CW 00:53:33 Yeah. RC And in (...INAUDIBLE...) CW Well I suppose, if I just think about the kind of things that they’d be wanting to do, you know there’s the health clients, so they’ll be wanting to 00:53:48 meet people in the Department of Health and various civil servants. Erm the guys we’ve got in the U.A.E. who are interested in developing erm going in to do kind of housing and construction erm that kind of thing, I , they’ll want to meet all kinds of people there, they’re interested in the Olympics, although I think, I don’t know if that’s too late for them. And then of course if we get erm World Cup they’d be very interested in that.
RC Well the Olympic Delivery Authority is, I mean I set up the Olympic Delivery Authority. CW Oh did you.
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RC 00:54:10 I took the Bill, I took, yeah I took the Bill through Parliament and set up the structures, and then I set up the, erm you’ve got the Olympic Board and then you’ve got effectively two structures, the ODA, which is effectively construction, the other one, which Coe Chairs, is the LOCOG, Local Organising Committee delivers the Games. CW Yeah. RC So you’ve got one who builds the services and infrastructure and the other one then comes in, takes that and delivers the games, I mean that’s it.. And then we’ve just set up, or they have just set up a legacy company now as well, to look at (...INAUDIBLE...) CW 00:54:47 Oh have they? RC (...INAUDIBLE...) games. So that, that’s now erm underway. CW And in terms of, say if the Conservatives come in, at the next election, do you think that will affect how much you’re able to help us? RC Well yeah, I mean to the point where I, you know, obviously the Ministers I know are in the main good friends of mine as well. But I mean a lot of the old Conservatives who are in all sorts of positions, where I can help will be. Look at Seb Coe, look at Colin Moynahan, he’s conservative, Brian Mawhinney is. You know, and I think it’s more about, at the end of it, do they trust you in the sense of your integrity and you know the subject you’re dealing with. 00:55:43 CW Yeah. RC And that’s true of civil servants as well, you know erm so. CW 00:55:51 So you don’t think it would be a problem setting up meetings with them. RC Oh no. I mean I set loads of meetings up when I was Minister, with all different parties. (...INAUDIBLE...) I set them up with a lot, there’s a lot of ex- Conservative MPs | | stop tape 1| | who lost their seat and worked for all kinds of businesses who came knocking on my door. END AUDIO SWITCHES TO “Caborn meeting wed 100310” from Dictaphone TC Differ from start CW 00:54:26 Yeah. RC 00:54:27 And there are some very nice and some very good and some that are not and not so good and that’s their judgement at the end of the day. CW Yes I know I suppose that’s true. But I would guess that civil servants, I would imagine there would quite a lot that might leave at the next election but equally there might be a lot that stay. RC 00:54:44 Oh yes there will be a lot that are staying, I mean the civil service is quite a unique animal in that regard it tends to manage political change quite effectively er, so I would think this will leave not a lot CW Yea and you still have the relationships with them, do you? RC 00:55:03 Yes I do. John Prescott and I are having a little party next Thursday night for all those who have been in private secretaries since we started. People who worked, not the big high flyers you know, but people within our private office who are head of our policy units, and you’d be amazed, one’s 00:55:27 my very first private secretary, was really, really good to me and he is number two in the Chinese Embassy now.
CW Oh really? RC 00:55:35 So I said I will text (?) them all before, (...INAUDIBLE...) it’s that lump of people who’s (...INAUDIBLE...) CW Yeah RC (...INAUDIBLE...) RC 00:55:49 And you know a lot of them, a lot of them are around the world. CW Yeah
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RC 00:55:53 And the other thing is, when I was Minister, for two years doing trade, and set up his clients and I did a lot of travelling, as I did with the Olympics as well. You get to know people and all of a sudden they pop up in another country than you’ve met them in. I was down at the er, at the, I was down, and I went to a state banquet last week with the president of South Africa. 00:56:24 [Name] my wife, she went and um, and (...INAUDIBLE...) affair (?) but [wife] was sat next to a young guy who is now the private secretary (...INAUDIBLE...) to the, er, to er Prince Andrew.
CW Oh really? RC 00:56:36 And he, he told her a story which I can’t recall to be quite honest, about when I went to see the (...INAUDIBLE...) and sorted out rather a rather intransigent situation by a member of staff and I gave him, and by all 00:56:53 accounts, and I never knew this, but [wife] told me, how he was absolutely delighted. He said he had champagne corks popping when I’d left, because they had given him the biggest bollocking he’d ever had in his life (...INAUDIBLE...)
CW Oh really RC 00:57:01 But all the guys there, and this guy was there, he must have been (...INAUDIBLE...) but he’s now become, he’s now become er, the private secretary to Prince Andrew. So he was telling [wife]. It’s a funny old world you see. CW Yeah RC 00:57:15 And these things come back, cos there’s not many parts of the world where you know I don’t think I will know anybody. CW Yeah, is it easy enough to see civil servants cos I would always feel tricky just to call them up as Claire Webster and be hi ya, can I come and see you, but? RC 00:57:31 But if you are, the real fixers in Whitehall outside the Ministers are the special advisers. CW Oh right and do you now them? RC 00:57:42 Yeah that’s, cos that’s politically how they operate and they are, they come and go with Ministers. CW Right. RC 00:57:51 They are the people that have the ear of the Ministers at the political level. They have civil servants and private secretaries (?) but you also have special advisors. And the other area that is quite good actually is the select committees. CW Oh are they? So it’s worth knowing people that are on the select committees? RC 00:58:15 Oh yes, very much so. cos when you give evidence, I mean I chaired a select committee for four years, Trade and Industry. CW Oh right. RC 00:58:20 So you bring a lot of industrialist in or experts, obviously and they draw up a report going to Parliament and have to be responded to by Government. This is the Parliamentary system which is quite, or can be quite influential. CW Do you think you’d be able to help us with the select committees and special advisors in order to um, go and see them? RC 00:58:44 Yeah, yeah, as long as you know how the system works that’s the main thing. These people come and they go. They’ve chaired select committees. But the whole system is still there. How you influence the decision makers, that’s the structure, that’s not going to change. The personnel will change but the system doesn’t change. CW Yea well I’m sure that’s very true. RC 00:59:04 And that’s not the same in Europe as well where you have a totally different system which is a consensus and you are er, the political cabinet of the er, the commissions, the European Union again depending on what area they are in.
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You could have, you need to er, at least have so much (...INAUDIBLE...) that, that structure as well as individual (...INAUDIBLE...) CW Yea RC 00:59:33 Er, what areas are they in? They’ve got health? CW Yeah, we’ve got health, defence, um, kind of construction and engineering, they’re quite interested in transport um. RC 00:59:46 Are they, are they into energy at all? CW Um, a little bit, more the um, investors, they’re the people that are particularly interested in getting involved in aviation and energy, because they see it as quite kind of hot topics. Um, and they’ve got a lot of money to um, invest and they see the UK as one of the places to do it. RC 01:00:03 I’m not a financier I’m not. CW Nor am I. RC I’m not happy with that, not at all, but I could, you know I’m not in with them, I’m much more er, the engineering side, the wealth creation part of that, but not necessarily the investment side (?) CW No I think what they really looking for from us is guidance about what areas they should consider investing in, um, so you know sometimes that might mean a heads up on forthcoming policy, you know what’s coming up, what’s going to be a hot topic, um, and also introductions to people that they should be talking to. RC 01:00:37 Well that’s, that’s the, relatively (...INAUDIBLE...). That’s not hard in that sense, I mean it’s when you get into... I’m a non-exec on the (...INAUDIBLE...) NFB (?), (...INAUDIBLE...) financing (...INAUDIBLE...) got to know your subject matter which, some board meetings are two days long some board 01:01:07 meetings. and they get into some quite interesting, fairly high level, but for that you have to do a lot of reading. Every day you have to go, every other day, you know.
CW 01:01:22 Of reading yeah, I think actually I’ve got to report back to um, my board in the US in the next couple of weeks, and I think one thing that I will be certainly worth highlighting for me, is the good work you’d done for AMEC and Sellafield because obviously getting that contract is a massive thing. Was it a hard thing to get? RC 01:01:37 It wasn’t hard, it was well not what I think, I think it wasn’t hard, it was (...INAUDIBLE...) it was a great look, what you’d one is you’ve brought three global companies, brought them together (...INAUDIBLE...) it’s just me (...INAUDIBLE...) They’ve all got different skill sets. CW Yeah. RC 01:02:07 And different ways of doing things. as well: You’ve got America. CW Oh yeah, they do things differently. RC 01:02:20 (...INAUDIBLE...) and then in a new (...INAUDIBLE...) 01:02:26 Quality of people working (...INAUDIBLE...) and is of the highest calibre it really is absolutely and it’s intellectually stimulating to be with them, I mean it’s great, it was great. The one objective when you’re moving towards, it’s a bit like (...INAUDIBLE...) in that sense, there’s a lot of similarities you know lots of er, I advised them on a lot, tactics, of how to get to that situation (...INAUDIBLE...) RC 01:02:58 But once you’ve won it you have to start delivering that, different (...INAUDIBLE...) I had about three months of actually bringing them all together er, and it is, it is a peculiar thing because immediately you’ve won it you all go ah! CW 01:03:17 Yes of course and it is quite scary isn’t it, because you’ve suddenly got to do it. Yea how am I going to do this. RC (...INAUDIBLE...) CW Yeah. RC 01:03:31 (...INAUDIBLE...) the other interesting bit about this is their company’s
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credibility is on the line. It’s not the (...INAUDIBLE...) it’s the holding company and that (...INAUDIBLE...) item is there. And if anything goes wrong, it could be Areva, it could be URS, it could be AMEC... CW 01:03:44 Of course yeah. RC 01:03:45 Because it’s their brand name. 01:03:47 Cos they, they protect and rightly so cos they are, they are three world, you know, major world sector (?) companies so er, in that sense it’s, it is quite interesting. They come together (...INAUDIBLE...) RC 01:04:00 And [name], well (...INAUDIBLE...) my other non executive, we have a great time and we tell, we tell them the absolute truth of what we think, sometimes it hurts. CW [Laughing] RC But you know its good, they took us now, oh we’ve been at it now 2½ years. CW Oh really, oh well you must be enjoying it if you’ve stayed doing it that long. RC 01:04:20 Oh yeah, yeah, oh yeah its erm its good. I went off to the U.S. Internal Affair, to attend this erm, to meet one of their guys(...INAUDIBLE...) and I went to France, (...INAUDIBLE...) for a time, to see the guys down there, so its, erm it is, its been a really interesting period, about bringing cultures together to work on a fairly complex issue. CW Yeah. RC 01:04:45 But we are, we’re going to, but they are in themselves very professional people, you know that is great when you’ve got people like that. CW Yeah, one thing I wanted to get an idea from you, I know it’s always a tricky conversation, but I’m going looking to appoint some members of the board, probably over, maybe in April, so you said that you’d be interested in doing something maybe after May, but one thing I wanted to get a sense of is what you’d be expecting in terms of erm remuneration, in whether you have a normal day rate that you’d look for to be an advisory board member. RC Well my, what they pay me, I’ll tell you what they pay, they pay me, they pay me two and a half thousand pounds a day. CW 01:05:21 Yeah, so would that be what your looking for? RC Yeah, that’s what I, for yeah, plus expenses obviously. CW Yeah. RC Erm and that’s well we don’t pay, oh sorry AMEC pay me, they don’t pay me that, they just pay me like seventy-five thousand a year, as a board member, up to I think its 30 days, and if I do any time above that then I get extra, cause that saves all the messing about, when you’re just paid, as a non executive, being 01:05:51 paid seventy-five thousand erm and that covers my contract, board meetings and various other activities. But to be honest I’m doing quite a lot for that. I set up the whole regeneration of the company, because they had a commitment to socioeconomic development and I did not like the structure so I revamped the whole structure and it’s become much wider (...INAUDIBLE...) Which is quite 01:06:16 exciting from my point of view, but that’s what really erm made, made a big, big difference on that so and our, we have a (...INAUDIBLE...)relationship, cause we have a thing called the nuclear non departmental public body. We are responsible (...INAUDIBLE...) CW Yeah. RC On that particular subject (...INAUDIBLE...) and a lot of repositioning. but that is now, just about (...INAUDIBLE...) it’s been quite interesting, quite exciting to erm to put together. CW 01:06:54 Yeah I bet. RC And it’s interesting how various companies have relationships with their Government. The Americans and their Department of Environment have a relationship with the American Government... Having a relationship with the French having a relationship with the French Government (...INAUDIBLE...), 01:07:14 and now here, all different types of relationships. But when they’re Here they’ve got to have our relationship.
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CW Exactly. RC (...INAUDIBLE...)British companies. CW Yeah, that’s what our clients are saying as well, you know, they may be used to doing business in America, or in the Gulf of wherever, but how should they be doing business here? Who should they be meeting? You know how, does it all work? RC 01:07:31 Well that’s right, but (...INAUDIBLE...) this country, but these guys you know they’ll, they’ve probably had quite a bit of experience on it. CW Yeah, yeah they do. Erm I think what we’d be looking to for the advisory board 01:07:44 is having erm, I think you try something for the first 6 months and see how it’s working, and then assess it. So we’re looking for a meeting every other month, erm though you might want to up that to once a month after a while, so I would expect it to be, to roughly work out to prob, maybe erm a day for the meeting and a day for kind of reading, so that’s going to be roughly. RC 01:08:02 About 12 days a year. CW Yeah, erm and then of course we’d be looking for erm people to do consultancy work on top of that, and that would be up to you, if you erm wanted to do that, and wanted to get erm a whole (...INAUDIBLE...) depending on your time commitments. RC 01:08:16 Yeah well that depends a lot on what I’m going to do to be honest. And I, I, I, I my view it will become clear [pause]. The biggest decision obviously is whether I go to the Lords. I will know that probably in the next erm five weeks, four or five weeks we will know who is going to be (...INAUDIBLE...) CW Yeah. RC 01:08:42 That has to be announced before that, the erm the PM goes to the Palace and I shall know, and that will then really determine what I am going to do. Of course, if that doesn’t happen then I’ll continue to work on my consultancy. I will set an office up there or elsewhere and I’ll take a slightly different course, but if I’m in Parliament still, then obviously that gives me access to a lot of other things. CW Yeah. RC 01:09:10 That, that’s it really— CW I was going to ask you actually erm cause I know when we spoke on the phone you mentioned that you might go to the Lords, at, what kind of further expertise do you think that would bring if you were to be in the Lords? [14:45] RC 01:09:23 Well access, access to people. You’re in, you’re in, you’re in the environment you’re moving around, you’re doing it all the time. That would give you a much wider view (...INAUDIBLE...) narrowness, very much into manufacturing (?), the energy sector, two directorships (...INAUDIBLE...) CW Yeah RC 01:09:54 Erm because that would be a base, (...INAUDIBLE...) Government (...INAUDIBLE...) access, constituency (?)(...INAUDIBLE...) CW And by access do you mean that you’d be able to erm talk more, talk to people or? RC 01:10:06 Yeah you you’re there all the time (...INAUDIBLE...) Got access all the time. Access to Ministers, you’ve got access to all the information that’s going around. CW 01:10:20 Yeah, so you could just pick up information I suppose. RC You talk to people, you stop people (?) (...INAUDIBLE...), Yeah. Prolonged rustling on microphone on following section. CW Very exciting for you isn’t it? RC 01:10:46 Yeah, yeah yeah, no I mean (...INAUDIBLE...), elected cause I’ve got a number of options, irrespective of what happens, I don’t, I don’t go there I will (...INAUDIBLE...), erm, (...INAUDIBLE...), erm (...INAUDIBLE...)on the, on
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the manufacturing and energy side (...INAUDIBLE...)a number of people, (...INAUDIBLE...), jobs with them (...INAUDIBLE...) CW 01:11:10 So you will decide erm about those other jobs will you, erm after your, after you know about whether your going in to the Lords. RC Yeah, some of and as I’ve said to everybody I’m not going to make any decisions until I know, you know I, I (...INAUDIBLE...) I mean if that’s in your time scale. CW 01:11:28 Yes, yeah it is, yeah that would be erm fine for me really. RC Who else would you be looking to put on, what type of people? CW Erm I definitely I’m looking for someone who has a good business background, a banking kind of background actually, someone with a legal background, erm I’m I think I should probably be talking to maybe a conservative, though I don’t know who. Erm, I was wondering about a former civil servant, erm I don’t know if you have any recommendations or thoughts. RC 01:11:56 In civil servants, erm I think the best thing to do is to let me know what portfolios you know what, what your looking for, the banking (...INAUDIBLE...), if you just let me know what you think your portfolio’s going to be. CW 01:12:12. Yes, well at the moment it looks like health in terms of elderly care, erm it looks like defence erm in terms of getting contracts with the MoD pretty much, erm housing and infrastructure and transport, so big investment projects that the people from the Gulf can get involved with. And they are quite open, and quite interested in doing a number of things, erm but 01:12:35 they’re looking for big projects. So for instance with cross rail coming up, not cross rail sorry, well they could do that but I did wonder about the high speed 2.
RC High speed 2. CW That’s something else that. RC There is a big announcement tomorrow. CW Oh is there. RC 01:12:46 That the high speed links, up in Manchester and Leeds possibly and (...INAUDIBLE...) to London. CW Oh wow. RC Would then I think (...INAUDIBLE...) CW It would go across. RC 01:13:02 So that, that’s going to be a big announcement. The big infrastructure developments clearly are going to be on high speed rail. The other one’s going to be on energy on a whole green energy agenda. CW Yes. RC Is big CW Yeah, so renewable. RC 01:13:17 It’s renewable, its nuclear, its carbon capture, they are the big infrastructure development. And because what we’re trying to do is position nuclear (...INAUDIBLE...) UK Limited (...INAUDIBLE...), not just supply our own (...INAUDIBLE...) but to use it as a base for international development. CW Yeah. RC 01:13:32 And what you’ve got with Roath (?), I’m saying (...INAUDIBLE...), you’ve then got, they want to become, as they have done in the aerospace smart (?) partner, and they want to be smart partner (?)and (...INAUDIBLE...) And (...INAUDIBLE...), What we are going to announce next week on the Rolls/Roath (?) are involved (...INAUDIBLE...) partners between the two big (...INAUDIBLE...), CW 01:14:01 Yeah. RC 01:14:02 And therefore we will look, cross rail, development (...INAUDIBLE...), on them so we’ve got some very good engineers. And we’ve got, and what, with
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Rolls/Roath (?) we’re looking at how you can take the, the aerospace manufacture or defence manufacture into the nuclear (...INAUDIBLE...) That, that area it’s huge. CW And do you have a background in that because of your work, work? It’s obviously one of your specialist areas. RC I’m an engineer. And so that, that is, and the other big one it really is health service, I mean we’re spending a hundred billion pounds a year on a health service and it’s got to move to prevention rather than cure and that is a big, that’s a big issue, I mean how, how that will develop can be extremely 01:14:52 interesting. And this thing we’re going to do in Sheffield if we ever get off the ground, to look at this in a whole new structure of wellness not an ambulance service, not health service, but a wellness service, which then impacts.
CW How does that work practically, does that mean they need to get contracts from the local, I don’t know PCTs or the local councils. RC No, we’ve, we’ve, what we’re thinking of doing is putting, well I’m trying to get Liam Donaldson, Liam Donaldson is the Chief Medical Advisor. CW Ah right yes. RC 01:15:22 Top man and he’s resigning, retiring, anyway come to you know Sheffield, so I’ve got two Vice Chancellors, I’ve got the head of the (...INAUDIBLE...), we’re going to bring the Chairman of ?, David (...INAUDIBLE...), and there would have been two or three leading industrialists there (...INAUDIBLE...), And we’re going to put together a strategy and if we set a Wellness Council up and from that we ran, this is where the Government comes in, it’s got to give us the authority and the finance to do that. We would then paint a strategy, you will bring education into that, it would bring community into that, (...INAUDIBLE...), we would then be very strict in people who would have access. CW To that, yeah. RC 01:16:05 So you’d have the, we’d get all GP’s in, so they would have a referral, so it’s not stuffing more pills down, it’s saying no, you’ve got to start with exercise, or you’ve got to start with dieting and if you want your operation, then you’ve got to achieve this objective, if you don’t and if we’re really, really tough, say no, sorry, you’ve got to do it. CW It would be through this scheme that they have to do it. RC Yes that’s right and its got to have, you know, it’s got people to take more responsibility for their own well being than they have at the moment. It is too easy to turn the tap on the NHS (...INAUDIBLE...) bank and it cannot, it’s got 01:16:38 to stop (?) and this is, David asked me to go and see, David (...INAUDIBLE...), we had lunch a few weeks ago and he’s been (...INAUDIBLE...) and he’s just rescued the Shropshire Hospital that was in put in special measures he was the guy who went down and did that. Very good guy. And he used to shift over the next four to five years I just want to try to, to, to shift the whole debate, culture onto a, a (...INAUDIBLE...), trying to get a resolution to what we can do with
the Health Service long term. And it always comes back to the wellness of the
nation and that’s how it...That’s not so much to your client (...INAUDIBLE...), 01:17:12 CW It’s just quite interesting actually about you influence policy. RC Well we were making, we would ask Government to (...INAUDIBLE...) to us and that we’re very high powered with Vice Chancellors of Universities, Chief Executives of Local Authorities along (...INAUDIBLE...)discuss, we, we, do it to industry as well, as well as the schools, we do it to industry, you do the whole thing of saying look, these are the targets we want obesity, these are the targets for physical activity, these are the targets that we are going to achieve collectively. CW Have you managed to get the Department of Health on side about it? RC 01:17:50 Well that’s why Liam Donaldson is key, cause Liam Donaldson doesn’t come
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up and I, Liam and I work together, he set, I set up, he and I set up the first doctor sport and exercise (...INAUDIBLE...), which was a, quite a feat in itself, but that’s another issue. This was about all the wellness agenda, it was really about that, and he and I, and if I can get Liam to come on to our Board, that’s a big, big, sign and he is very, very influential. Really, really nice man, usually quite (...INAUDIBLE...)and if you could put people like that on the Board with strong local influence, vice-chancellor (...INAUDIBLE...) and liaise with the hospital structure, then, the you are in with a possibility of saying we, I ask my self the question what’s Government got to lose? He says to us, cos it’s 01:18:41 restructured the bloody health service that many times, trying to achieve an objective and he’s never done it. And this is the discussion that David and I had, and he’s saying, oh by the way, the other interesting thing, (...INAUDIBLE...), the other interesting thing is that David is the Honorary Consul in South Yorkshire, (...INAUDIBLE...) Yorkshire, for Finland and he has been to Finland and he has seen what they have done on physical activity where they’ve taken that nation over twenty five years ago, the worst nation for coronary heart disease in the world, now to well above average.
CW Oh really? RC 01:19:18 Yes, and it is a fantastic and he’s still involved in that and that’s moving from prevention to cure. And they’ve done that, very, very effectively, you think, ok, that’s a small nation, seven or eight million people something like that. But what’s he’s saying is we need to do it on a economy of scale that is big enough, well Sheffield is half a million people, its got all the institutions that you want at a fairly high level, hospitals and industrial premises. So if we ring fence and say so that’s what we’re going to do for the next five years, this is how we’re CW So it’s a kind of pilot in a way? RC Yeah, yeah, yeah, I don’t know, it may come off, I don’t know, it may come off I don’t know. CW Oh wow it sounds really exciting and presumable if you have erm Liam Donaldson on the Board, that the Department of Health thinks, well it must be a good idea? RC 01:20:00 Oh yeah, he, he (...INAUDIBLE...), big tick. So we’re having a dinner with him in a few weeks time erm, and we are going to have all the executives there, around the table, and we’re just going to knock a few ideas together. And then we may well, after the election put proposition again and say well, you know, we would like to do this, this is what we want you to do. CW Do you think a Conservative Government would be up for doing it? RC I would think so, you know, I, cause they, whoever’s in power they’ve got a bloody big problem with the Health Service, it, it, it’s a huge expense, a 01:20:35 hundred billion pounds a year, going up. And you’re not addressing the underlying fault of health, which is the wellness agenda. In fact unless you start addressing that in a fairly radical way. So I think it will appeal to er it will appeal to (...INAUDIBLE...) because if we could actually crack it and get that activity levels and like they do the schools, that’s why I become more and more confident, because as I say as we’ve lifted, continue to lift the level of physical activity in schools. that’s what starting to happen and that change is good change.
CW It’s very interesting isn’t it. RC Oh yeah, it’s fascinating. CW It must be quite exciting to be involved with something like that? RC 01:21:15 Oh yeah, I love it, yeah, I mean, that’s why I’ve been Minister for ten years and I’ve enjoyed it all you know. And that’s, you know, it’s the sport for me, engineering, manufacturing, where I’ve got a bit of expertise, you know. CW It’s interesting what you say about the House of Lords actually, I hadn’t, I hadn’t quite considered erm, how useful it can be to have a consultant or a
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Board member who’s in the Lord’s, it will be very interesting. RC It’s, it’s. All this is all about contacts, it really is, it’s not even, not so much always about influencing things, it’s about getting information. And that, that’s absolutely key, because if you can get information that is very powerful. And it’s how do you actually operate in those circles to extract that. CW So that you can work out where you should be expanding? RC 01:22:06 Yeah, where you are expanding, where you’ve got policy development and the big macro picture of where do you want to be taking the nation’s policies, whether it’s on health, issues like the green energy agenda, climate change agenda. They are the big issues. And out of that comes opportunities. CW Yes, yes for your business. RC That’s right, that’s where it comes from and that’s where, at the moment, and I, I don’t see it changing dramatically, transport is still the big issue, green energy agenda is still a big issue, the health of the nation is a big issue. the all three big (?) and that’s what’s got to be addressed, how you address. CW I know, just have to wait and see. RC 01:22:49 But again, you know, you see, going back to your client, it depends what are they, you know, what are they into, you know in those areas, what type of portfolios, you know, they’re looking for. Are they all Americans? CW No, the guys in the Gulf aren’t. RC Oh they’re not Americans working. CW No, no they’re not, no, one has an American wife, but no, they’re not American. RC And how long have you worked with them then? CW Not very long actually, my old, I used to work for a PR Company. RC 01:23:16 Who did you work for? CW Red Rooster? RC Oh yeah. CW And my old boss now works in the American office. RC Oh I see. CW In San Francisco, so erm, when they wanted to pull something together in London, he called me up and said oh, you know, would you do it? RC And that’s who you’re working for, not ...? CW Yes. RC So you’re on your own, are you working for Anderson’s now? CW Yeah, yeah, I’m working there now and I’ve kind of just taken on three other people to be full time members of staff, erm, and I’m going to take on some other consultants and maybe some people on retainer. And as we grow, then you just hope to take erm, more full time members of staff on really. RC 01:23:48 So you are head of office here then? CW Yes I am, who would have thought? RC Yeah, yeah, what, what, what was the portfolio that Red Rooster used, I know the name, but. CW 01:24:20 It was more kind of consumer work um really. So, whether it was kind of um, I don’t know, alcoholic drinks for instance, you might have a brand like a big pub brand um, you’d be doing stuff for, so you’d be doing PR for them. And trying to think of strategies to get them some good kind of press and also manage their brand er generally. But it was largely consumer which is fun um. But I think this would be potentially far more interesting because it’s far more varied. And it won’t just be press relations um you know, I can do a number of things which is better. RC Yeah. CW 01:24:32 Um, I want to bring someone in who can kind of help our clients to do some due diligence in the UK. If they’re looking at doing investment, you need to know what you’re getting involved in and who you’re being involved with um. So, I’d be looking to maybe farm that work out initially and then when we’ve
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got enough of it in the UK, then you can bring someone in to specialise in that view. RC 01:24:51 How big are, how big are they, Anderson, in the States? CW Fairly big, I think we’re probably a medium size er company. They’ve got about 100 um full time members of staff, it’s quite a big office in San Francisco. RC Is that, that’s the base, San Francisco, yeah? CW 01:25:03 Yeah. And they’re quite er specialised. They’re quite low key actually. They’re not one of these kind of big agencies that kind of shouts about what they do, it’s more that they kind of operate effectively er without making too much noise. RC 01:25:16 You started in 1970s, there were five that started. CW Yeah. RC Yeah, yeah. CW 01:25:19 Yeah, yeah, quite a long time ago. RC Two brothers wasn’t it? CW Yes, it was two brothers, yeah. RC 01:25:.23 I read up that and er are they still around? CW Er one of them has retired but yes, one of them is RC 01:25:31 Yeah, yeah and it’s still runs the family. CW Not so much anymore actually, no I think it, well things start to expand don’t they? I think you can sort of start off as a family business um and then it changes. RC 01:25:42 Yeah cause they did quite a lot on the, on the, on the local authority service industry on things like sewerage and water and at that didn’t they? CW Yes, I think that’s when they started, they had some clients that were involved in that kind of thing. RC Yeah, they did yeah, yeah, quite big. CW 01:25:55 And then it expanded. And actually it’s quite interesting to do such varied work. If you can, you know, as we both probably know, getting contracts at a kind of like local Government level can be very beneficial. And also, it’s quite dependable er work um. RC 01:26:10 Yeah, oh yeah, yeah. And I think that, and that until they decide to come into the EC. CW Yeah, mainly because their clients, their clients said to them “look, we’ve got a number of interests here, well our interests are growing in the UK and now we need some support to do that”, so one of the, that’s why I think the board would be so important really in terms of mapping out what the strategy should be. RC 01:26:37 And you would expect your client to come to you and say, for advice or saying “this is what we’d like to do, what do you think?” CW Yes exactly. And also, I think they probably expect from us some ideas in what they should be doing. So, for instance, you know, look you said you were interested in kind of getting involved in big transport ....project, so why don’t you think about investing in this? Here’s some figures, this is what’s going to happen. You know, consider it and then come back to us and we can do some further work, is the kind of thing you’re up for. RC 01:27:07 And is it, there’s not going to be anything on the energy agenda? CW No, not at the moment. It’s largely these um gulf guys that, they’re very interested in getting involved in renewables er because they see it as a massively expanding market. RC (...INAUDIBLE...), the Gulf is going nuclear as well now. CW 01:28:25 Ah yes I don’t, well I don’t know very much about energy you see. I don’t deal with them very much um so, I. RC Oil (?)(...INAUDIBLE...) is going to run out (?)(...INAUDIBLE...) problem with the (...INAUDIBLE...) without oil (...INAUDIBLE...), I mean it’s (...INAUDIBLE...), I mean (...INAUDIBLE...), slow in like Dubai they’re
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desperate to make it into sport, (...INAUDIBLE...) and others are truly diversifying to, to get more sustainability of the economy. But one of the other (...INAUDIBLE...) is trying to stop using oil powered generation because it’s better if it’s (...INAUDIBLE...) so they, they see (...INAUDIBLE...) so it’s er, so that part of it is very interesting, very interesting. CW 01:28:35 Yeah, it’s certainly worth speaking to them about that actually, to see what their thoughts are. So it may be that, that’s one of the issues there um considering. RC No it’s um, it’s er and that more and more and more is coming out of the States, out of the, out of the Gulf (...INAUDIBLE...) states, I agree with you as we will. CW Yeah. RC 01:28:56 But that who gets the contracts, supply chain for the (...INAUDIBLE...) is about 20 percent, it’s a bit like the Aerospace industry in that they can build a plane with money the, the, the electronics, the engine, the undercarriage, they’re, they’re the key components because that’s where the real big money is. And with the nuclear generators, it’s about 20 percent of it that is really high value. The rest of its bog standard stuff, you know, which any (...INAUDIBLE...) company can do it’s, but if you can get into the niche market, that er 20 percent of that new build that’s where the real wealth creation is and that’s what we’re looking at now. CW Yeah. RC 01:29:38 That’s quite an interesting (...INAUDIBLE...). But clean up is another one which we, we (...INAUDIBLE...), again, the Americans are bloody good at that (...INAUDIBLE...) so er, but my other expertise obviously is in sport. CW Yeah. Yeah, it will be interesting to see what happens. Are you involved with the er World Cup bid? RC 01:29:58 For (...INAUDIBLE...) 18, I’m (...INAUDIBLE...) Ambassador. CW Oh great, well that must be interesting. RC 01:30:02 That will only be while the Prime Minister’s there. While the Prime Minister is about, so knows, who knows, (...INAUDIBLE...) moving around like there was no tomorrow, so. CW Yeah, I know it’s a really kind of changing time isn’t it politically? RC 01:30:14 Oh dramatically absolutely dramatically really is. So, what, by the time we get to the 6th of May I just don’t know. It will be very, very interesting. CW Do you think it’s too late for um people to be getting contracts for the Olympics? Or they don’t miss a vote in terms of. RC 01:30:30 Depends what you er, if you’re talking er, there’ll be a big legacy (...INAUDIBLE...) for (...INAUDIBLE...) there’ll be a lot of reconfigurating er which they’re looking at now or started looking at um. I, I mostly do the um, the thing I set up called ‘UK School Games’. CW Oh right. RC Which um brings the elite of the schools and bit by bit we go to, we move it around, it’s been in Glasgow now, Coventry (...INAUDIBLE...) and get to Sheffield and then I’m trying to get, immediately after (...INAUDIBLE...)Olympic (...INAUDIBLE...) and UK School Games I’ve got a scheme where, which I’ve been talking to Justin King from Sainsbury’s he’s a good guy, to do a scheme to bring 70 kids, every secondary school in the country to experience the facilities of the UK Olympics and watch their peer group. And that’s about a quarter of million kids to bring in all that (...INAUDIBLE...) the games in the facility. And be there for the Olympics and 01:31:32 the Para-Olympics. So, we’re working on that. And what we’ve, the reason I’m
telling you that is because, we are looking (...INAUDIBLE...) people who are
going into legacy, they are looking at how they can then change the stadium from 90,000 seats down to 25,000 seats. They’re talking about reconfigurating some of the arenas, they’re looking at landscaping the parks, seeing how that can be re-configurated into a much more er open grass areas. So, there’s a lot
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01:32:03 of work in that, you know, so.
CW Yeah. RC But whether, that will be laid out I think in the next 12 months er. I mean, the whole facilities are ahead of schedule which is great er, we’re on budget er so that, all that really is, has now been put to bed, you know, just a matter of (...INAUDIBLE...) There will be a little, a few contracts around on the running of the games er. But no, there won’t be huge contracts, there’ll be catering contracts. CW 01:32:35 I’m just wondering if there’s anything the um investors in the Gulf would want to get involved with. RC I think they’ll be more after than before, if you see what I mean? CW Yeah, in terms of reconfiguration. RC 01:32:43 Re-configure it again, yeah, reconfiguration and there’ll be, there’ll be quite some big contracts being made in the next 12 months on the catering part, things like that but um, that’s on the consumer side, yeah, not on structural side. CW No, okay. Well listen thank you very much for. RC 01:33:01 What you doing? You’re reporting back to your boss. CW Yeah, I’ll report back to him over the next week or two I think um and then they’ll be coming over from the states um and they’ll be setting out to meet with anyone that um I will be short listing. So, I don’t know if you’d be around to maybe meet up with him. RC 01:33:14 When would that be roughly? CW Probably sometime in April, I’d think, now. RC Yeah, yeah well I’ll be around in April, not necessarily down here because obviously, the campaign probably will have started (...INAUDIBLE...) I think that’s when it’s starting, about 8th April. CW 01:33:29 Okay, alright. So, that might be tricky for you then, meeting up in April, um. RC Well I can always pop down (...INAUDIBLE...) meeting (...INAUDIBLE...) er, but it won’t be in the House cos the House will be shut completely CW Yes, it’ll be funny won’t it? Yes. RC 01:33:43 (...INAUDIBLE...) finished so er, if you come across before the 30th, I think the 30th of March or possibly that first week in April, we will still be sitting. CW Oh right. RC I think we’ll sit till about, probably about the sixth of April (...INAUDIBLE...) so I’ll be around in London all that time. CW Oh okay, good. RC 01:34:07 Yeah, so but after that, you’ll, well you got my numbers, you can (...INAUDIBLE...) CW Yeah I will, well yes I’ll let you know how it’s all progressing and it would be good to um meet again. RC Yeah, I’d like to, yeah, yeah, absolutely, I’d like to keeping touch, I’m always interested in what’s happening anyway, you know, I mean and er you know, in that (...INAUDIBLE...) I can probably just give you a bit of advice if er (...INAUDIBLE...) CW Yeah. RC 01:34:33 (...INAUDIBLE...) I’m open to bringing investment into the country, you know, that’s what you really want. I did that when I was in trade and industry and then er, if you can get a base here. I think that you’re right in what you’re doing, you need to have presence. CW Yes. RC 01:34:51 (...INAUDIBLE...) but if you really want to service your client, then, all the companies I know are (...INAUDIBLE...) London (...INAUDIBLE...) their office is here in London. CW Yeah, well I think it’s important too. Well it shows your serious doesn’t it?
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RC 01:35:08 It shows you’re serious, it shows your commitment, it’s far better for picking up intelligence, it’s (...INAUDIBLE...) you know, you can use that to set dinners up with people. If I was doing it with you I would set up a whole series of dinners up with people who I know who link up to your clientele. (...INAUDIBLE...) (...INAUDIBLE...) (...INAUDIBLE...) invite them to come and have dinner.
CW 01:35:39 Yeah and who would you think the kind of top people would be that you’d need to be talking to? RC Well, I mean, it would depend on what level they’re at, I would speak to people like Samir Brikho (...INAUDIBLE...) AMEC and, (...INAUDIBLE...) just below him and in terms of construction (...INAUDIBLE...) if it’s on the energy agenda would be various supply chain companies then (...INAUDIBLE...) just invite(...INAUDIBLE...)because I know quite a lot (...INAUDIBLE...) I mean, I had a great, great session in the House where I had five Vice Chancellors, two Secretaries of State and six energy companies. CW Oh really. RC 01:36:21 It was bloody good. It wasn’t about a particular contract it was a discussion about where is UK Limited in a supply chain for Areva and Eon, British Energy were there er and then five Vice Chancellors and John Denham [?] it was a really, really good discussion. CW How easy is it to get a Minister to go out for dinner? RC 01:36:45 Oh I mean, it depends on who it is. I think. It depends at what level they’re at. If you are going to go in, if you’re going to go in, we had, I did it with AMEC, Samir Brikho, their MD, great guy, big profile and he was in the Sunday Times and (...INAUDIBLE...) he’s a real incredible thinker, he thinks out of the box and he said to me: Why don’t we, don’t we bring academia, producers and (...INAUDIBLE...) supply as well as (...INAUDIBLE...) producers (...INAUDIBLE...), Secretary of State for Energy and the one for Schools and so I set all that up. Now they came to that, they came to it because the quality of people sitting round the table and that’s, to some extent, what you have to do. If you’re talking policy on that level, then they’ll come, you know and the right time. If it’s all about limited contracts then, (...INAUDIBLE...) it’ll be left to underlings. CW 01:37:55 Is it best to do that in Westminster do you think, for dinner, or to go out for dinner? RC I’d do it at Westminster cos it’s easier for them. It’s easier for them to pop in, you see. And er, you have dinner and they’re booked after it anyway. But then it depends, you know, there after with the process, you know, they will come on certain levels, (...INAUDIBLE...) you know, senior civil servants. CW 01:38:18 And are they alright at coming along for dinner? RC Oh yeah, yeah, they’re alright. Well, they always, it’s all about networking. You’re feeding them as much as they’re feeding you. CW Yeah, and would you be able to help us with that? RC 01:38:29 Yeah, yes, oh yes, I have a lot of people coming in. I have people like Rolls Royce (...INAUDIBLE...) this week, I had a meeting with a non executive director of Sellafield and an MP together. It’s about bringing them in, but again, it depends what you’re after, depends what you’re trying to achieve. CW Yes. RC 01:38:54 I mean, I think, I think if you’re bringing in clients that are big hitters, then they will get in to see Secretaries of State and they will go and see Secretary of State for Climate and Energy, DECCA, off to see the Prime Minister. If Samir Brikho wants to see the Prime Minister, Samir Brikho sees the Prime Minister. He’s a FTSE 100, he’s got a huge amount of clout here, obviously, and abroad. CW 01:39:22 And do you help him arrange that or does he do that? RC Yes I do it, and the Minister of Energy. (...INAUDIBLE...) And they come back to me and ask me about my dates? But that’s in the present climate. What will
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happen after six of er, sixth of May I don’t know. CW I know, we’ll have to see. RC 01:39:41 We’ll have to see, yeah, that’s why I’m um, we’re trying to design a whole series of options. CW Yeah. RC We are where we are (...INAUDIBLE...) CW I know, yeah. RC 01:39:53 So, er we’ll keep in touch. CW Yeah, let’s keep in touch and er I’ll speak to you over the next couple of weeks. RC And if your guys come down, I can make it, I, you know, if you give me enough time, I can work around it and er...if it’s whilst House is sitting fine, if it’s not then, then I’ll look at it from (...INAUDIBLE...) and have a chat to them and see what, you know and, and yeah, yeah, kick a few ideas about. CW 01:40:12 Yeah, I’m sure we can work something out. Okay, alright, that was really good. RC Alright (...INAUDIBLE...) Background noise CW Yes, I will. Yeah, that sounds really good. RC (...INAUDIBLE...) CW Yeah I bet. Alright, okay. Thanks very much for your time, alright, have a good afternoon, bye. RC (...INAUDIBLE...) CW 01:41:40 Hi, that’s right, thank you. Thanks. That’s great, thank you very much. Bye.
[Knock at door]
113. Letter to the Commissioner from Rt Hon Richard Caborn, 8 June 2010
Thank you for your letter of the 24th May 2010 in response to mine on the 21st May 2010, also your letter of 2 June with the enclosed rough transcript of the Sunday Times entrapment. Whilst I do appreciate your efforts in obtaining the rough transcript would it be possible to secure the tapes and the film referred to in the Sunday Times article. I am informed that rough transcripts with all its (...INAUDIBLE...)s, do not always give the true picture. I believe that this is the case in this instance and that for the sake of accuracy of the full interview access to the tape and film would be helpful. Turning now to your questions in the letter of the 24th May 2010, Question 2, has now been cleared up with the transcript of the telephone call to my office where I made it very clear I would not take on any further commitments until after the General Election and then that would be conditional on what my circumstances were at that time. It was only after the Reporter pressed for a meeting did I agree and gave her the details of my secretary to arrange. You are therefore right to conclude “that there was no suggestion at that stage that I would have any role in its activities.” Question 3, I am enclosing the requested information, the letters of the clearance from ACOBA. My letter of the 29th February 2008 informing ACOBA that it was my intention to accept the appointments. Copy of my letter of the 6th March 2008 to [name], the Registrar for the Register of Members Interests. This was amended when I took up the position of a non-executive Director of NMP in September 2008 and which I wrote to [the Registrar], to amend my entry in the Register of Members Interest. I am enclosing a copy of my letter to [the Registrar] of the 9th October 2008. Question 4, I would like you to consider, the three areas I covered in my evidence to the Select Committee on the 8th May 2008 (former Ministers taking up outside appointments, covered in question 542–543 and 544) (How the business appointment system could be improved, Question 548 and 585) (The difference between Lobbying and Consultants and the interaction of Business and Industry with Parliament and Government, Question 554, 555, 560 and 562).602 This gives my position on these issues which I believe were consistent with the way I conducted the Sunday Times entrapment interview and are consistent with the Rules of House. Now turning to your questions in your letter of the 2nd June 2010.
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Question 1, is covered in the documentation submitted to Question 3 in your letter of the 24th May 2010. Question 2, on the proposals for restructuring of the health and welfare services in Sheffield which are covered in the pages 18 and 57–63 in the rough transcript. No meetings or contacts have been made with Ministers or officials, the idea had been discussed with [name], Chairman of the Sheffield Heath Authority at his request a couple of weeks before the Sunday Times entrapment. I raised the issues with FIA at one of our regular meetings as I had with other organisations whom might be interested in the proposed project. This was an idea very much in its infancy, but if in the future it was necessary to make a declaration with my association with the FIA, I would do so. Question 3, from October 2007–July 2008 I advised AMEC and the other two partners in the consortium on trade union relations/socio economics and local government issues surrounding the bid and AMEC on other issues. On no occasion did I speak or consult with Ministers or government officials on this issue and for the record any of the directors or staff of the Nuclear Decommissioning Agency who were the body awarding the contract. Question 4, I was asked by the Board of the NMP to look at the delivery of the socio-economic policies. I reviewed the existing proposals and with other interested partners at Sellafield and the wider community of West Cumbria proposed a new structure which after discussions with all the parties was accepted and is now operational in West Cumbria. i. In answer to your specific questions, yes the statement was accurate but the work was carried out on behalf of the Board of the NMP and not just AMEC.
ii. The task was undertaken by staff of the NMP and consultants under my direction
iii. Having just stepped down from being a Government Minister, this released time which I used to take a number of appointments both paid and unpaid. It should also be noted that my involvement with the Nuclear Industry was of great importance and, benefit to my constituency Sheffield Central, this is born out in the letters I submitted to your office from the past Master Cutler and Peter Birtles, Director of Forgemasters. It is also worth noting that at the Dinner of the 24th June 2008, referred to in your question 6, both the MD of Forgemasters and Vice Chancellor of Sheffield University were present and the issue of advanced manufacturing and forging capacity were discussed. Two years later in 2010, announcements on major investments by the Government and Rolls Royce were made into the University led Nuclear Advanced Manufacturing Park in Sheffield. This was followed with a Government announcement on a major investment into what possibly could be the worlds largest forging press at Forgemasters in Sheffield. My involvement at a number of levels in the nuclear/manufacturing sector have had a beneficial effect for my constituency and Sheffield.
Question 5, I have read the incomplete rough transcript on pages 51 and 52 and it would be wrong to put the interpretation “as suggesting that as a Member of the House of Lords you could secure access to Ministers for the Company who retained you on an advisory board”. Firstly, I am not on or have been offered or accepted any position on an advisory board. If I had I would work as I have always done within the Rules laid down by the House. Secondly, I had made it clear from the outset, if I was in the House of Lords I would spend time on public policy areas of green energy/manufacturing and sport and physical activity and the wellbeing agenda. This is borne out in a number of references in the rough transcript. Question 6, The Dinner referred to on Page 82, was not set up for AMEC, it was set up to facilitate a discussion with academic[s], industry and Government Ministers on how they could work together to maximise the UK’s advantage on the building of the new nuclear power stations. AMEC were one of the five industrialists present. AMEC paid for the dinner and I declared on the booking form of the House of Commons, my financial interest with AMEC and all attending were told that AMEC had paid for the dinner. The dinner took place on the 23rd June 2008 and the event number was 33845, House of Commons Catering. Question 7, on the statement from Samir Brikho in the rough transcript is correct and “if Samir Brikho wants to see the Prime Minister, Samir Brikho sees the Prime Minister, he’s a FTSE 100, he has got a huge amount of clout here, obviously, and abroad.” I made the point that Chairman of major companies get access as of right to both the PM and Ministers. I have never arranged one to one meetings for Samir Brikho or any other industrialists with the PM or any other Ministers. I hope that this information and explanation helps you with your enquiry and could I once again ask you to request copies of the original tapes and film of the entrapment.
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8 June 2010
114. Letter to Rt Hon Richard Caborn MP, from the Chairman of the Office of the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments, January 2008
You asked for the Committee’s advice about accepting a part-time consultancy appointment with the Fitness Industry Association. Our advice is that it would be proper for you to take up this appointment forthwith, but you should not be personally involved in lobbying Government Ministers or officials on behalf of the association, or its members, for a year after leaving office. I should be grateful if you would inform us as soon as you take up this appointment or, if earlier, when it is announced. We shall otherwise not be able to deal with any enquiries, since we do not release information about appointments which have not been taken up or announced. This could lead to a false assumption being made about whether you had complied with the Ministerial Code. Similarly I should be grateful if you would inform us if it is proposed to extend or otherwise change your role with the association, as, depending upon the circumstances, you may need to seek fresh advice. Once an appointment has been publicly announced or taken up, we will include the main details, together with the Advisory Committee’s advice on it and the date on which it was taken up, in both the regularly updated consolidated list on our website at www.acoba.gov.uk and in the next annual report. If the Fitness Industry Association wish to refer to the Committee’s advice in a public announcement, they may like to say something on the following lines: “Mr Caborn consulted the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments about accepting this appointment. They advised him that it would be proper for him to take it up forthwith, but he should not be personally involved in lobbying Government Ministers or officials on behalf of the association, or its members, for a year after leaving office.”
January 2008
115. Letter to the Office of the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments, from Rt Hon Richard Caborn MP, 29 February 2008
Following correspondence from yourselves giving me permission to take on a consultancy with AMEC and a consultancy with the Fitness Industry Association I can now advise you that I have accepted both appointments. 29 February 2008
116. Letter to the Registrar of Members’ Interests, from Rt Hon Richard Caborn MP, 6 March 2008
I would be grateful if you would add the attached information603 to my entry in the Register of Members’ Interests. 6 March 2008
117. Extract from the Register of Members’ Interests, 29 February 2008
2. Remunerated employment, office profession etc Consultant to AMEC; construction in the nuclear industry. (£70 ,001-£75 ,000) Consultant to Fitness Industry Association; trade association for fitness industry. (£10,001- £15,000 + two health club memberships)
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Chairman of the Football, Social and Economic Forum, Association of European Professional Football Leagues; governing body of European professional football leagues. (Up to £5,000)
5. Gift, benefits and hospitality UK I received gifts of thanks from various sporting bodies once I had left the post of Minister for Sport (fishing rod, golf clubs, decanter and glasses, bottle of whisky and wine). I attended the Rugby World Cup Final in Paris on 20 October 2007 as a guest of Betfair. They paid for my travel and accommodation costs.
29 February 2008
118. Letter to the Registrar of Members’ Interests, from Rt Hon Richard Caborn MP, 9 October 2008
I would be grateful if you would add the attached information to my entry in the Register of Members’ Interests: Under Remunerated employment, office, profession etc: I am a non-executive director of Nuclear Management Partners (NMP) Also, please alter the entry, Consultant to AMEC to read: Consultant to AMEC (£20,000-£25,000) 9 October 2008
119. Extracts from Mr Caborn’s evidence to the Public Administration Committee on 8 May 2008, First Report of Session 2008–09, HC 36 II
Q542 Chairman: I am delighted to welcome Richard Caborn, [names of other witnesses]. We have asked you to come because the Committee is conducting an inquiry into lobbying. One of the matters on which we want to touch is what is sometimes called the "revolving door" issue, that is, the traffic from government into the outside world, particularly industry, business and lobbying, and also traffic the other way ... Mr Caborn: The revolving door issue is an interesting one and we will answer that, but there was a life before and a life after being a minister, if I may say so. Whilst I have been in this place and had the privilege of representing Sheffield Central I have also spent five years as a Member of the European Parliament and, before that, I was a convenor of shop stewards at Firth Browns and now Forgemasters. I was Apprentice of the Year. I served my time and am immensely proud to be an engineer. As an engineer I have been consulted on many occasions. Before the revolving door issue arose I was consulted by Forgemasters to give advice on the building of a 16,000-ton forging press. If Members want to join me afterwards I will take them to my office and show them a picture on my wall of a 4,000-ton forging press. I am very proud that that was the first thing I built when I came out of my time as an apprentice engineer. I am advising Forgemasters on building the largest forging press in the world to take on, I hope, competition from Japan. In addition to that, I had European experience and spent 10 years as a minister. Further, like yourself I chaired a Select Committee, for four years on the Trade and Industry Committee, which at that time covered energy. You will remember that in the early 1990s the Department of Energy became part of the Department of Trade and Industry. I was the first chairman of that Select Committee which did a major report on energy policy and the closure of 31 pits at that time. I do not know why Ian McCartney and I have so excited some of members of the Committee that we have been mentioned in dispatches all over the place. It would be good to have an inquiry into why we have been singled out, if I may say so. That being the case, I am more than willing to answer "the revolving door". I do not believe that the revolving door that has excited some of the members of the Committee was anything to do with my being a minister; it was my incarnation before that. Q543 Chairman: We see you as representative figures; we could have chosen others but happen to have selected you. Mr Caborn: That is a good reason why. Q544 Chairman: I am interested that you were Apprentice of the Year, but I do not think there is any discussion as to whether you are qualified to do the kind of work you are now doing. That is a quite separate issue. I return to the question. Faced with the prospect of pursuing these activities, you had to access the business appointments system. Perhaps you would describe how it worked for you.
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Lord Warner: You ask how it was for me. People have commented on how young and healthy I look since I ceased to be a minister, so life has not been bad. Mr Caborn's point is an important one. I shall not give you my life history, but most of us did things before we were ministers. I was a minister for only four years and I had a lot of expertise and knowledge before that. It is that knowledge and expertise as much as anything that has been the reason why I am doing the particular things I am doing since I became a minister. As far as concerns the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments I just accepted it as part of life. After I ceased to be a minister I spent quite a few months doing nothing. Last September about nine months after I ceased to be a minister I went through a process of assembling a portfolio of activities some of which needed to be cleared with the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments and some of which did not. I filled in the forms and sent them off. They dealt with them in a reasonably sensible way and sent them back to me and said what I could and could not do. The main thing they said I could not do for the first year after being a minister was to lobby ministers, whatever that means. We might come to what that means at some stage. I have honoured that. In my first year out of office the only time I saw ministers was at their request to talk about government business. ... Q548 Chairman: Presumably, you all think that to have a process of that kind is necessary, or was it seen as irksome? Mr Caborn: I think it is necessary. There needs to be integrity and accountability in the system and that is part of it. From my point of view the 12-month period is fine and is absolutely right. The system must have that integrity. I have always taken the view as chairman of the Select Committee and during my 11 years as a trustee of the Industry and Parliament Trust that it is absolutely right to try to bring industry and wealth creators close to Parliament so there is an exchange and an understanding of each other. I think that Parliament is the richer for that. ... Q554 Chairman: I would like to get you to answer the question I asked which was: do you consider that the public thinks there is something unseemly about people who are still members of the legislature and working inside government taking on paid employment to lobby bits of government in which they are involved? Mr Caborn: Obviously, you are going to lobby government. I looked at the questions very carefully. You will know that I was asked to come to this Committee late last week because my colleague Ian McCartney is having an operation. I read the terms of reference and some of the evidence that has been submitted to the Committee. It is all predicated on an attempt to affect Parliament and government. It is not about having a set of ground rules to ensure that Parliament and government are accessible. I go back to my earlier point. One thing I did when I was chairman of the Select Committee on Trade and Industry was to ensure, as far as I could, that Parliament was knowledgeable about what industry was saying. My 11 years on the Industry Parliament Trust were spent trying to bring Parliament and government closer to wealth creators in industry and commerce. It is as though we have in the House of Commons political virgins who cannot be touched by anybody who seeks to lobby them. Q555 Chairman: It is the fact that large sums of money are involved in this relationship. Mr Caborn: Let us come to that. The one interest you did not read out was mine: AMEC. I can tell you that AMEC for whom I am a consultant is more to do with my trade union and European background. I am an engineer. I have dealt with North Sea oil in which it has been deeply involved. I have also known the past three managing directors of that company on a fairly personal level. The reason I agree with the 12 months is that I was a trade minister for two years and that could have affected it. I think it was absolutely right that it should be 12 months in terms of the conditions laid down. But I am not in the game of lobbying government in that sense; I am there to advise on the skills I had before I became a minister. ... Q560 Mr Walker: For the record, I have nothing against what any of you do, but ultimately business is about selling things and influencing buying decisions. It is not the public sector; it is about profit and the generation of it. Mr Caborn: I accept that. There is no doubt that when you have been a minister a number of people come to you. I have been sports minister for a few years. I have now become president of the Amateur Boxing Association and the UK School Games and I advise the Prime Minister on the 2018 World Cup. I am also a member of the Football Foundation. None of that is paid work and I can assure you that I lobby very hard on those. As far as AMEC is concerned, it has a major constituency influence. If you look at the record, back in the mid-1990s I was very critical of government about how we had missed fantastic opportunities by standing down some of the best engineers and designers on the nuclear kit. I said at the time Michael Heseltine was president of the Board of Trade that we would rue the day we stood down some great engineers and teams.
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Out of the blue I got a call directly from AMEC asking whether I would advise them on some of the supply chain issues, which I did. Obviously, that has a big constituency interest. We could develop off the back of what I believe will be a nuclear and manufacturing renaissance, which is at the heart of my constituency and the company where I served my time. I was already in discussions with companies in my constituency about the supply chain when AMEC came along and asked whether I would advise them on wider social, regional and European issues. Obviously, being an engineer I agreed to that. I did not even know what they would pay me; it was only after that. I say that very genuinely. That was why I took the decision which was based more on my constituency and something in which I deeply believed. I am on the record as to that. I also say that having been in this place for 25 years and served on many committees it needs to open itself up. You are absolutely right that these types of inquiries should take place but they should not be predicated on trying to isolate this activity; they should be predicated on a set of rules on which the vast majority of people act, whether on the business side or our side, with integrity, honesty and openness. I entirely agree that you must have ground rules but the need for an interchange of ideas and views is absolutely essential. I have done that consistently for 25 years. When I took this job I did so for those motives. ... Q562 Mr Walker: But your ability to influence may be changed? Lord Warner: It depends how quick it is. I think that my ability to influence will be determined largely by whether people think I still have something sensible to say on health and social care and whether or not I am sufficiently well informed about developments in the sector on which I am advising. They may say that my time is up: I am out of touch and I do not know. I think that will have more to do with the passage of time and age than with a change of government. Mr Caborn: I am in broad agreement with that. The fact I have been a minister is a minor consideration. Given the job I am doing now, it is much more to do with the background that I have been privileged to have outside as well as inside this place. ... Q585 Jenny Willott: One matter that has been raised with us in relation to the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments is that there is no enforcement; it does not follow up. When you were given advice about what you could take up and for how long the lobbying ban would be in place, did you have any impression as to what would happen if you breached it? Mr Haddrill: The thing that most concerned me was that I would damage the reputation of my new employer. If this is about integrity my new employer does not want there to be any question about whether or not it has acted with integrity. The fact that I have been through the business appointments process was included by them in the press notice that announced my appointment. I was perfectly open and said what the restrictions were. If I had breached them in the kind of public space in which we operated it would have been obvious and damaging. Therefore, there is a kind of self-enforcement. Is there any further enforcement? You write back after whatever period of time it is to say what you have done and that is about it. Mr Caborn: Having been privy for 10 years to the discipline of public office, I believe that those standards are inherent in the way you conduct your daily life, whether it is in the business sector or anywhere else. It may well be that you will look at some type of enforcement of the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments. I agree that how it comes to its decisions could be more transparent; it could be more rigorous. There could be some face-to-face interviews, but the important point is: how do you address public perception? The fact is that you are holding this inquiry and there are journalists here who will probably not report it in the most objective ways. Their business is to sell newspapers. Without digressing, the fact that we are here is rather like the funding of political parties and the constraints on that. Are we using a sledge hammer to crack a nut here? I think that phraseology has been used before. It is about having integrity in the system to make sure it is transparent and robust. I think that is absolutely central. Once you have got that it is a matter of saying to the general public that that is what we have. I do not think that is out there at all. The danger is that if we do not have it people will become very concerned about anybody who comes to discuss matters either with ministers or Members of Parliament which to me is a negation of democracy.
120. Letter to Rt Hon Richard Caborn from the Commissioner, 9 June 2010
Thank you for your letter of 8 June responding to my letters to you of 2 June and 24 May. You asked if I could secure for you the tapes and the film referred to in the Sunday Times article. As you know, the production company has provided a certified transcript of both your telephone conversation on 16 February 2010 and of your meeting. You will have seen from the start of the transcript that, following the
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preparation of a rough transcript from the production company, a solicitor listened to the audio recordings, corrected the transcript and certified that to the best of their knowledge, information and belief, the transcript was accurate. As the statement makes clear, there are parts where a word or words were (...INAUDIBLE...), and these parts have been identified. I consider that the production company has satisfactorily met my request. They provided evidence in a way which is appropriate for my inquiry. It is, of course, open to you to identify any part of the transcript which you believe to have been inaccurately transcribed. But given that I received a certified transcript, which I have shared fully with you, I do not believe it is necessary for me to have the original audio or video in order to be able fairly to conduct this inquiry. I was grateful for your responses to the matters set out in my letters to you of 2 June and 24 May. Although some of your responses touch on the same issues, you have not yet responded to the specific questions which I put to you in section two of my letter to you of 31 March. I referred to these again in my letter to you of 18 May. I would be very grateful, therefore, if you could let me have a response to these points, taking into account as necessary the transcript of your interview. I would hope you could let me have this by the end of this month. Once I receive that, I will consider whether I need to ask you any further questions either in response to that letter or in response to the helpful detailed points you set out in your letter of 2 June. I am very grateful for your continued help with this matter. 9 June 2010
121. Letter to the Commissioner from Rt Hon Richard Caborn, 16 June 2010
Thank you for your letter of the 9th June in response to mine of the 8th June 2010. Whilst I fully respect your views of the transcript, which has been provided by the Sunday Times, I still have concerns that major parts of the transcript are missing. This concern is re-enforced by the experiences of colleagues, particularly Lord Snape. His enquiry in the House of Lords required obtaining a transcript from the Sunday Times. He later received the tapes which were transcribed by Hansard, and they were found to be significantly different. Just a few points of concern First point, how the transcript sequence goes from 00.55.51 on page 34 to 00.54.26 on page 35, this particular passage is referred to in your question 2e, which I will answer. Second point, the (...INAUDIBLE...) on 01.34.33, I said at the beginning of this paragraph as the Former Minister of Trade and Industry, which totally changes the meaning of the paragraph. Third point, Page 86 01.40.12, I said Caborn alright “would you please put it down in writing so that I can consider any proposition after the Election.” Again this puts the script into a totally different context. Finally on the transcript itself, could you please indicate whether this has been treated by your enquiry as a conversation, an interview or an entrapment? I believe this question is of paramount importance to the enquiry and how such evidence is considered. Turning now to your questions from the 31st March 2010. Can I say that I am sorry that I did not answer these in previous correspondence as I thought they had been superseded by your questions in subsequent correspondence. Question 1, This has been answered in my letter dated the 8th June in answer to your question 2. Question 2a, this is a reference on page 24 of the transcript. Where the FIA Statement to the Sunday Times said that they gained access to all types of people, including Ministers, as an organisation. Regarding reference to my time as Minister, I endorse this statement, as I met many organisations, including the FIA. They would just write into the Ministry for a meeting. The second part of this transcript, if the (...INAUDIBLE...)s had been transcribed, would have been a reference to the workings of the Select Committees and how they influenced both Ministers and Policy. On this specific issue it is interesting what the Sunday Times Editor is now saying about direct access. In his letter to the PCC, enclosed, he is clearly saying that the FIA did have direct access. That is why he omitted in the article, to having any reference to the statement that was directly to the newspaper by the FIA. However what the FIA said is not borne out in the Sunday Times article. This is subject to further correspondence with the PCC. The answer to your question is no, this was an explanation on how the system works not an offer to influence or access Ministers either before or when I had left the House. I have never accessed Ministers or influenced Ministers through lobbying. Question 2b, I have answered this question in my letter to you dated the 8th June 2010 in question 5.
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Question 2c, I have answered this in my answer to 2a. In answer to your specific question, no I have never arranged any access for Health Ministers or any other Ministers for the FIA. Question 2d, If you read the last paragraph on Page 29 and the first paragraph on Page 30, this was referring to the South African Government and the South African Minister for Energy, this is part of the (...INAUDIBLE...) transcript. The statement is true about South Africa, and the meeting with the South African Energy Minister. Regarding Receptions and Meetings with AMEC, and other organisations, I have always declared them within the rules laid down by the House Authority. Question 2e, I believe this question is a reference to pages 34/35, regarding civil servants. I was speaking about the time I was a Minister. The transcript is very confusing and it moves from 55.55.51 to 54.26 of which there is no continuity in the transcript. But very clearly to answer your question, no, I have not set up any meetings with civil servants on behalf of any clients. Question 2f and Questions 3 and 4, these have all been answered in previous correspondence. Question 5, I confirm that the allegations made by the Sunday Times are untrue and unfounded, as I told the House on the 29th March and also the allegations of lobbying by Mr Greg Hands MP in his letter to you of the 28th March 2010 are also untrue. I made entries into the Register of the Members’ Interests, and all the evidence relating to this as already been sent to you in previous correspondence. Question 6, I confirm that all my statements in the transcript supplied are true and if a full transcript was provided this would show the correct context in which they were made. Mr Lyon, once again I have tried to answer all your questions, posed by the entrapment, accurately and in detail and in the context I believe that the entrapment interview was being conducted. If you would find it helpful, I will be in London on the 21St and 22nd June and I would be happy to meet with you, rather than having to continue to send lengthy correspondence in writing. If you do need any further information please do not hesitate to contact me. 16 June 2010
122. Letter to Rt Hon Richard Caborn from the Commissioner, 23 June 2010
Thank you for your letter of 16 June responding to mine of 9 June following up our earlier correspondence. I was most grateful for this prompt response. You kindly suggested that we meet on 21 or 22 June. I received your letter only on 21 June. While I am always ready to have an informal meeting if you would like one, I think it would be best to take your evidence in writing at this stage, although it may be helpful when that is concluded (as I hope it shortly will be) for us to meet for a formal interview so that I can conclude this inquiry. I have noted your points about the transcript, for which I was grateful. I note also the letter from the Sunday Times to the Press Complaints Commission (where the interviewer does not share your recollection of your third point in relation to asking her to “put it down in writing so that I can consider any proposition after the Election.”) I do not propose, however, to include the Sunday Times letter in the evidence for this inquiry since I do not believe my inquiry requires me to enter into your complaint to the Press Complaints Commission. As you know, I am inquiring into a complaint about your actions when you were a Member of Parliament, and not into the actions of the Sunday Times. But I have, of course, noted your firm belief that you were subject to entrapment. The question I will need to resolve is whether your actions in responding to the questions you were asked were in breach of the Code of Conduct for Members and its associated rules, as summarised in my letter to you of 31 March. Turning now to your responses, it would be very helpful to have a little more factual information about the receptions, dinners and meetings you arranged on behalf of AMEC and the FIA when you were being paid by them. The points on which I would be grateful for your further help are as follows: You say in your letter of 16 June in response to point ‘d’ in my letter of 31 March that “regarding receptions and meetings with AMEC and other organisations, I have always declared them within the rules laid down by the House.” I have noted from the parliamentary website that you have sponsored receptions or dinners on the parliamentary estate for the FIA on 5 July 2007 and 3 December 2008, and for AMEC on 23 June 2008 and 11 May 2009. (I enclose the relevant extract from the published list of events and functions bookings.)604 Could you let me know the form in which you declared your interest in these events and in any others which you sponsored on behalf of any organisation which provided you with remuneration (declaration is, of course, a separate requirement from registration)?
604 WE 123
360 Sir John Butterfill, Mr Stephen Byers, Ms Patricia Hewitt, Mr Geoff Hoon, Mr Richard Caborn and Mr Adam Ingram
In respect of these events, do you have, or could you ask the funding organisation to produce, copies of the invitations? As you know, Members are required to identify their interest on the invitation and I do need to check on this. If you could let me have a reply to this within the next two weeks, I would be most grateful. I can then consider whether I do need to trouble you for a formal interview. Thank you again for your help. 23 June 2010
123. Extract from list of event and function bookings by Members on behalf of outside organisations between 1 April 2004 and 30 September 2009
MP Name Date Event Type Numbers Venue(s) Caborn, Rt Hon 05/07/2007 Fitness Industry Reception 45 Astor Suite Richard Association Caborn, Rt Hon 23/06/2008 AMEC Dinner Dinner 11 Dining Richard Room D Caborn, Rt Hon 03/12/2008 Fitness Industry Dinner 23 Astor Suite Richard Association Caborn, Rt Hon 11/05/2009 AMEC Post Reception Dinner 10 Dining Richard Dinner Room C
124. Letter to the Commissioner from Rt Hon Richard Caborn, 1 July 2010
Thank you for your letter dated the 23rd June 2010 in recognition of mine of the 16th June 2010. [Material not relevant to this inquiry] Turning to your request for factual information about the receptions, dinners and meetings I arranged on behalf of AMEC and the FIA when I was being paid by them. Firstly I did not arrange any meetings or receptions for either of the organisations whilst I was being paid by them. I did as your enclosure shows arrange dinners paid for by both AMEC and the FIA. 1) The Reception referred to on the 5th July 2007 for the FIA, this was before I became a consultant for the FIA. I registered my interest in the FIA in February 2008 after it had been cleared by the office of the Advisory Committee on the Business Appointments. 2) The AMEC Dinner on the 23rd June 2008. This dinner was my initiative designed to bring industry, academia and Government together to discuss the New Build Programme for Nuclear Power Stations. I asked AMEC to Sponsor this dinner. My office arranged with the Universities and Industry, the guest list and sent out the invitations. My interest in AMEC was registered in the Register of Members’ Interests. I declared in the booking form of the Banqueting Department of the House of Commons Section 4 (yes AMEC). The eleven people who attended the dinner were thanked by me in my winding up remarks and AMEC thanked for hosting the dinner. 3) The Dinner on the 3rd December 2008 for the FIA, my interest in the FIA was recorded in the Register of Members Interest. The invitations were sent out by the FIA with my name on as the sponsor for the event. I am enclosing a copy of a FIA invitation which is similar in type to the one used for the event.605 I have checked the banqueting form in the House of Commons and whilst the FIA are the organisation I booked the dinner for, the booking form does not record my financial interest (section 4 of the booking form). My office may have thought that the FIA sending out the invitation covered this. Clearly this was an oversight on my part and if it is a mistake, I take full responsibility. 4) AMEC Dinner of the 11th May 2009, again my interest in AMEC was declared in the Register of Members Interests. Guests at the dinner were invited by me from those who had attended the AMEC Terrace Reception. The booking form at the Banqueting Office Records (Section 4—Yes AMEC). The eleven people who attended the dinner were mentioned in my winding up remarks, thanked for attending, as were AMEC for sponsoring the evening. I hope this covers all the information you have requested and again if you require any further information please do not hesitate to contact me.
605 Not included in the written evidence
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1 July 2010
125. Letter to Rt Hon Richard Caborn from the Commissioner, 6 July 2010
Thank you for your letter of 1 July responding to mine of 23 June following up our earlier correspondence. First, on process. You asked whether, in the light of your further letter of 16 June, I would now be requesting the tape and video of your interview from the Sunday Times. I set out in my letter to you of 9 June my response to your earlier request. As you know, I secured a certified transcript of your interview and telephone conversation from the solicitors of the production company who arranged for your interview. I do not consider that what you say about the transcript which Lord Snape received from the Sunday Times is evidence that there are material shortcomings in the certified transcript I have received from the production company and which I have shown you. Where sections are (...INAUDIBLE...), those have been identified. I have noted the three points you set out in your letter of 9 June and will take account of them as necessary in the course of this inquiry. I have noted in my letter of 23 June that the interviewer does not appear to share your recollection of the third point which you made in your letter of 16 June. While I am open to further argument, and to you identifying material inaccuracies which go to the substance of this inquiry, at this stage I do not believe it necessary or that I could be justified in asking for the video and recordings. Turning to the substantive issues I raised with you: 1. FIA reception, 5 July 2007. I note that you did not register your position as a consultant to the FIA until February 2008. Could you let me know, however, whether, at the time of the reception in July 2007, you had a reasonable expectation that you would be appointed a consultant and, therefore, that a financial benefit would accrue to you from the FIA? I ask because paragraph 73 of the Guide to the Rules (to which you may wish to refer) provides in terms: “Where a Member’s plans or degree of involvement in a project has passed beyond vague hopes and aspirations and reached a stage where there is a reasonable expectation that a financial benefit will accrue, then a declaration explaining the situation should be made.” 2. FIA dinner, 3 December 2008. I have noted that, for the reasons you have explained, you did not declare your interest on the booking form. I note, too, that the FIA invitation, which I understand followed the format which you sent to me in respect of another Member’s sponsorship of an FIA event, did not identify you as a paid consultant to the association. I will need in due course to check this with the House authorities. 3. The AMEC dinners of 23 June 2008 and 11 May 2009. I note that you declared your interest on the booking form for both occasions. I note, too, that you thanked AMEC for hosting the event. Could you confirm that, to the best of your knowledge, there was no reference to your paid consultancy for AMEC on any invitation which was sent out for either event? Could you also confirm that you did not refer to your paid consultancy in your winding-up remarks at either event? 4. AMEC Terrace reception. I note that the guests invited for dinner for 11 May 2009 had attended the AMEC Terrace reception. I had not identified this from the published list of events and function bookings made by you and you have told me in your letter of 1 July that you arranged no such reception for AMEC when you were being paid by them. Could you let me know whether you did in fact sponsor and book this reception and, if so, the date of the event, whether you declared your interest on the booking form, and whether your interest was noted on the invitation? 5. Finally, could you confirm that you arranged no receptions, meetings or dinners with or for any other body or organisation which also provided you with remuneration? If you could let me have a response to this letter within the next two weeks, that would be most helpful. I have been most grateful for your prompt responses so far. Once I hear back from you, if there are no further points, I would propose to consult the House authorities about the arrangements for the events which you sponsored. It may be that we should then meet for a formal interview at what I hope then would be the conclusion of this inquiry. Thank you for your help.
362 Sir John Butterfill, Mr Stephen Byers, Ms Patricia Hewitt, Mr Geoff Hoon, Mr Richard Caborn and Mr Adam Ingram
6 July 2010
126. Letter to the Commissioner from Rt Hon Richard Caborn, 9 July 2010
Thank you for your letter dated the 6th July 2010 responding to mine of the lst July 2010. I note your decision on the tape and the video and whilst I accept your decision, I do believe however that a newspaper that deliberately sets out to trap and then fabricate the information from the entrapment to discredit a person’s 31 years public office and the institution he worked for, should be made to produce the full evidence. Only about 50% of the information has been made available even though my lawyers, the PCC and yourself have tried to access all the information. Turning now to your questions. 1) Prime Minister Mr Brown did not take up the office until the 27th June 2007. I offered my resignation as Minister to Prime Minister Brown, telling him that I would be retiring at the next General Election. He accepted and asked if I would be his World Cup Bid Ambassador, which I accepted. Before the 27th June 2007 and between the 27th June and the 5th July 2007, I had no discussions with any person or organisation about any paid position, including the FIA. 2) I have nothing further to add to the information I gave you before, only to reiterate that I had registered my financial interests with the FIA and I had clearly stated on the booking form that the event was for the FIA. I had sent out invitations with my name as the sponsor and my mistake on the booking form was an oversight and in no way was I trying to deceive. 3) The dinner on the 23rd June was a dinner I initiated, to discuss with different parties, the nuclear power station, new build programme. I requested AMEC to sponsor the dinner and my registration of Member’s interest, the declaration on the House of Commons Booking Form and the thanks I gave to AMEC for sponsoring the dinner was sufficient to comply with the House Rules. There were no formal invitations sent out. I did not refer to my paid consultancy once, as I believed I had complied with, both the spirit and intention of the House rules. 4) You are correct in believing I did not arrange the 11th May Reception for AMEC, this I understand was arranged by another MP. I took the opportunity to invite a number of guests to the Dinner who attended the Reception, no formal invitations were sent out for the Dinner and some of the guests were invited on the night. 5) I can confirm that I have not arranged meetings, receptions or dinners for any other bodies or organisations as there are no other bodies that remunerate me. I have arranged many other functions for charitable and sporting bodies for which I have never received any payment. I hope this information is useful and look forward to the conclusion of this enquiry. 9 July 2010
127. Letter to Rt Hon Richard Caborn from the Commissioner, 14 July 2010
Thank you for your letter of 9 July responding to mine of 6 July with some follow-up questions to help me with my consideration of this complaint. I was most grateful for this prompt response. I am now writing to the House of Commons facilities department to ask for copies of the relevant banqueting forms, and for their advice on the dinners which you held for AMEC and the FIA. When I have their response, I will show it to your for any comments you may wish to make. Thank you again for your help on this matter. 14 July 2010
128. Letter to Director of Catering and Retail Services, House of Commons, from the Commissioner, 14 July 2010
I would welcome your help on a complaint I have received against the Rt Hon Richard Caborn when he was Member for Sheffield Central in respect of a meeting he had with an undercover reporter, parts of whose content was reported in the Sunday Times of 28 March 2010.
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The matter on which I would welcome your help is in relation to dinners which Mr Caborn sponsored using House of Commons facilities for two organisations which were paying him as a consultant. The first organisation was the Fitness Industry Association (FIA). Mr Caborn has told me that he sponsored a dinner for the FIA on 3 December 2008. His interest in the FIA had been recorded in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. Invitations to the event were sent out by the FIA with him named as the sponsor for the event. I enclose a copy of a similar invitation which was sent out by the FIA for an event sponsored by another Member. Mr Caborn has checked the booking form which he completed in advance of this event, and has noted that, while he clearly stated on the form that the event was for the FIA, the form does not record in section 4 his financial interest. He believes that this was an oversight, and, if it was a mistake, he accepts responsibility for it. I would be grateful if you could let me have a copy of the relevant booking form. It would be helpful, too, if you could confirm whether Mr Caborn was in breach of the rules in not identifying on that form that he was paid by the FIA. Could you also let me know whether in your opinion the House of Commons Banqueting Terms and Conditions required Mr Caborn to identify his financial interests on the invitation, or whether the format used is acceptable within the rules? Mr Caborn also sponsored dinners on 23 June 2008 and 11 May 2009 for the construction company AMEC, for whom he was also a paid consultant. I understand that he declared a financial interest on the banqueting form for each occasion. There were no formal invitations sent out for either of these dinners. Invitations were informal, some of them by word of mouth. Mr Caborn tells me, however, that, in a speech winding up each event, he identified AMEC as the sponsor of the dinner. He has argued that, as well as having registered his interest in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, the declaration on the House of Commons booking form and the thanks he gave AMEC for sponsoring these dinners were sufficient to comply with the House rules. In respect of these two AMEC dinners, I would be very grateful if you could let me have copies of the relevant booking forms. I would be grateful also for your advice on whether the identification of AMEC as the sponsor in Mr Caborn’s speech at each event was sufficient to meet his obligations in identifying his financial interests under the banqueting rules of the House, or whether Mr Caborn should have drawn to attendees’ attention financial interest in AMEC. If you could let me have a response to this letter within the next two weeks, I would be most grateful. I would then copy it to Mr Caborn for any comments he may wish to make. Thank you for your help. 14 July 2010
129. Letter to the Commissioner from Director of Catering and Retail Services, 27 August 2010
I am sorry that it has taken so long to reply to your letter of 14 July, but I believe that we now have all the necessary information to allow me to answer your enquiry. Dealing first with the event for the Fitness Industry Association (FIA) on 03 December 2008, I enclose a copy of the Private Dining Confirmation forms relevant to this dinner.606 You will note that we received two booking forms, each of which is only partially completed. One form was completed and returned directly to our Banqueting Office by FIA as organiser of the event, clearly naming the event as “Fitness Industry Association Vanguard Dinner” and advising contact and billing details. On this form, the Sponsor’s section is marked “already completed” and “N/A”, and although the questions for the Sponsor have been answered, this was crossed out prior to FIA forwarding the form to us. The second form leaves blank the section headed “Organiser to Complete”, so makes no reference to the name of the event. The Sponsor’s section clearly states “no” in response to the question “do you have a declarable interest relating to your sponsorship of this function?” This form is signed by Mr Caborn. Since December 2000, the terms and conditions of booking for the banqueting service have included the following requirements under the section dealing with declaration of interests: “The Sponsor is directly and personally responsible for the declaration of any relevant registered interest relating to their sponsorship of a function.” (para 4.1) “The Sponsor must complete the relevant section of the Private Dining Confirmation Form to indicate whether there or not there is a relevant registered interest. “ (para 4.2)
606 Not included in the written evidence.
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Thus, there was no requirement for Mr Caborn to declare on the booking form itself that he was paid by the FIA, but if he was, I would have expected him to respond “Yes” to the relevant question on the booking form. The Private Dining Confirmation Form specifically states that, if applicable, “Relevant registered interest declared” must be stated on the invitation to the event. This is also clearly stated in paragraph 4.3 of the banqueting terms and conditions. In my opinion, it is not adequate to merely display the organiser’s logo on the invitation, as this in itself gives no indication of whether or not the sponsoring MP has any declarable interest in the event. My opinion is consistent with the advice given to Sponsors by staff of the banqueting office if asked. I also enclose copies of the Private Dining Confirmation Forms for the two dinners hosted by Mr Caborn on 23 June 2008 and 11 May 2009 for AMEC.607 Both forms are signed and dated by Mr Caborn, who has clearly confirmed that he does have a declarable interest relating to his sponsorship of the function. The note to Sponsors printed on the booking form instructing that “Relevant registered interest declared” must be stated on the invitation to the event was, thus, applicable in both instances. If no formal invitations were issued for these events, this does not remove the responsibility of Mr Caborn, as Sponsor, to overtly and specifically declare to attendees that he had a relevant interest relating to his sponsorship of the dinner. 27 August 2010
130. Letter to the Director of Catering and Retail Services from the Commissioner, 2 September 2010
Thank you for your letter of 27 August responding to mine of 14 July with the information to help me in the consideration of a complaint against the Rt Hon Richard Caborn. I was most grateful for this information. There was one final point on which I would welcome your further help in relation to the confirmation forms for the Fitness Industry Association dinner on 3 December 2008. Mr Caborn has signed but not dated the form he submitted and there is no signature or date on the one from the FIA, although there is a fax line which suggests that it was sent on 31 December 2006. Could you let me know whether the Department has any record of when these forms were received by it, and whether it might be reasonable to conclude that the forms were submitted after the event. I would be most grateful if you could let me have a response within the next week as you will I know appreciate both Mr Caborn and I would like to bring this matter to a conclusion. I am grateful for your assistance. 2 September 2010
131. Letter to the Commissioner from the Director of Catering and Retail Services, 6 September 2010
Further to your letter of 2 September, I can confirm that we recorded receipt of the signed event confirmation form from Mr Caborn on 23 October 2008 and the completed form from the Fitness Industry Association on or around 4 November 2008 (ie both forms were received prior to the event). The fax date of 31 December 2006 printed on the form sent by the FIA cannot be correct, as we do not accept bookings for events more than 18 months in advance. 6 September 2010
132. Letter to Rt Hon Richard Caborn from the Commissioner, 7 September 2010
When I wrote to you on 14 July, I said that I was writing to the House of Commons Facilities Department for information about the dinners which you held for AMEC and the FIA in 2008 and 2009. I have now heard back from the Department. I attach a copy of my letter to the Department of 14 July; and their response of 27 August with copies of the relevant private dining confirmation forms which were completed for each of these three events. I enclose also a copy of my follow-up letter of 2 September to the Department, and their response of 6 September.
607 Not included in the written evidence.
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As you will see, it would appear that you signed a confirmation form for the FIA dinner of 3 December 2008, stating that you did not have a declarable interest relating to your sponsorship of that function. You did declare your interest on the forms for the AMEC dinners of 23 June 2008 and of 11 May 2009. In respect of the FIA dinner, the Department says that they would have expected you to have recorded on the booking form that you had a relevant registered interest if you were paid by the FIA (as I believe you have accepted). They have also advised that it would not be adequate merely to display the organiser’s logo on any invitation to the event in order to comply with the requirement that any relevant registered interest declared must be stated on the invitation. In respect of the AMEC dinner, the Department has noted that any relevant registered interests declared should have been stated on the invitation, but if no formal invitations were issued, you would still have had a responsibility overtly and specifically to declare to attendees that you had a relevant interest relating to your sponsorship of the dinner. I would welcome any comments you may wish to make on the advice from the Facilities Department. In particular, since I understand from your evidence that no written invitations were sent out for either of the AMEC dinners, it would be helpful if you could address the implication of the Department’s advice, which is that you should have made a specific reference to your registrable interest in the speeches which you gave at both events. It would be helpful if you could let me have a response to this letter within the next week so that I can bring this inquiry to a conclusion. I should say that I am planning to prepare a memorandum to the Committee on Standards and Privileges on my inquiries, although you should draw no inferences from that. You are one of a number of Members who have been subject to a complaint in respect of this matter. Once I have concluded my inquiries on each of these complaints, I will be preparing a draft memorandum for the Committee. I will show you the relevant sections of the factual sections of that memorandum so that you can check on their accuracy. I will then prepare my conclusions and submit the full memorandum to the Committee. The Clerk of the Committee will send you a copy of that full memorandum so that you can comment on it if you so wish before the Committee come to consider the matter. Thank you for your help. 7 September 2010
133. Letter to the Commissioner from Rt Hon Richard Caborn, 10 September 2010
Thank you for your letter dated the 7th September 2010. I have little to add, re:-the AMEC dinners, to the comments I made in the letter to you dated the 1st July 2010. No invitations were sent out, they were small dinners, I thanked AMEC for sponsoring the dinners, most if not all attendees knew of my consultancy with AMEC but I cannot recall specifically spelling that out on either of the two dinners. On the FIA Dinner I thank you for providing the information sent from the banqueting department which goes some way to explaining how mistakes were made in filling out the forms. Unlike the AMEC dinners, where both the single booking forms were sent through my office in the House of Commons, for some reason the FIA Dinner had two booking forms, one sent by my office and the other by the FIA. Why that was, I do not know, but may go some way in explaining why my office thought all the relevant information had been sent by the FIA to the banqueting department clearly that did not give the correct information to the banqueting office and for which I take full responsibility. On the question of notifying those present at the FIA dinner of my consultancy with them, I thought that my registration in the Members’ Register of Interests, my name on the invitation, my thanks to the FIA for sponsoring the dinner in my closing speech, covered the House rules. Clearly now that it is brought to my attention, I should have made specific reference to it, to have totally complied with the rules. I genuinely hope that this information can now bring this complaint to a final conclusion. 10 September 2010
134. Letter to Rt Hon Richard Caborn from the Commissioner, 13 September 2010
Thank you for your letter of 10 September responding to mine of 7 September with some further information about this complaint.
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I was most grateful for this response. Subject to one point of clarification, I consider that I have now concluded my inquiries on this matter. The point of clarification is whether your office sent out invitations to the AMEC dinner held on 23 June 2008. I see at point 2 of your letter of 1 July, to which you referred, that you thought at that stage that your office had sent the invitations for that dinner. But you say in your letter of 10 September, or you had also said in your letter of 9 July, that no invitations were sent out since they were small dinners. For the sake of completeness, could you just confirm whether or not invitations were sent out for that dinner? Subject to your response, I will now complete work on preparing the draft factual sections of my memorandum for the Committee on Standards and Privileges, as set out in my letter to you of 7 September. I will be back in touch when this work is concluded so that you can comment if necessary on their factual accuracy. I look forward to hearing from you about the one outstanding point. 13 September 2010
135. Letter to the Commissioner from Rt Hon Richard Caborn, 15 September 2010
Thank you for your letter dated the 13th September requesting further clarification of the invitation to the dinner held on the 23rd June 2008 that AMEC sponsored. They were no formal invitations sent out for the dinner. My office sent out letters to some of the invitees and that is the reference in the 1st July letter, the letter was as much to inform those invitees of the reason for the dinner i.e in discussions about Nuclear New Build, as the arrangements for the dinner. Some invites were sent out by Sheffield University Vice Chancellor who selected the University invitees. Industry reps at the dinner were similarly invited, some by my office some by other invitees. I hope this now clears up the issue you raised and brings this enquiry to a conclusion. 15 September 2010
136. Letter to Rt Hon Richard Caborn from the Commissioner, 16 September 2010
Thank you for your letter of 15 September responding so promptly to mine of 13 September about the AMEC dinner of 23 June 2008. I have noted that letters were sent out to some of those you had invited (presumably orally) and some invitations were sent out by the Vice Chancellor of Sheffield University. I believe I am right in concluding that none of the letters or Sheffield University invitations declared your registered interest. It would be helpful if you could just confirm this assumption. On that basis, I believe my inquiry is concluded. I will now focus on preparing the draft memorandum. I look forward to hearing from you. I am most grateful for your prompt responses. 16 September 2010
137. Letter to the Commissioner from Rt Hon Richard Caborn, 20 September 2010
Thank you for your letter 16 September re the dinner I initiated and organized for industrialists, academics and Ministers which was sponsored by AMEC at my request. You are correct in making the assumption that the invitations to the dinner at the House of Commons on the 23rd June 2008 by the Vice Chancellor of Sheffield University and myself did not declare my registered interest. Once again I hope this clears up the issue you raised and brings this inquiry to a conclusion. 20 September 2010
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6 Rt Hon Adam Ingram
138. Letter to Rt Hon Adam Ingram MP from the Commissioner, 31 March 2010
I would welcome your help on a complaint I have received from Mr Greg Hands MP about your conduct in respect of an interview you gave to an undercover reporter, in respect of an alleged possible appointment. I attach the complainant’s letter of 28 March inasmuch as it affects the complaint against you.608 I know you will have seen the Sunday Times report of 28 March609 on which this complaint is based. In essence, the complaint is that you may have been engaged in lobbying activities in a way which is contrary to the rules of the House; that your conduct during an interview with a person who subsequently revealed herself as a journalist was contrary to the rules; that that conduct was not such as to maintain or strengthen the public’s trust in the integrity of Parliament; and that it brought the House of Commons into disrepute. The Code of Conduct for Members of Parliament provides the following rules of Conduct: “9. Members shall base their conduct on a consideration of the public interest, avoid conflict between personal interest and the public interest and resolve any conflict between the two, at once, and in favour of the public interest.
10. No Member shall act as a paid advocate in any proceeding of the House.
11. The acceptance by a Member of a bribe to influence his or her conduct as a Member, including any fee, compensation or reward in connection with the promotion of, or opposition to, any Bill, Motion, or other matter submitted, or intended to be submitted to the House, or to any Committee of the House, is contrary to the law of Parliament.
12. In any activities with, or on behalf of, an organisation with which a Member has a financial relationship, including activities which may not be a matter of public record such as informal meetings and functions, he or she must always bear in mind the need to be open and frank with Ministers, Members and officials.
13. Members must bear in mind that information which they receive in confidence in the course of their parliamentary duties should be used only in connection with those duties, and that such information must never be used for the purpose of financial gain.
[...]
15. Members shall at all times conduct themselves in a manner which will tend to maintain and strengthen the public’s trust and confidence in the integrity of Parliament and never undertake any action which would bring the House of Commons, or its Members generally, into disrepute.”
The Code provides also in respect of the registration and declaration of interests as follows: “16. Members shall fulfil conscientiously the requirements of the House in respect of the registration of interests in the Register of Members’ Interests and shall always draw attention to any relevant interest in any proceeding of the House or its Committees, or in any communications with Ministers, Government Departments or Executive Agencies.”
The Guide to the Rules sets out categories of registrable interests including Category 2 as follows: “Remunerated employment, office, profession, etc: Employment, office, trade, profession or vocation (apart from membership of the House or ministerial office) which is remunerated or in which the Member has any financial interest. Membership of Lloyd’s should be registered under this Category.”
608 WE 10
609 WE 9
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The rules in relation to Category 2 set out in the Guide for 2005 (which may be the one most relevant to this part of the complaint) include the following in paragraph 19: “All employment outside the House and any sources of remuneration which do not fall clearly within any other Category should be registered here if the value of the remuneration exceeds 1 per cent of the current parliamentary salary. When registering employment, Members should not simply state the employer company and the nature of its business, but should also indicate the nature of the post which they hold in the company or the services for which the company remunerates them. Members who have paid posts as consultants or advisers should indicate the nature of the consultancy, for example ‘management consultant’, ‘legal adviser’, ‘parliamentary and public affairs consultant’.”
The Guide to the Rules also sets out the requirements where a Member has an agreement for the provision of services in his or her capacity as a Member of Parliament. It includes the following: “Any Member proposing to enter into an agreement which involves the provision of services in his capacity as a Member of Parliament shall conclude such an agreement only if it conforms to the Resolution of the House of 6th November 1995 relating to Conduct of Members; and a full copy of any such agreement including the fees or benefits payable in bands of: up to £5,000, £5,001–£10,000, and thereafter in bands of £5,000, shall be deposited with the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards at the same time as it is registered in the Register of Members’ Interests and made available for inspection and reproduction by the public.”
More detailed provisions are set out in paragraph 49 to 54 of the 2005 guide. Section 2 of the 2005 Guide deals with the Declaration of Members’ Interests. You may wish to read this in full. Paragraph 55 of the 2005 Guide provides as follows: “In 1974 the House replaced a long standing convention with a rule that any relevant pecuniary interest or benefit of whatever nature, whether direct or indirect, should be declared in debate, or other proceeding. The same rule places a duty on Members to disclose to Ministers, or servants of the Crown, all relevant interests. The term ‘servants of the Crown’ should be interpreted as applying to the staff of executive agencies as well as to all staff employed in government departments.”
The rules in relation to lobbying for reward or consideration are set out in section 3 of the Guide. You will wish to read this in full. Paragraph 72 of the 2005 Guide provides as follows: “This Resolution prohibits paid advocacy. It is wholly incompatible with the rule that any Member should take payment for speaking in the House. Nor may a Member, for payment, vote, ask a Parliamentary Question, table a Motion, introduce a Bill or table or move an Amendment to a Motion or Bill or urge colleagues or Ministers to do so.”
Paragraph 73 provides: “The Resolution does not prevent a Member from holding a remunerated outside interest as a director, consultant, or adviser, or in any other capacity, whether or not such interests are related to membership of the House. Nor does it prevent a Member from being sponsored by a trade union or any other organisation, or holding any other registrable interest, or from receiving hospitality in the course of his or her parliamentary duties whether in the United Kingdom or abroad.”
I would welcome your comments on the allegations made against you in the light of this summary of the rules. In particular, it would be helpful if you could: 1. Give me a full account of the circumstances in which you came to be interviewed by someone who subsequently revealed himself to be a journalist;
2. Confirm what you are reported to have said during that interview, and whether each such statement is true in particular in relation to the following:
a. That you said, “There’s going to be a lot of ex-Ministers … and they then become a point of contact in the political network. ‘Who do you know in that Department? Who can you suggest to talk to?’ And that becomes a point of contact. So all of that can be established.”, and if true, what you meant in apparently suggesting a network of former Ministers who could be used to arrange contacts;
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b. That you said, “It’s worthwhile sometimes cultivating a Minister … but decision-makers really … are the civil service structure, because they do all the definitions of how you’re going to deliver on a particular project. They draw up invitations to tender, they then make all the recommendations which may not cross the Minister’s desk.”, and that you said that you had good contacts with civil servants from your time as a Minister; and if true, what you had in mind in making this statement; if you have ever had contacts with civil servants on behalf of a client; and if so, what were the circumstances and whether you declared your interest;
c. That you were helping to put together a consortium to bid for work that the Ministry of Defence outsources to private companies; and if true, whether you have been paid for these services and whether they involve you in contacts with Ministers or civil servants and, if so, what the circumstances were and whether you declared an interest;
d. That you have been involved in two British firms which were helping to create a defence academy in Libya, and if true, what were the circumstances, whether you were paid or expect to be paid for these services, and whether they involved you in meetings with Ministers or civil servants on behalf of the clients, and if so, what were the circumstances and whether you declared your interest;
e. Whether you arranged for another firm to supply the Libyan academy’s teachers, and if so, what were the circumstances, whether you were paid for these services, whether they involved meetings with Ministers and civil servants on behalf of your client, and if so, whether you declared an interest;
f. That you said that you were paid £1,500 a day for your consultancy work, and if so, what payments you have received from your clients at this level and whether you registered all of those payments.
3. Confirm what subsequent communications you or your legal advisers had with the reporters;
4. Confirm, if any of the allegations are true, whether you considered you had an obligation to make a Register entry or declaration, or both, in respect of any financial interest you had in these alleged activities; and what action you took accordingly.
5. Confirm, if any of what you said was untrue, why you spoke as you did.
Any other points you may wish to make to help me with this inquiry would, of course, be most welcome. I am writing to the Channel 4 programme makers to invite them to let me have your full interview and, if they do so, I may need to ask you about further points. I would be grateful for a response to this letter by the end of April. You will appreciate, I know, that we are now very close to the Dissolution of Parliament. I do not expect, therefore, to be able to conclude this inquiry before then. I will, however, resume it once Parliament has been re-established and I know I will be able to look to you for cooperation on this after you have left the House. I enclose a note which sets out the procedure I follow. If you would like a word about any of this please contact me at the House. I look forward to your help on this matter. 31 March 2010
139. Letter to Rt Hon Adam Ingram from the Commissioner, 2 June 2010
I have now received a certified transcript of your interview and of your telephone conversation on 1 March with the undercover reporter which, as you know, is the subject of this complaint. I enclose a copy of the certified transcript of your telephone conversation and of your interview with the undercover reporter. This material is confidential to my inquiry and subject to parliamentary privilege. If it were disclosed to anyone else during the course of my inquiries, that would, as you know, be a contempt of the House. I would be grateful, therefore, if you did not disclose these transcripts further or use them for any other purpose. When we spoke on the telephone on 6 April, you said that you would like to receive a copy of this transcript before responding to my letter to you of 31 March. I said in that letter that I might need to ask you about further points as a result of seeing the transcript.
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The further points I would like to ask you about are: 1. If you could let me have a list of the companies which in 2009–10 you worked for, and confirmation that these were fully registered in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests; 2. On page 22 of the transcript, you refer to your work for EDS. You say that “my arrangement with them is that I would only do work on an MP and then it would probably come to the end of the arrangement.” You suggest that you were meeting the “new people” shortly to talk through whether they wanted you to continue. Could you let me know why you expected to stop this work once you were no longer a Member of Parliament? Was that appointment linked to your membership of the House? If so, can you confirm that you took the appropriate steps in registering that in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests? 3. You discussed from pages 31 to 34 identifying former civil servants who, I assume, might join the proposed advisory board. Could you briefly explain how, as a Member of Parliament, you maintained your relationships with civil servants, and whether you did so in order to recommend them for future employment opportunities once they had left the civil service? 4. Pages 46 and 47 record that you confirmed that you would work with the company to help them develop relationships with Ministers and civil servants. Could you explain briefly what you had in mind in making that undertaking? 5. Pages 54 and 55 record your comment that you would be talking to a Conservative colleague who you believed was likely to become the Defence Minister in a future Conservative administration. Could you let me know whether the implication of that was that you would use that contact to the benefit of a company which might employ you on its advisory board? 6. Finally, could you confirm the date of your interview? I would be very grateful if you could respond to these points at the same time as you respond to the points in my letter to you of 31 March. I would also welcome any points you may wish to draw to my attention from the transcript in terms of the context and the specific statements which you made at the time. It would be most helpful if you could let me have a response to this letter by the end of this month. Thank you for your help. 2 June 2010
140. Dispatches ‘Politicians for Hire’—Transcript of Telephone Conversation with Rt Hon Adam Ingram MP on 1 March 2010
Telephone conversation between [reporter], under the name Claire Websters (“CW”) and Adam Ingram (“AI”) CW is calling AI AI Hello. CW Hello. AI Hello. Claire? CW Yes, hello, is that Adam Ingram MP? AI It is, yeah. Claire, I’m actually, I’m driving at the moment but I’m hands free so it’s OK. CW OK that’s good [laughs]. I’m sorry I missed you on Friday. I ended up being in meetings for the whole day practically. So I’m sorry I couldn’t talk then. The reason I left a message in your constituency office is we’re an American company and I’ve just set up our London office and one of the things I’m looking to do over the next couple of months is er, set up an advisory board for our company, we’re a communications company really... AI OK. CW ...but what we are looking for is a number of people who can give us advice on what we should be doing in the UK and how we should be expanding and also give our clients some advice as well. So, our companies range from kind of health care companies through to, I don’t know, Middle East investors really and defence companies as well... AI OK. CW ...and I just wondered if this is the kind of thing you’d be interested in doing. AI (...INAUDIBLE...) more than happy to talk to you. I’m doing work with number of companies at the moment and I don’t think there are any conflicts of interest but we’d have to talk through all of that. CW Yes of course yes. AI Yeah, yeah.
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CW Well maybe the thing to do I don’t know whether you might want to pop to my office for a cup of tea or coffee one day? AI Yeah, I’d love to do that. I tell you, I mean, I’m down in London thisweek. You of course know I’m standing down from Parliament. Are you aware of that? CW Yes I am aware of that. I don’t see that that would be a problem. AI No, actually I think it’s a better position to be in because I think there’s much more of an issue now with serving members of Parliament having outside interests. CW Right. OK. AI And my sense of this is that it can detract from what companies are trying to achieve. CW Mmm. AI Because there’s a kind of negative reaction er if you’re lobbying people think even though you’re not. We could talk through some of that sort of stuff. What sector are you in? What do you do? CW We do, we’re kind of a very broad communications kind of company really, so we help our clients with a number of things. Sometimes it’s dealing with press but also it’s advising them on investments they might want to get involved in. I suppose what they call it in America is a kind of bespoke consultancy, which kind of means we do everything. [laughs] AI I understand, anything, anything goes. [laughs] CW Exactly! [laughs]. So what’s your availability this week if you’re in London? AI Well I don’t have my diary at the moment. CW Of course, yeah. AI The best thing is er, if I give you, I’ll be back in my office in my constituency in maybe about a couple of hours. CW Yeah fine. AI I’ll give you a call back and we can then arrange something for next week if that’s possible? CW That sounds like a great idea. AI Where are you located? Where’s your base? CW St James’s Square. AI Alright, OK, well that’s very handy. OK. CW OK brilliant. Well I’ll speak to you later today then. AI That’s great. Thanks very much. OK. CW Have a nice morning. AI You as well. Bye. CW Bye. [There is a subsequent telephone conversation later that day in which the meeting is arranged.]
141. Dispatches ‘Politicians for Hire’—Transcript of Rt Hon Adam Ingram MP meeting, 9 or 10 March 2010
Audio file M2U00150 Chat and moving around, getting tea and coffee from 00:00:00 to 00:19:00. AI 00:19:24 Are you, do you occupy all of this building? CW No, unfortunately not the whole building, just a floor upstairs. At the moment we actually we’ve got um, a smaller office base but we’re... [Chat about tea] AI 00:20:11 So how long have you been here? CW Not very long actually um, I think as I said on the phone we’re an American company. Er my job is to kind of open up the London office which I’ve just done in the last er month or so. AI Wonderful. CW 00:20:23 Err, yeah, it’s going well. It’s a great location actually, a nice kind of place to be. It’s really, really central um and one of the things I’m looking to do over the next couple of months is set up an advisory board for Alice and Perry and also our clients. Um and also I want to take on a couple of consultants um, presume I would guess on a retainer kind of basis um to do more specific work for um some of our clients. Sorry, I’m just going to tip that out. AI Have you got your client base established and that? CW 00:20:50 Yes we have and though, you know, you should always be trying to expand, I
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think. Um, so most of our clients are in the States or in the Middle East, though we have err one or two in Asia. And their kind of interests vary. AI OK. CW So, um, we have one that’s a, a health company that does kind of elderly care in the States and they’re looking to expand in the UK. And we also look 00:21:14 after a defence company in the States and they make chassis for MPVs. Um, so yeah, they, we’re involved in that. And of course, they’re looking to expand in um the UK too as are er an organisation we represent in Singapore, they’re involved in kind of mending um aircraft. So, they kind of have world, worldwide interest. AI 00:21:35 Is it engines or fuel? CW Yes, engines yeah. So, quite kind of technical work on something actually I know very little about, the kind of nitty gritty of, though obviously, I know about the company. Um, and so really I just wanted to speak to you to find out what kind of thing you might be interested in doing, what you’ve been doing before and just really see if we could make something work. AI OK. CW Um, I’m looking for about four to six people for the 00:21:57 advisory board and of course a chair. Um, I don’t know if that’s a role you might be interested in or not. AI No I would probably be interested in it. I don’t want to be with my background, my background well, for 23 years I’ve been a Member of Parliament, um. For all that kind I’ve been in the the forefront of politics. Er I worked in the early days with Neil Kinnock in the build up to the, the 1992 00:22:28 election, I was one of his key people. And we didn’t win that election. Er, yeah, I did some stuff on Trade and Industry, I decided not to go on the front bench because I, I had, had very little back bench experience.
CW 00:22:35 Right. AI You familiar with the background of Parliament? CW Yes I am, though my background is more PR so I’m kind of not well versed. AI Well, back benchers speaks obviously to back benchers you’re, you’re not front bench about policy. And then it was all Trade and Industry stuff and it was on airspace and energy, energy policy which was one my big areas of interest. And the whole of err such of airspace and space was another area, 00:23:02 we did two big studies into that as a Select Committee and I was very happy doing that. And then, but then we looked at the party and John Smith said he wanted to put me on the front bench er and I said “okay, you’re going to give me something I know nothing about”, to which he said “yes”, er I said “you’re going to give me social security?”, he said “yes”. I said “you’re a bastard”. And he said “well, er I’ve got to tell you you’re the only person that’s sworn at me when I’m promoting them”. I said “I know nothing about this”, he said “well, that’s why I’m doing it” because I’m a fresh mind. And so it was, it was pension policy, it was all on the back of the Maxwell scandal. CW Oh right. AI 00:23:41 And the bigger pension Bill of 1993 I believe. And er, and also the Child Support Agency so there was two big issues that I was asked to do and terrific bruising jobs as well. Er and then John Smith died. Tony Blair then asked me to take on the Science and Technology role. Er so I wrote er, I wrote the party policy for science. I’m not a scientist, I’m a technician I’m a technologist err but again it’s logical thinking it’s define the problem. CW Yeah. AI 00:24:13 Somebody else could give the best answers then you can, you can knit it together. Er so, I did the science policy and the anticipation was that we
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moved into to win the election in 97 to move into the Trade and Industry side. And energy was a big (...INAUDIBLE...) factor, it was the thing I had a heavy interest in. Er but Tony Blair decided not to do that. He put me in 00:24:36 Northern Ireland as security Minister. But I was also an Economy Minister there, and that was
CW In Northern Ireland? AI In Northern Ireland, during the peace process, I was part of the peace process, all those negotiations, and err I, I, took a number of portfolios as a (...INAUDIBLE...) Minister err so I mean, I put higher my education and other things as well, it took me 8 months. My main job was security err as senior Minister and Secretary of State and also the economy er, there’s a 00:25:07 long story to that, I managed to put two portfolios, against all the advice and I said these two have to run together. You can’t you can’t have picking up the (...INAUDIBLE...) without stable security and good economic development helps (...INAUDIBLE...) state security. Something occasional, I can’t do it, it’s in the system, I said well I’m doing it and that’s it er and I did it very, I think very successfully er. And it was a good time because the economy was growing (...INAUDIBLE...) the east coast but not exclusively so I, I had a quite heavy industry er interface as well as doing my main job 00:25:48 of security. And then Tony Blaire put me in after that, er after four years, er into the Armed Forces, as Armed Forces Minister err. And that was a job I was so suited for because of my past. I didn’t think we were going to Iraq 00:26:08 and Afghanistan and all the rest of it and that was a massive portfolio as well as having two wars out there to attend to. I was heading up as Minster, um, the way, the way the department was structured then, the Secretary of State, you had me as senior Minister and two junior ministers. And er, I was the kind of the capability Minister so your (...INAUDIBLE...) I took a lot of stuff out and gave it to another Minister so he became the kind of welfare Minister, personnel, pay clashes and another one was procurement and I 00:26:44 had the capability I, sort of tried to knit this together but I always had the responsibility for a very big bit of the delivery of defence as well as the whole Armed Forces stuff er. (...INAUDIBLE...) It was then called the Defence Logistics Organisation which had a six billion pound budget with a hundred thousand people and during that period we made some very fundamental changes to structure. We drove, we drove probably globally in excess of two hundred (...INAUDIBLE...) pounds out of the cost base by just taking some very tough choices. And er on the basis of how you can drive down the cost 00:27:22 base (...INAUDIBLE...) was entertained as defence expenditure. So, I had ten years of ministerial roles, I’ve been very heavy and very committed. It’s given me a big breadth of experience. Currently I’ve got Directorships in a number of places, I can talk to you about that, and I’m doing a lot of work still within the defence sector er I had a two day secret exercise, at a very top level last week um, where they do this, it’s called an experiment, it’s like a scenario and you take the scenario. You take a hostile um situation and then 00:28:03 you, you learn to problem solve and so if you’re only three or four star, an attorney general is a three star and a full general is four star, an admiral is four star.so it was full of threes and fours and two stars (...INAUDIBLE...) RAF and the Navy and senior civil servants and security personnel as well and it was all about problems with you, problem solving, and my role was just to say just remember who makes decisions in Government? It’s ministers, it’s not you delivery agents, it’s Ministers who decide it. Er so I’m used to work on that basis.
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CW 00:28:33 And were you doing that as an MP or a Minister? AI I am still an MP. I’m standing down at the next election but they just call up on me because of my expertise CW Because of your expertise. AI 00:28:42 It’s because of my expertise plus I’m a straight talker, a logical thinker, I think. Er a big breadth of knowledge nobody’s an expert err you know, everyone’s got different expertise. I do stuff at Kings College. I lecture at Kings College to PhD students. CW In the war studies department? AI In the war studies department. CW 00:29:03 I went to Kings College, you see so I. AI It’s a great, it’s a great college. Male Did you do (...INAUDIBLE...)? CW I didn’t, I did English. AI You did English. CW 00:29:11 Slightly different. AI Again, that’s because I did work, when I stood down as a Minister in 2007, the Prime Minister asked me to do a major study into Defence’s contribution to counter terrorism and, and a result they actually said (...(...INAUDIBLE...).... I said you’ve got to look at resilience as well you’ve got to look at the effects of 00:29:33 terrorism and, and what goes on overseas (...INAUDIBLE...) one study err resourced by the Minister of Defence, quite a powerful report err which was then presented to the Prime Minster, it’s a secret report, that touched on quite sensitive areas. And I’m just currently doing a wrap up I said “if you want me to do that, and you will need an audit. I’ll give you a year to implement, don’t tell me to do the report and then put it on the shelf.” Err And everyone said it’s a great report, I said I’m coming back in a year’s time to check.
CW 00:30:03 Yeah, what to check that they’d done it? AI Yeah, so I am currently doing an audit and er I’m doing a wrap up so I’ve just got to see senior people in the Foreign Office and some in civil contingency (?). I need to get the report published, not published but presented to the Prime Minister. CW 00:30:20 Oh that’s very exciting. AI So, I will have a I’ve been kept extremely busy as well as, and the industry err jobs I’ve taken on err mainly in homeland security from the terror. CW Yeah. AI Yeah OK err, of which there’s a lot of training in counter IEDs, improvised explosive devices err we have there which provides one of the places. Audio file M2U00151 AI 00:00:00 A big facility in the RAF base in Wiltshire and, err, we train in Afghanistan, we train in North Africa, we train a lot of people here. It’s like a fledgling company, it’s suffering cash flow problems at the moment because a huge amount of business we’re waiting on have been paying all these wages and it’s pretty hand to mouth stuff at the moment. CW 00:00:22 How long have you been doing um? AI 00:00:23 Well, I am I director, that’s about a year and a half, two years and then for the other company which has a big interest in Libya and that, you, they asked me to engage with them because it was to do with the building of a defence academy and we’ve a big defence academy in the UK, one of the best in the world. And, um, err, the idea was Gaddafi wanted a defence academy built and people I’m with have got very good points of contact in the Libyan regime, err, at the good end, good end and bad end of Libya and we’re working with the good end, the foremost, because it’s absolute—Libya is absolutely strategic to the UK, they are just fundamentally strategic. CW 00:01:08 Is it? In what way?
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AI 00:01:10 Well, because it’s, because of its, its oil and gas base, but also because, it, one of the, one of the effects of the Iraq war, one of the reported effects, nobody’s ever, nobody had really takes this on board was that that Gaddafi, when he saw the Iraq conflict happen and the basis upon which we went to that Iraq conflict on WMD, he was actually doing it as well. He then made contact through his people with our security forces and security apparatus, err, he then opened the books to all his other stuff he was doing in nuclear, what he was doing in biological, what he was doing in chemical but that’s probably it. CW 00:01:47 Yeah. AI 00:01:48 The extent of that was not known but the headlines are, as a result of which, he then disposed of all that. He then decided to turn his country over to the people on the people, (...INAUDIBLE...) but err, and he’s very volatile. And he (...INAUDIBLE...). called ‘Green in the Desert’ and as well as the strategic from the mainly the gas sector but also oil, there are British companies that have, British companies that have a lot of investment in that, but also in a whole lot of other things he’s doing and to the tune of hundreds of millions of pounds it’s a very rich country because of his, his err, his, his hydrocarbon base. And I was talking to a company the other day (...INAUDIBLE...) and they’d like to bring something like a hundred million pound project for bringing water from the south up to Tripoli. CW 00:02:38 Oh really? AI 00:02:39 So it’s a big engineering project. CW 00:02:40 Yeah. That’s interesting. AI 00:02:42 And, Libya looks to us, they won’t look to the Americans, they’re a bit iffy with every, they play, they play everyone against each other, but they’re a bit iffy about the Americans, and the, the defence academy has now, this is a consortium of companies, wee companies was Arab .(...INAUDIBLE...) engineering company err, for southern engineers and that, that end of it has been put to bed, importantly we have been paid, so everyone in that consortium is cash rich. CW Yeah. AI They’ve been paid, ah, proper rate, ah, and now it’s a question of getting the defence academy built, it’s like the Turkish construction company will do it, that’s all been determined and everything in the Arab world goes slow time. CW 00:03:23 Yeah, I imagine. AI Get some into position(...INAUDIBLE...) and, ah, and, and once the defence academy is built, they did, have been able to get the defence academy here to become engaged with that, so we would populate it with our teaching. So that brings them in to our ambit so strategically very important, and the whole north African issue because of migration, people migration. CW Yeah. AI 00:03:48 all coming through from Africa, sub-Saharan Africa is a, is a very big issue. So it’s strategic. So that’s, that’s, ah, that’s that company, and the other one, and there was another one which was in the, ah, ah, to this day I don’t know why people pick up (...INAUDIBLE...), were actually offering things almost for nothing to Government on the basis that it was shared interest that, ah, and it was, it was both. The original concept, was a missing person’s concept. CW Right. AI 00:04:16 So the problem we have in this country is a gap, that is someone goes missing, take Madeleine McCann, to get the information out globally, well, you know, across the country is, is, ah, is difficult, ah in how do you communicate? So what we had, we have a, a particular piece of software that is able to assimilate a lot of data and then stream it and burst it down. CW To all different countries? AI 00:04:43 No officially to the UK only, you burst it out to your responders and, and it, some countries don’t do this, where you have screens in (...INAUDIBLE...) points of the shopping malls, you know.
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CW Train stations or? AI 00:04:56 Well let’s say a child went missing in a, in a bit of, of Manchester. And so you’ve all these, people standing at a bus stop, a child missing. And the Americans have a thing called Amber Alert, ah, and there’s a good evidence base in this, if you get that information out, there’s a very high success rate of getting that missing person. CW Oh really? AI 00:05:20 Because in most cases it’s not a malign missing person, it could be the, it could be the father’s taken the child, the mother, that type of thing, but you still need to get that child. And, and so the emergency responders are, are ready to do that. so and we can get it to you effectively for nothing, but you’ve always got to do some back, background support of it, but you’re, you’re going to do that anyway, and we make it easier and better (...INAUDIBLE...) we will pay for the screens. How do you pay for, how do; you pay for? Very simply, you get 40% as a responder, we get 60% when we advertise on that. CW 00:05:56 So you can advertise on the screen the rest of the time? AI The rest of the time it’s not being used for anything. CW Yeah. AI 00:06:00 And if you run (...INAUDIBLE...) the police, you’ve got a missing child, you’ve got what’s called a golden key, you (...INAUDIBLE...) crash in and take that out. CW Yeah, crash in, take the advertising out. AI 00:06:11 So simple, straightforward solution, can’t get by it. And, ah, it’s because the Government is very reluctant to be innovative, and what it doesn’t like is people bringing solutions. It doesn’t mind you saying we now need a solution, and lets go and find an answer, but if you say there, there is something you need. Now there actually is a working party and half the Government is going nowhere just looking at this issue, the missing persons issue, cos there’s a, there’s been a, there’s a, a terrible...... it’s not a treaty, a terrible European Parliament, where if so many nations sign up to, and so many parliamentarians sign up, it becomes a kind of edict, it’s not, it’s not by law, but it’s a, it’s a, it’s a,
it’s a, a request, almost like an instruction to, to governments, and they must 00:06:54 now, they must now begin to deliver on this objective, and they can do it in their own way. CW Right. AI 00:07:00 So the working party has been set up, ah, by the Government and it’s looking at, as I said, (...INAUDIBLE...) Because the emergency responders, especially police, they don’t have a lot of good expertise to be able to do this, so they, they actually scare people when they. CW They think this would be too hard? AI 00:07:18 Yeah, you scare them cos you’re actually, you’re, you’re going beyond their level of competence. So they, so they, so they do it at a different level and it’s the way they always do it (...INAUDIBLE...) encourage a bit more. So, so that, that, ah, we’ve kind of refocused that company a bit and, and it’s been out in, in the Middle East and Abu Dhabi, ah, and it would be very hot at a point in time putting emergency systems in. But it doesn’t just relate to missing persons, it can then, then adapt it to, if you’re able to take a lot of data, assimilate it and then burst it out to key responders, ah, you know, so we’ve been doing stuff with the maritime agency out there and or course the.(...INAUDIBLE...)
agency ah, and that has become a very hot potential for that kind of which has 00:07:58 gone cold, just (...INAUDIBLE...) CW Isn’t it? AI 00:08:06 The sovereign funds just, we’ve got oodles of money, they’ll say they’ve got to do something, yeah, it’s very exciting, everyone is excited, and then they just sit there. CW And they kind of go off it. AI 00:08:14 And on somewhere else. But that was, you know, so that’s the kind of, the
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range of companies and there’s another, I’ve been doing, I’ve been doing advisory work, done a lot initially, not so much recently, with the EDS, which is now part of HP, and actually just talking to them about, really just about Government relations, and what to look for in Government becomes, department (...INAUDIBLE...) there’s a kind of standard way in which governments tend to operate. CW What do they do, EDS I think I’ve heard of them? AI 00:08:46 Well EDS are computer, they do, they do all the outsourcing of, of, so they’ll, they’ll provide like, ah,...pay personnel and they’ll do work in the health service, it’s a computer based thing. CW Oh right. AI 00:08:56 So it’s a big operation. Instantly they want to buy a bit of, of HP, which is a massive company, but, but which is a manufacturing company, but they have a, a service company sitting alongside EDS which was massive, so they were interested in acquisition and HP said, no we’ll just buy you, (...INAUDIBLE...) EDS. And, ah, they (...INAUDIBLE...) they’re doing. And, ah, my arrangement with them is that I would only do work on an MP and then, um, ah, it would probably come to the end of the arrangement, however meeting the new people, I think next week or the week after, just to talk through this, whether they’re wanting one to continue. CW Whether you might continue to be a consultant for them? AI 00:09:37 It’s not, you know, as well as, so I’m having to do that, as well as being an MP, and that, it’s all about time management. CW Yeah. AI And I’m doing all that myself, there’s no problem. I’m kind of moving out from being an MP. CW Yeah. AI 00:09:50 I’m a drop dead (...INAUDIBLE...) because of the general election, so I’m only weeks away from it. CW Yeah. AI 00:09:53 And, ah, so I’ve got a breadth of experience, I think I’ve good knowledge, I’ve run big departments and, and I may be of use to you. CW Yeah, well it does sound like you’ve got an amazing breadth of experience actually. AI How did you come across my name? CW 00:10:07 Erm, I got one of my researchers to basically draw up a list of people, ah, that may be interested in this kind of work. I think, ah, he looked at people who had other consultancy jobs and also just spoke to people. And I would say, I don’t know exactly where he got all the names from, I just ended up with a list. AI Okay, okay. CW 00:10:22 So I’m pleased to say he’s obviously, um, hit up on the right person, so that’s always good news. In terms of your time commitment, presumably when you stand down as an MP, you’ll have a little more time. AI Oh, (...INAUDIBLE...) that’s right (?) CW Will you be looking to take on other, a few consultancy positions, do you think? AI 00:10:40 Yeah I will be, but in the sense that, um, as I say, there are two other companies that have come to me, people who I know well, and they’re two quite big projects, ah, ah, and the, but that will not happen until after, after I’m no longer an MP, because I said I’m not going to touch it till that time. Ah, one’s in the energy sector, ah, ah, the other, the other one is really, ah, was going to happen to Government anyway. A lot of departments in defence, one of them will have 00:11:13 to be going to outsource, they’ll have to look where their core business is, and what their non-core business is. And they’ve done a lot of that anyway, so if it’s not core business, it shouldn’t be sitting in Government, somebody else can do that for them. CW So what would that be, for example?
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AI 00:11:24 Well, ah, well it, it’s a project that’s not surfaced yet. CW Oh right. AI And the, and the main consortium is now just being put together. So it would take a big chunk of, of what a lot of civil servants do, and they’ve been doing it for donkeys of years in defence, but it’s not really core defence business, it’s just, it’s in the logistics sector, you know, the detail of it. And, ah, the reality is that defence will have, will have, cos that’s how they, that’s how they get down their costs. CW Yeah, so you can save money. AI 00:11:56 You can save money, but let someone else take on the risk. Ah, and then it’s based upon, you’re really contracting for availability. So if I want something, you’re a private company, you deliver. And (...INAUDIBLE...) that’s what they did is doing it the transformation in the defence logistics sector, that was a case of, ah, aircraft maintenance, it was a classic example that, why should you have all that trained people doing this, when surely you’ve built that aircraft, so you 00:12:28 should maintain it. And we tell you we want, whatever it is, twenty fast jets at any point in time, your job to deliver. If you don’t deliver, you take the penalty. CW Yeah. AI 00:12:36 And, em, ah, we need, we need aircraft, so, so there’s a mutual relationship between all of that, you’ve got to make sure that they’ve capable to deliver. But that’s what cut a lot of the cost out because they’re saying you’ve got (...INAUDIBLE...) two and a half thousand people that you no longer need. CW No. AI 00:12:52 It’s cruel, but necessary, because in my view the public purse is not there to keep people in employment, they serve to do best value for money. CW Yeah. AI 00:13:04 So that’s, that’s kind of where I’m (...INAUDIBLE...) other, other than as an energy idea of people looking at, and I guess, it’s to do with defence estates, the land, the defence laws and how we best utilise that, so there’s a mutual benefit between the energy sector, and you’ve got access to large areas, large tracts of land, which you could then properly exploit, defence gets a payback and it doesn’t interfere with their, with their training anywhere else. CW No. AI 00:13:32 So there (...INAUDIBLE...) there’s a project, I’m looking at that. CW That’s quite interesting. AI (...INAUDIBLE...) just an advisor, it hasn’t all been worked out yet (?) CW Okay. AI But I can handle all of that. CW 00:13:43 Yeah good. Erm, I think for our advisory board, I think we’ll probably need to assess it after six months to kind of, see how it’s going. But I would envisage that for the first six months there would be a meeting maybe every other month, they may want to increase that to every month, me, so, and then of course there would be preparation to do. AI 00:14:01 And who would, who would be, first of all, you’ll be deciding on the makeup of the advisory board? CW Well I will be in conjunction with people in the States, so over the next week or two I’ll be drawing up a shortlist of people. AI Okay. CW And then, ah, some of the directors will fly over from the states, they would like to meet with them. AI Yeah sure. CW 00:14:16 And then, of course, we can, um, bring some of the clients over, or fly, um, you know. AI (...INAUDIBLE...) CW 00:14:22 Yes, exactly. Well I think it’s just quite nice for anyone who’s on the advisory board to be meeting our clients and, you know vice versa I think that’s just how
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it should be. AI 00:14:29 But the job wouldn’t be advising the clients necessarily? CW No, well a bit of both actually. I think the advisory board would be advising us, Anderson Perry, and when issues come up with particular clients, advising the clients. AI Going out there, yeah. CW Yeah, exactly. Though I think, I don’t know if this is something you would be interested in, we’ll certainly be looking for consultants to advise specific clients at specific times, that we would pay a retainer, um, and then they would have a daily rate, erm that we could, you know, then they would bill us and say, well actually this month, I’ve done five days, for this particular firm, or three, or you know, whatever. AI 00:15:03 Okay. CW Just depending on the workload, and that might work for you, if you were interested in a um specific client and felt that you could help. AI 00:15:12 Yeah, cos that’s, okay, yeah ... CW Yeah, I think that’s the best idea. AI 00:15:15 And how, how big would the board be? CW I think four or six people. AI Four to six, yeah. CW Yeah, I don’t think you want it to be too big. AI You don’t want it to be too big. And who, who, you said maybe I had interest in the chairmanship. Is someone else being considered for that? CW 00:15:28 Yes, ah, another person is, um, it’s someone with a kind of finance background, me, a kind of banking background really. I think what’s important across, in the board is to get quite a broad section of people, so someone from, you know, who has a very legal background, someone from a finance background, someone from a political background. AI Okay. CW 00:15:46 And then we’ll just kind of mix and match. I think you kind of decide on say three and then you. AI Any ex-civil servants in there? CW 00:15:51 No, but no, no, that’s quite a good thought. Erm I don’t know, maybe you might be able to suggest some, I don’t know. AI Well, not off the top of my head, but there are, there are some people of real good quality that, that are likely to pop out if there’s a change of administration, you know, people will say, you know, I’ve been ten years or so with this, this administration. Although they are ostensibly neutral, ah, it, sometimes it’s not a comfortable environment for them. CW Yeah. AI 00:16:16 Cos, cos their new masters don’t trust them basically, and wrongly, that’s, that, you know always a bit of suspicion, suspicion of what you . (...INAUDIBLE...) And, and,...ah, so there are very good people, um, I could talk to people (...INAUDIBLE...) CW 00:16:30 Do you think at permanent secretary level, or below that? AI 00:16:33 I certainly think we’ll get permanent secretary level, unless there, there are one or two potentially in there. I, I would tend to go maybe second or third tier, you know, because they tend to deliver it (?). CW Yes. AI 00:16:44 It’s an issue I have with general secretaries, I have crossed swords with them a few times, that I’ve always, it was the whole permanent secretary...when I went to Northern Ireland, took me aside and said, “Let’s just understand what the working relationship is, I’m the Minister, he’s the permanent secretary.” CW Thanks. AI 00:16:58 I says, you’re the chairman and I’m the chief executive. I said well that’s all very
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well, but I’ll decide what the relationship is, I’m not going to be the chief executive, because it’s not the job. Ah, we were, we were very good friends after this, but it was, don’t tell me what we’re going to do. CW 00:17:15 Yeah. AI 00:17:17 Let’s just get the ground rules right. But it was good advice. I, I, I’ve had one or two words with permanent secretaries, just remember you’re the chief executive, and what’s happening in the way this department is now in defence, I’m now the chief executive, I’m dealing with all the executive decisions, I’m dealing with too many decisions, ah, and having to do all that, ah, I’m not against it, ah, in one sense, but really that’s your job. CW Yeah. AI 00:17:41 Your job is to manage, and my job is to sit as a chairman and... CW And do other things. AI And do other things, and drive it in particular ways. Ah, and of course, sometimes the secretaries don’t see themselves as chief executives, they’ve come to the, come to the point in their life, where they do something else. CW Yeah. AI 00:17:58 Ah, having said that, there are some very good ones. I mean I would tend to go for the lower level, you know the directorate (?) level, who really. CW So a director of something? AI 00:18:08 Yeah, you know, whether it’s director of policy, the, the other thing is they do tend to move around, and they, every department will move people around into different directorates, sometimes they’re good at it, sometimes they’re not. But they, they, they gain a big breadth of experience as they move towards becoming a permanent secretary, so the, the senior (...INAUDIBLE...) is almost the depth of the (...INAUDIBLE...) So the err I know there are some very good people about. CW Oh well I’d appreciate your thoughts on that, if you come across anybody that you think would be worth us approaching. But it can be a bit tricky approaching people when they’re still in their job. AI 00:18:43 Yeah, that’s what I’m saying, you would, you would maybe watch people popping out of the system. CW Yeah. AI 00:18:47 I don’t know how much knowledge...necessarily, but, ah, me, you know, ah, it, I I just suspect it will happen. I’ll also a generation thing people get to an age where they’re saying, you know, I’ve no longer much of a career here, it’s getting pretty crowded, ah, there’s a thinning down at the top of the, you know, civil service and you thin down anyway, so I’ve come to the end of my potential era, and then they move out, because they’re pension’s right and they’re, they’re of the right age to do it. And the other the other, and other people to look at, if you’ve not done it, ah, some of the sea and military people. CW Yes. AI 00:19:21 And, and the reason I say this is because if they’re the right type of, I could put a side (...INAUDIBLE...) think I know all of them and, ah, some of them are very good strategic planners, good thinkers, and well trained in command and control, ah, and just think logically.... (...INAUDIBLE...) CW No, that’s a very good thought. AI 00:19:40 And also work on the basis that, ah, no, no problems too big. A problem could be, could stump you, you may fail, but you still have to win, you still have to get to the objective. CW Have to keep going. AI 00:19:51 ...just keep going at least I got, and these guys, these guys are of a particular mindset. CW Oh yes, well I’d appreciate any names in that sense as well because similarly it’s not um a world I’m that familiar with, but I could probably get someone to do some research, I think, to try to (...INAUDIBLE...) AI 00:20:04 Yeah, but it’s again who’s, who’s coming out and there’s a lot, there’s a lot
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duffers in there but I’ve got some there in mind...but there’s some very...Yeah, so. CW Yeah, well that’s it, from the outside you’re not necessarily sure who to go to. AI 00:20:13 Well, you could say the man was very good (...INAUDIBLE...) very good as a manager. The best person to ask is a Serjeant Major (...INAUDIBLE...) CW Yes, exactly, then you can check. One thing I think we’ll be looking to do it—, or how to support our clients with, would be expanding in the UK. So, for instance, err the health company or a defence company in the States, they have, or both have contracts, actually, with the relevant department in America. AI 00:20:44 Yeah. CW That they’d be looking to try to speak to the various Government departments here um and just build a closer relationship with them, I suppose with the end game on hopefully winning some contracts. Is that something that you’re familiar with, with your other consultant work? AI 00:21:00 Yeah. As a Member of Parliament I can’t lobby, they’re very strict on that, so you can’t go lobby for a company err which as non-MP you can. CW Yeah. AI 00:21:13 And it’s a very firm rule, and remember, you’ve got to sign a lot of agreements (...INAUDIBLE...) CW Oh do you? AI 00:21:21 First of all, as an ex-Minister you’ve got to get approval, to take on a directorship, and there’s a—, anything up to a two year period. So for instance, if I had been making a decision about a particular company and then I’m no longer a Minister, said I’m now I’m going to be a director of that company, only I’m not, you know, because I (...INAUDIBLE...) working for that company ... So there’s usually a gap and in my case it was because I’m (...INAUDIBLE...) necessarily doing some stuff with that, and none of it abutted across, against err the or the companies I knew as a Minister , so it was like a six month period. But it could be anything up to a year, and then you have to make it very clear that you’re not going to lobby, then I said, “Well, define lobby.” CW Yeah. AI 00:22:10 And the statement was, “You’ll know it when you’re doing it.” ..., you know, so. Which is the... CW Yeah. AI 00:22:15 And so I just don’t do it, you know this, and the freedom of information question (...INAUDIBLE...), trust me about, you know, the company you’re now engaged with, did they do any business with the Ministry of Defence, were contracts placed? Did any meetings take place with a Minister, and of course that’s the part I know (...INAUDIBLE...), and I don’t answer that, that’s a department question against a lot of MPs who are—, who have business interests. So I’ve always played a very clean um approach, but having said that the point of contact can be quite wide and then it’s just like if you are respected, people take a judgement, and set it against their own judgement, but nonetheless that’s a, I value that judgement, so. And I, and I can facilitate as best I can, but there’s bits of Government I know nothing about. CW No, of course, yeah. AI 00:23:13 You sit within one bit of Government but you don’t necessarily know all the people. CW Yeah. AI 00:23:20 And it’s all about personal points of contact. But the thing about that is, and this is one for the very big reality at the election, (...INAUDIBLE...) a lot of ex- ministers, many of whom are leaving Parliament entirely, some are going to lose their seats and they’re become a point a contact in the political network you know, who do you know in that department, who can you, who can you suggest I talk to, and that becomes a point, that becomes a point of contact, so. So all of that can be, all of that can be established. ... it can take a bit of time to
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build those blocks but you begin to look beyond the, who, who’s important in that... CW And that would be your point of contact, whoever was important, yeah. AI 00:24:01 Go and ask their advice then and again I could...who I can trust and who I couldn’t trust. CW Yeah, and that’s something you’d be able to do once you’ve stood down as a MP, is it? AI 00:24:09 Yeah. CW Okay. Yeah, that’s useful to know. AI 00:24:12 But I wouldn’t do anything before I went, yeah, before the election. I just couldn’t take anything on. CW Yeah. No, well that’s what you said on the phone. AI 00:24:17 But I will ... CW Yeah. AI 00:24:18 I mean to have to register it err and I’m quite—, quite happy with that. CW Yes. AI 00:24:22 ...and probably (...INAUDIBLE...) CW Yeah, okay, well that’s good to know. And in terms of, I kind of heard from someone here who works in public affairs that actually the people you should be speaking to are the civil servants. Is that, do you agree with that point of view? AI 00:24:35 Definitely. CW Yeah. AI 00:24:38 Ministers, Ministers are very, it’s worth it, sometimes cultivating a Minister, but it depends how they react how amenable they are err but decision-makers really, well, in one big sense are, is the civil service structure, because they do all the definition of how you’re going to deliver on a particular project, they draw up the invitation to tender, they then make all the recommendations, which (...INAUDIBLE...) Ministers may accept/go across a Minister’s desk. CW Yeah. AI 00:25:05 And Ministers can say, “I’m not happy with this,” but ministers will not the (...INAUDIBLE...) and won’t do the selection. They will have a recommendation and it has to be made clean, because if a Minister says, “I’m, you know, I’m not accepting this, I’m going for that company,” well, you really can’t because you don’t, you’re not carrying the, you’re not carrying risk, (...INAUDIBLE...) carrying risk here. And, and, and so therefore it’s exactly, that’s what I’m saying (...INAUDIBLE...) that civil servants are very important as a second and third, third layer. CW And presumably you have good contacts with them from when you were a Minister. AI 00:25:38 Oh yeah. CW And how does it work? Is the best thing to do, you know, you just kind of—, you call them up and just say, “Oh I’d like to see you about something,” or, I don’t know, the best way to um contact the civil service. AI 00:25:50 Well, the reason the reason, because I’ve not been doing this as an MP err I’ve not want to state err I’ve not, I’ve not really been doing that, for obvious reasons, because really, if you do that they should record it. CW Oh right. AI 00:26:05 And then, if you have therefore for my request (...INAUDIBLE...) suffers (...INAUDIBLE...) with me as a Member of Parliament that I have a business that I’m engaged in, and that’s who you will be. CW Right, okay. AI 00:26:15 I so, I don’t know. And I know shouldn’t lobby, but, yes, that’s what you would do, you would, you would find a way to network and then just say, “Look, I wouldn’t mind having a chat with you. Come for lunch, come for dinner.” But, you know,...
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CW But would that be, if that’s such an issue for you, once you’ve stepped down as a MP, AI 00:26:34 No, no it’s (...INAUDIBLE...) CW Okay. AI 00:26:36 ‘Cause you’re a private citizen, you’re no longer, all you’re doing is raising your, your, your street cred err and your points of contact. And err just trying to, you know, working for particular clients ... could be useful if—, maybe if you met, talked about things. The problem is, if there is a invitation to tender and there’s a err, you know, a contract in place or whatever, they then will meet, and ministers will never meet ... companies applying for a contract. A Minister should never meet just one on one. CW Right. AI 00:27:14 Definitely... CW So in actual fact you want to be meeting them way before bidding for contracts? AI 00:27:20 Actually you can have, you can look at what is coming up, you know, once the, once the guys are doing a chassis for a particular type of vehicle , you know that we’re finding the procurement scheme for replacement for all our vehicles, (...INAUDIBLE...) say, “You know, this is coming out.” So that’s the point at which you then start to get, the point of view across. And it’s not impossible about (?) the meeting Ministers if you do it early enough, but Ministers are not necessarily decision-makers. CW Yeah. AI 00:27:55 The other key to anything like that is where the jobs are. If you’re bringing, if you’re trying to bid for a major contract, how many jobs you are bringing to the UK. So if you’re off-shoring, even if you’re the cheapest, it will be set against the onshore, It’s the jobs and there is that. CW Yeah, it’s a useful thing to think about, isn’t it, so. AI 00:28:16 ...all this. CW You might want to partner up with someone in the UK. AI 00:28:19 That’s what I say you, you can partner up for joint ventures or something else, you know, you risk sharing all that (....(...INAUDIBLE...)...) anyway, you know. So it’s a, you know, it’s an American chassis, but it’s somebody else’s (...INAUDIBLE...) somebody you know, so. But it’s getting the best product that fits, at the end of the day. It seems to me that the jobs are important, but what is the best product, especially, especially if you’re providing them for the armed forces. They need the best equipment for armed forces. It needs to work all the time. CW Yes, yes exactly, it can’t be breaking. AI 00:28:52 And, you know, if it’s body armour, whatever else, yeah if they stop the bullets a best they can, there’s no point seeing this as a new technology, yeah. CW No, exactly. AI 00:29:00 It should stop the bullets. CW Yeah, does it work? AI 00:29:02 ... CW Yeah, I think that is the most important thing. Okay great, so you would be able to help us develop our relationship with the ministers and civil servants, ‘cause that’s—, AI 00:29:10 I could work at that yeah. CW Great, because it’s quite hard for me, as Claire Webster to call up as Anderson Perry because of course they’ve never heard of me. AI 00:29:17 No. CW And that’s something that I think the American board would be quite pleased to see, that we can help with on the UK board. AI 00:29:26 Yeah. CW Because it’s helping us kind of fill in a skill shortage, if you like, I suppose.
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AI 00:29:31 Yeah. CW Well that’s really um a positive thought. And also, just your understanding of the way a department works I imagine will be incredibly useful. AI 00:29:39 Yeah, and in fact what you can ask someone, kind of how this works, “Can you give me the wind-down?” The best thing is just to get a wind-down, you know, who is, because every, every department tends to do it differently in its procurement structures. CW Oh right. AI 00:29:55 There’s an increasing tendency, for Government to try a standard approach, but again, best cross-fertilisation so if you are buying an IT system, don’t reinvent the wheel. CW No. AI 00:30:07 Yeah. Or you’re buying whatever it is, you know, don’t, don’t start trying to (...INAUDIBLE...) communication systems. First of all (...INAUDIBLE...) is it compatible with anyone else’s foreign system. CW Yes, exactly. Is it going to work in practice? AI 00:30:23 When there was err one big department was going to procure the comms system, that was incompatible to the emergency responder, they nearly bought it. And people kept going, yeah but they can’t, maybe you can. May be you can knit them together. Audio file M2U00152 AI It was just not compatible because it was set different standards and that was abandoned to the point of signing in the contract. CW 00:00:05 Oh really. AI And, and then it was, it, and I sat at the table the planning table thing and it wasn’t, (...INAUDIBLE...) cross corresponding err, and some of us were putting their bets/backs(?) up, if it doesn’t talk, then don’t buy. CW Yeah, don’t spend more. AI 00:00:19 It’s too far down the road, don’t spend hundreds of millions of pounds on something that doesn’t work. CW Don’t spend more. AI 00:00:25 Because of course it will cost a £100 million to fix it. CW Yeah. AI You are either going to have to abandon it and you’ll have to go out and (...INAUDIBLE...) the official as well (...INAUDIBLE...) and of course industry, industry was a bit disreputable because it was quick to sell anything. Err, now, now there is more open accounting between companies and Government, so it’s, there tends to be more honesty. CW Yeah. AI 00:00:47 Err, and more transparency and yeah you can’t do this, and you can’t do that then the gain share, profit share that type of thing. You know so if you actually may start to be making a lot of money, then the department should get a share of that, simple thing so that that, that... CW It seems quite fair doesn’t it. AI 00:01:06 And best practice is now beginning to prevail across governments, the Government of, err, what is it...the department (...INAUDIBLE...) of Government commerce (...INAUDIBLE...) um, the problem is a new incoming Government may just change all this (...INAUDIBLE...) CW Yeah that’s one thing I was going to ask you actually, how much effect do you think it will have if the...?
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AI 00:01:27 Well you don’t know until they start doing it, you know because what ministers like to do and what you also have is people within the system who’ve got set ideas, and err, you’re just hoping for a new Minister (...INAUDIBLE...) I’m going to try this, (...INAUDIBLE...) who’s (...INAUDIBLE...) by another civil servant and this is really my idea, and I 00:01:51 think you get that Minister saying this is a great idea, let’s go down that route. And see if you can find changes that maybe for the better, may not be err, but, but any, any new Minister who comes in, wants to make his mark, and he’s not going to settle for saying we’ll just take anything.
CW No of course yeah. AI 00:02:03 Got to look for new ideas and initiatives and um, but really the sort of sector you’re in is really at that you know, if the top health care provision the you know, private sector. Well if the Tories win, they’re going to go more for this and there’s no question at all the health budget, it’s a bloated budget, it’s 00:02:23 not an official budget. I’ve never worked in health err, and it’s a monumentally difficult area to work in because it’s just, it just consumes money err, it just eats money um, just because of medical science and what we do and so on. And err, so again it’s a bit like Defence, if you can, if you can strip away things which really you shouldn’t be doing, err, so you’re making the best use of the money that is available to you.
CW With the money you have got. AI 00:02:50 Increasingly, increasingly (...INAUDIBLE...) is the name of the game. I’m hoping that labour no question about that, but it maybe (...INAUDIBLE...) the door, (...INAUDIBLE...) and then the other issue which you can put into that is the public service unions (?)who are, who again have become very big and affected by public expenditure (...INAUDIBLE...) to downsize they say 00:03:16 you can’t really (...INAUDIBLE...) oh yes you can, but then it goes...
CW Yes they’ll be very resistant to it won’t they yeah? AI Yeah because, because I mean I’ve trade union background I was a trade unionist for ten years, to officials (...INAUDIBLE...) negotiating (...INAUDIBLE...) public sector, err, and all of the unions have just tried to put their membership up because your job depends on the size of the membership. CW Yeah of course. AI 00:03:40 So if you’re (...INAUDIBLE...) CW You don’t need so many of you, yeah. AI (...INAUDIBLE...) bad news. Good to go err, and so but, but the civil servant unions tend to (...INAUDIBLE...), they are noisy in one sense but in terms of delivering on the street, they don’t really deliver. It’s all noise, noises off. CW Yeah. AI 00:04:06 But anyway, anyway there’s a whole range of issues that you then have to attend to as change takes place. Change is the one thing people don’t like and then when they get to it, they get to the new plateau they say right this is great. And don’t change this again. CW No exactly, never go back. AI 00:04:25 Don’t go back there. So um, and I think, I think there is a difference in American culture, this country and again so because we’re so much tied to the European regulations and all this, we have increasing problems because of (...INAUDIBLE...) changes, European relationship but some of the employment laws and so on, will change you know the consultation before you do things.
CW Yes. AI 00:04:48 Err, but that’s, that’s a way down the (...INAUDIBLE...)
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CW Do you think um, a Conservative Government will change your role on the advisory board at all, do you think it will affect you or the things you can deliver? AI 00:04:58 No my guess is that I have enough credibility because the territory I was in, defence have in fact, there is, there’s one person who’s likely to become the defence Minister in the Tory administration, says once you (?) become Minister wants to come and talk to me because I’ll give him good advice. CW Oh really. AI I said yes I’ll do that err, breaking all the rules but I want to see the department well run, I don’t care who’s running it, as long as it’s well run, I 00:05:25 feel so much for the guys. Um, so, and I, and I tend to talk to people and I talk to Tory opposition members to say “let’s think about that”
CW Yeah. AI 00:05:32 (...INAUDIBLE...) good governance. I want to see my money spent properly. CW I know so do we all. AI 00:05:42 So I don’t know if that’s of interest to you. CW Yeah it is of interest, one thing that we need to discuss is always tricky, is I don’t know what you’re thinking in terms of err, remuneration for... AI 00:05:50 I haven’t been thinking of anything, cos I don’t know what you’ve asked me to do yet. CW Well if we just look at the um, idea of being on the advisory board and doing a meeting every other err, month for the first instance, um, do you have a, a figure in mind, I don’t know whether it’s a kind of day rate figure or a yearly figure. AI 00:06:06 Well it kind of varies between err, I tend to focus it on the type of company it is err and err, in actual fact what, what I do is public property anyway so I’m not, so, one of my directorships, it’s a thousand pounds for a meeting, and another it’s fifteen hundred pounds a day, and you know that’s what consultancy (...INAUDIBLE...) charge (...INAUDIBLE...) difference (?) 00:06:31 setting up a board meeting. Err, and you do a variety of things and you then have to think about more complex issues um, so you, round about that sort of territory (...INAUDIBLE...) two thousand pounds, so I have two/three (?) companies associated with Libya, and they’re each two thousand pounds.
CW A day? AI 00:06:51 That’s, that’s a month, that’s a month. But um, err, but we just have an arrangement, something I don’t even do a day, and I just... CW But that’s a retainer presumably then yeah? AI 00:07:06 And I (...INAUDIBLE...) non executive Chairman. Directors all come together (...INAUDIBLE...) I’m non-executive. They are all executive. They pay me over the period, two thousand pounds (...INAUDIBLE...) but also using me to meet some of the client base, also, err, points of contact. CW 00:07:27 Well that sounds quite similar, same kind of thing, so maybe um, that would be err, the right amount if you would be happy with that. The only reason I’m asking you AI Plus VAT. CW Of course and your expenses. The reason I’m asking now is because when I feed back to the States, of course that’s one of the things I will bear in mind err, what the different err, levels of um. AI 00:07:46 I’m negotiable with that. CW Yes and as are we actually um, I think for us it’s about getting the right kind of people um, and as you say you have very good err, points of contact within Government and I think that’s something that would appeal. And the board... AI 00:07:59 You can’t have different members getting different rates as well, that becomes, I think that becomes an issue.
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CW Yes I... AI 00:08:05 (...INAUDIBLE...) legal knowledge and... CW Yes though I think, I think it’s better, apart from obviously the chair, I think the chair would expect to get um, more um, for all the board members to be on the same but if they were doing extra err, work so it wasn’t for the board the you would have err, a pro rata rate, like a daily rate essentially that you would um, supplement if they were doing, you know if they did five days a 00:08:31 month, rather than the standard two. then obviously you’d want to err, reflect that. And I would imagine there would be some err, trips every now and again to the States to meet clients and what they do, and meeting every so often there. Um, but does it sound broadly the kind of thing you’d be interested in doing? AI 00:08:44 Yeah it does and I like the idea of the six month review I would be happy with that because I’m of the basis that I’m not going to take money for nothing (...INAUDIBLE...) make sure I put something back in, and err, (...INAUDIBLE...) my own personal integrity, if I am not adding value I am not doing my job. CW Yeah what are you doing? AI 00:09:02 And err, so you’re right, the six month, it’s not too short, it’s a start up.... (...INAUDIBLE...).... but err, you know you think start up is maybe not the best thing to join it’s maybe... CW No I know and I think you just have to kind of see how it’s going don’t you and just have conversations err, in order to assess it, you don’t have to kind of have a formal review, how are things? AI 00:09:22 And then of course recruiting the board together (...INAUDIBLE...) if there are people who don’t know each other they... CW Yes they’ve got time to gel yeah. AI (...INAUDIBLE...) CW Yes. AI (...INAUDIBLE...) objective of the request is (?) CW 00:09:38 No I think that’s right err, and that may well take a little while to kind of warm up and to see what everyone’s strengths are really you know. AI Okay. CW It takes time. 00:09:46 And in terms of um, how quickly you could err, start, so it sounds like the beginning of May for you after the election. AI 00:09:53 Well immediately after the election, any time, you know any time from well the election date is the 6th of May, and I’ll be busy, I’ll be campaigning up to then err, and (...INAUDIBLE...) my successor and err, so that’s, putting my intense effort in there um, and (...INAUDIBLE...) It’ll go so very quickly but the election period has happened too soon. CW Yeah. AI 00:10:13 Now that that... CW Yeah how do you feel about standing down? AI 00:10:16 Ah well, I, I made my mind up at the last election, I only told, my wife knew and err, my election agent who, who I wanted to be my successor (...INAUDIBLE...) getting, having been prepared to be the fall man and err, but I didn’t announce it till a year ago err, you know so I’m, I kind of made my mental adjustment I was going to go. CW 00:10:37 Yeah you had some time to get your head around it
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AI And err, and but I was still two years, I was still two years as a Minister doing (...INAUDIBLE...) so there’s no way of announcing (...INAUDIBLE...) at the beginning of 2007 I thought well just because I was (...INAUDIBLE...) ending the study err, I thought mm, I’m not going to announce it now, and I kind of waited till the study was out, 00:11:03 (...INAUDIBLE...) and that then gave a clear indication. my successor was only appointed two or three weeks ago. CW Oh right. AI There’s a lot going on in the Parliamentary state, that’s a big thing (...INAUDIBLE...) CW Yeah I imagine. AI Because you have six hundred and fifty people, and out of sixty million, and you have a status even with all the stuff as an MP, I’m you know, 00:11:29 (...INAUDIBLE...) as you know but um, you know I’ve been very angry with my colleagues because they’re ripped the system off and I was warning a lot of the time this will come back and bite you, you should not be doing this err, and it was a bit of a let down, I was kind of Presbyterian creature, all fire and damnation err, but I didn’t know the extent, I thought it was, and very few of us did, and then we saw it I thought this is absolutely outrageous.
00:11:50 We are all damaged by it. CW Yeah that’s what the shame is really isn’t it? AI 00:11:54 And so you’ve got the bulk is, probably half of MPs have are, are just operating the system properly err, and, and you know not to the limit but just properly applied it, some of them have been forced to pay back money (...INAUDIBLE...) the rules. I wasn’t asked to do any of that stuff and err, and I run a very tight ship in terms of the money I spend, so I’m always um, a user of all the allowances, not just your personal allowance but all the overall in terms of staff and ... CW All the extra things you’re allowed yeah. AI 00:12:42 (...INAUDIBLE...). all over the country, and, and 2008, 2009 period. so you know I tried to, I tried to run it in a pretty tight way, and um, but we are damaged by the whole thing.
CW Well I think it’s such a shame actually cos unfortunately the public just remember the bad cases. AI Yeah. CW 00:12:53 Err, and I think that’s quite sad. AI And I expect so you’ll go back to the impression that you sort of (...INAUDIBLE...) I’m pretty sickened by their conduct and I’ve watched people who are in denial. Some of them say oh the system’s all wrong, I’ve 00:13:09 been caught by the system you know and I’ve said well, you’ve created the problem. We all created it by not being, not sitting on not getting a hold on the problem. CW Yeah. AI 00:13:18 Some of us, some of them knew more than others, everyone you knew it was not done properly and no one said “fix this” and there was a big cover up err, and because people who knew the excesses that were going on err did not want that to surface because it was people who were next in line who were going to be judged. CW Yeah. AI 00:13:41 Err, and then of course it was (...INAUDIBLE...) much lower than that. CW Yeah. AI 00:13:50 So I mean I’ve, I’m coming (...INAUDIBLE...) CW Well that’s good. I’m sure your own constituents are rather happy with you?
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AI 00:13:58 Yeah they are, and the press come on the news and they say things you know, I’ve rented property ever since I’ve been in London (...INAUDIBLE...) I did it when (...INAUDIBLE...) public money and err, and then you buy things for the flat you know, and it was (...INAUDIBLE...) I mean you’ve got to have knives and forks. CW Yes exactly. AI 00:14:20 I haven’t bought anything for ten years (...INAUDIBLE...) given us, cos that is our second home, we need, and it’s not luxury. CW No exactly especially I think that you’re renting, that I would imagine your constituents must be quite happy with that. AI 00:14:32 Very happy yes. CW Cos it’s not like you’re making money on property. AI 00:14:35 And I’d have felt terribly guilty if I been, if I had got twenty three years on my mortgage. CW Exactly. AI I would have been in a million pound house, you know and err and you think “maybe I should...”(...INAUDIBLE...) I just, I just didn’t want to do it. CW Yeah. AI 00:14:51 I was just not comfortable with it. CW Yeah. AI And there was a lot of (...INAUDIBLE...) there was a you know, I will never forget this, trying to buy the leases of long term residence and I was offered forty two thousand pounds for my lease and I said no I’m not doing it. And there’s other colleagues (...INAUDIBLE...) take the money. CW I know. AI 00:15:10 I said “you’re not entitled to that money” because it’s not best, it, it’s it’s not yours, the rent is someone else, and then you take that as a windfall. It’s not right. And err, (...INAUDIBLE...) CW It probably is the best policy really isn’t it. AI 00:15:29 It’s just personal integrity. Yeah I think so it’s been tricky and a shame. AI But they’re not A paragon of virtue. CW No they’re definitely not. AI I’m not sitting on the board (?)... CW 00:15:39 Once you stand down um, as an MP, I think you said that you wouldn’t need to get any um, future kind of consultancy stuff cleared, is that right? AI 00:15:47 That’s correct. CW I don’t really know how it works. AI I’ve been long enough away from being a Minister now so I don’t need to seek approval. CW Right. AI 00:15:53 Err, you know so there’s no, there’s no conflict of interest and so all that, and I’m a private citizen. I mean if I was a Minister now, leaving in May, then there would be a gap, but you (...INAUDIBLE...) CW 00:16:07 Okay well that’s good to know, it’s useful just in case, I don’t think they, the people in the US will ask, but just in case they do. AI Well they have very tough laws on that as well as you probably know. CW 00:16:15 Yes, yeah. AI So and you usually have to sign documents, because the HD err, EDS had to sign that law, the disclaimers about (...INAUDIBLE...) corruption and bribery and all that sort of stuff. CW It was amazing actually, I always find it surprising that so many documents that we need to sign sometimes. AI 00:16:33 Well it’s about saying you, you’re operating proper standards. CW Yeah. AI In fact there was, there was a bill passed today, that the (...INAUDIBLE...)
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passed my detail over (...INAUDIBLE...) in the UK parliament um, err, the Bribery Act. CW Oh really. AI 00:16:46 Yeah and that’s, I think. CW That must be quite interesting. AI (...INAUDIBLE...) CW Some good bedtime reading. AI (...INAUDIBLE...) I would say, (...INAUDIBLE...) pick up the description of the Bill but I think that’s on the same territory, it’s all about err, how people, how individuals should operate and how companies should operate. CW Oh that’s interesting. AI 00:17:07 And providing standards CW Yeah, yeah I think that’s right. Well over the next err, week and a half I imagine, I’ll be talking to err, the people in the states and I’ll be drawing up a short list so I’ll probably give you a call in the next week and a bit or so, um, and just let you know when people are coming over from the states and just keep you informed. AI Okay. CW 00:17:24 Um, and maybe you know hopefully we can meet again and talk about how to, the best things um, best. Um, we’ve got each other’s um, e-mail address I think, so um, yeah just drop me an e-mail um, if you have any further thoughts or whatever. AI 00:17:38 Okay I will. You, you contact me when it’s comfortable again, if they want to speak to me. CW Yeah, yeah I will. I really appreciate you coming here, I’m sorry about the slight change in err, time, I thought it would much nicer for you to be able to come here a bit earlier. AI No I was quite happy to do that yeah. CW 00:17:52 Okay really nice to meet you. AI What did you do before you came here? CW 00:17:56 I just worked in PR actually for an agency AI Just CW I know just, um, for an agency um, on Great Titchfield street, so not very far away. We kind of had um, it was a, oh a number of clients actually which is quite nice when you work for quite a big agency, because then you get to do 00:18:15 lots of varied stuff which is good. did you put your coat in the cupboard, alright, really nice to meet you, take care I’ll be in touch shortly, soon, okay bye. AI (...INAUDIBLE...) BACKGROUND NOISE CW 00:24:14 Yeah, yeah fine. Great CW Do you want me to help you? End of interview.
142. Letter to the Commissioner from Rt Hon Adam Ingram, 28 June 2010
I refer to your letter of 31 March 2010 enclosing a copy of the complaint you had received from Greg Hands MP, dated 28 March 2010, and to your subsequent letter of 2 June enclosing a copy of the certified transcripts of the telephone conversation of 1 March 2010 and the subsequent interview I had with the undercover reporter from the Sunday Times. You set out Mr Hands’ complaint as follows: “In essence, the complaint is that you may have been engaged in lobbying activities in a way which is contrary to the rules of the House; that your conduct during an interview with a person who subsequently revealed
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herself as a journalist was contrary to the rules; that your conduct was not such as to maintain or strengthen the public’s trust in the integrity of Parliament; and that it brought the House of Commons into disrepute”. In his letter, Mr Hands stated: “The Rt Hon Member for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow, Adam Ingram, admitted that he had used his contacts and experience to help a construction company he worked for carry out a defence project in Libya: “Gadafi wanted a defence academy built, and people I’m with have got very good points of contact with the Libyan regime. Also, responding to a question posed by the undercover reporter about whether he could use his experience to develop relationships with ministers and civil servants, he said: “I’d do that”. Let me now deal with these points before responding to the specific questions in your letters of 31 March and 2 June. (1) It is clearly stated in the Guidelines of Business Appointments System for Former Ministers, under Annex A, that: “It is in the public interest that former Ministers with experience in Government should be able to move into business....”. I would maintain that all of my actions and activities, since leaving Ministerial office in 2007, are wholly consistent with that guidance. Furthermore, I have fully complied with the requirement to seek advice and to properly register my business interests with the appropriate House authorities, at all times. (2) It was made clear to the undercover reporter that I did not believe it appropriate to carry out lobbying activities while I remained a Member of Parliament nor have I ever done so since leaving Ministerial office in 2007. The Sunday Times article accepted this in their report. In the run-up to the interview, a Freedom of Information (F01) request was submitted to the Ministry of Defence in relation to the companies with which I have a registered relationship. I assume the FOI request had been submitted by the undercover Sunday Times reporter or someone acting on her behalf. I attach a copy of the FOI request and the MOD’s response, at Appendix 1.. The record is clear on this point. For the avoidance of doubt, I did not lobby on behalf of any companies I was considering working with after I left Parliament. (3) I do not accept that my “conduct” during the interview was contrary to the rules. I expand on this later in this submission. (4) If the public had been made aware by the Sunday Times that it is perfectly acceptable, indeed, in the public interest, for former Ministers to “move into business” that may have helped their readership better understand the nature of my engagement in seeking employment after I left Parliament. In working within the spirit and meaning of that guideline, I do not accept that I brought the House of Commons “into disrepute”. Mr Hands claims that I “admitted” to using my “contacts and experience” to help a construction company I worked for “carry out a defence project in Libya”. You also ask a specific question on this point. Libya is a country of strategic and economic importance to the UK. There are many UK companies which have major business interests in Libya. While Mr Hands may have chosen to word his statement in a particular way for his own political purposes, I am at a loss to understand what he is insinuating. It is in the UK’s national interest to engage with Libya. My work for these companies, which are part of a consortium bringing valuable business to the UK, was fully and properly registered. The efforts of these companies were fully supported by the UK Embassy in Libya. The transcript shows that I did not “admit” to what Mr Hands alleges. For the avoidance of doubt, I have no points of contact in Libya gained through my time as a Minister or as a Member of Parliament. I never visited the country nor met with any representatives of the country during my time as a Minister or as a Member of Parliament. The point I was making, as set out in the transcript, was that people in the companies with which I was associated had good points of contact in Libya. Mr Hands quotes a statement I allegedly made to the undercover reporter, viz. “I’d do that” in relation to using my “experience to develop relationships with Ministers and civil servants”. I did not make that statement, as the transcript shows. I deal further with this point later in my submission. I now turn to your letter of 31 March and set out my response to the five questions you raise. (Al) My researcher in my office in Portcullis House was contacted by Claire Webster purporting to be acting on behalf of a company which wanted to discuss with me the prospect of my taking on a paid role as a member of an Advisory Board which was being set up. I did not initially return the call. A further call was made to my researcher in my Portcullis House office and this was relayed to my secretary in my constituency office. She passed the information to me and I did a preliminary check on the internet and with Companies House on the company’s name—“Anderson Perry”. On the face of it, the company appeared
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to be a bona fide organisation. Claire Webster was subsequently advised to call me which she did on I March. The transcript sets out the arrangements which were made for me to meet with her. (A2a) To the best of my recollection, I confirm the statement made, This is confirmed in page 40 of the transcript. Given the fact that under the guidelines of the Appointments System for Former Ministers it is in the public interest that “former Ministers with experience in Government should be able to move into business...”, it would not be unusual for former Ministerial colleagues to maintain points of contact if they had mutual interests to pursue. This statement was made in the context of my being asked to possibly give advice outside of my knowledge base. Again, I do not think there is anything remiss in contacting former Ministerial colleagues for advice on personalities and structures within a particular Department. I do not accept that I was in any way suggesting that a formal network be set up to be used “to arrange contacts”. (A2b) I set out later in this submission the extent of my contacts with civil servants after leaving Ministerial office in 2007. In the words I used, I was expressing a statement of fact that it is the civil service structure which brings together particular procurement decisions. It is therefore desirable for companies to make themselves known to civil servants and to Ministers. This is normal practice and one adopted by companies involved in a procurement process. Many of those who do this on behalf of companies may indeed be former civil servants or Ministers. I did not have contact with civil servants on behalf of clients and did not lobby on their behalf. If I had done so I would have declared an interest as appropriate. (A2c) I did not claim that I was helping to put together a consortium to bid for work which the MOD outsources to private companies. The transcript merely confirms my knowledge of what was being put together, not that I was at that stage actively part of it or instrumental in it. The background is that I had been contacted by a business acquaintance outlining what he was putting together and enquiring as to whether I would be interested in becoming involved after I left Parliament. I have done no work for this project and I have no knowledge of its maturity. I have received no payment and have had no contact with Ministers or civil servants about the project. It was a short discussion about a possible future appointment after I left Parliament. (A2d) I have two registered interests with companies which have been successful, as part of a wider UK consortium, in winning a contract for the design and planning phase of an Engineering/Defence Academy for the Libyan Government. I provided advice on the range of activities undertaken in the UK in this area. The payments I received were properly registered. I was never involved in meetings with Ministers or civil servants on behalf of the clients. If I had been, these would have been registered, as appropriate. (A2e) The “Academy” has not been built and it therefore has not been populated by the students or instructors/teachers. There is a future prospect that another company with which I am involved and in which my interest has been registered, is likely to have an interest in obtaining contracts in this area. I have never been involved in meetings with Ministers or civil servants on behalf of my clients in this regard. (A2f) I registered all companies with which I have been involved. All potential earnings were also properly registered as required. I enclose a copy of the letter sent by my solicitors to the Sunday Times, at Appendix 2. I maintain that I have, at all times, properly registered all companies with which I have a financial interest. I have not undertaken any other registerable work, paid or unpaid, outside of those companies listed in my Register of Interests. I have said nothing untrue, therefore the question is not relevant. I now turn to your letter of 2 June and the six questions raised. (Al) The list of the companies I worked for in 2009–10 are as per those listed in Appendix 1. They were fully registered in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I wish to make it clear that I was working with EDS as a consultant, not in my capacity as a Member of Parliament. I had agreed with the company that the best mutual date to review my on-going contract was when I was standing down as a Member of Parliament. It was a natural review date because I was looking at my retirement options in terms of the amount of time I would be in London.
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EDS was acquired by Hewlett Packard during this time. I continued to provide consultancy advice to EDS. New senior executives had been appointed with whom I met almost immediately prior to the Dissolution of Parliament. I continue to be available to give advice to the company when requested to do so. Following my standing down as a Minister in June 2007, I was asked by the Prime Minister to head-up a study into Defence’s Contribution to Counter-Terrorism and Resilience. This was in an unpaid capacity. During that time, I had extensive contact with civil servants across Whitehall. I presented my Report to the Prime Minister in the autumn of 2008. From October 2009, I undertook an Audit of my Report which, again, brought me into contact with civil servants. I reported to the Prime Minister in March 2010. I also undertook a range of unpaid activities at the request of the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), the Royal College of Defence Studies (RCDS) and the Defence Academy at Shrivenham. Civil servants would have been involved in those events. In addition, I spoke to PhD students at Kings College, London, on my role and time as a Defence Minister. I have not maintained any other relationships, formal or informal, with senior civil servants, and certainly not in order to recommend them for future employment opportunities once they had left the civil service. I have provided references, on a limited number of occasions, at the request of individuals who were seeking employment after leaving Government service. (A4) The interview had been set up to discuss my possible engagement as a member of an advisory board. Despite having no experience of doing what I was being asked to do on a paid basis, I could envisage seeking to speak to ministers or civil servants or to participate in meetings about a client’s interests. My failure to elaborate further, as the transcript bears out, was probably because I was considering the practicalities of such an approach. I do not accept the emphasis put on it by the undercover journalist or by Greg Hands, and, in any event, it would have been undertaken after I left Parliament. The words I used—“I could work at that”—have a very different meaning to the fabricated quote by the undercover journalist—“I’d do that”. The subsequent exchange with the undercover journalist involved my making non-committal responses to her leading suggestions. (A5) The discussion on this point was about providing advice, on request, on my experience as a Defence Minister. I would have been prepared to do so because I care about good governance and about the Ministry of Defence. I was not suggesting that such a contact would be used in the way phrased in your question. For the record, the individual concerned was not appointed as a Coalition Government Minister. (A6) I cannot confirm the exact date of the interview. In conclusion, I reiterate the points made earlier that I have complied with the rules and regulations laid down by the House authorities, in relation to my business appointments. I always erred on the side of caution in all of my dealings. The evidence of the FOI request clearly shows that I did not breach the rules and regulations relating to lobbying. I participated in the interview on the basis that I was being considered as a member of an advisory board although clearly there was an underlying agenda of entrapment. I do not believe I offered to do anything as a Member of Parliament which would have required me to register an interest. There was no formal follow-up to the initial interview and no formal offer made of employment in any capacity relating to my time as a Member of Parliament. As a consequence, I believe that the complaint made by Greg Hands is unfounded and should be dismissed.
28 June 2010
143. Extract from response from Ministry of Defence to Freedom of Information Request, 26 February 2010
26 February 2010 Dear [name] Thank you for your e-mail dated 25 January which is being treated as a request for information under the Freedom of Information (F01) Act 2000. You asked: 1) From the 1st May 2001 until 29 June 2007 please can you provide details of all meetings (including dates, agendas and minutes) and correspondence including letters, e-mails, notes of telephone conversations and memos) between Adam Ingram MP (and/or his political advisors, secretaries) and: a) Signpoint Secure LTD b) International School for Security and Explosives Education (ISSEE) Argus Scotland Ltd
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d) Argus Libya UK LLP e) Electronic Data Systems (EDS) 2) Details of any communication and/or meetings between the Department and Adam Ingram MP since the 29th June 2007 specifically in regards to: a) Signpoint Secure LTD b) International School for Security and Explosives Education (ISSEE) c) Argus Scotland Ltd d) Argus Libya UK LLP e) Electronic Data Systems (EDS) 1) Ingram Advisory LTD 3) Details of any communication and/or meetings since 29 June 2007 between the Ministry of Defence Department and: a) Signpoint Secure LTD b) International School for Security and Explosives Education (ISSEE) c) Argus Scotland Ltd d) Argus Libya UK LLP e) Electronic Data Systems (EDS) f) Ingram Advisory Ltd 4) Details of any contracts made since 29th June 2007 between the Department and: a) Signpoint Secure LTD h) International School for Security and Explosives Education (ISSEE) c Argus Scotland Ltd d) Argus Libya UK LLP e) Electronic Data Systems (EDS) f) Ingram Advisory Ltd ... ln response to your first question, the records relating to meetings and correspondence are only held from 2004 onwards. Between 1 January 2004 and 29 June 2007 there were no meetings or correspondence between Adam Ingram MP or his office. In response to questions 2 and 3, there has been no communications or meetings between Adam Ingram MP and Departmental Ministers since 29 June 2007 regarding any of these companies. Any communications between the Ministry of Defence (MOD) and those companies not involving Ministers could only be identified at disproportionate cost. This is because while Ministerial diaries and correspondence can readily be searched, it is not possible to do this on a Departmental wide basis. It has been assessed that the costs for which we are permitted to charge in providing this information will exceed the appropriate limit. This limit is specified in FOI regulations and for central government is set at £600. This represents the estimated cost of one person spending three and a half working days in determining whether the Department holds the information, and locating, retrieving and extracting it. The MOD does not maintain a central record of all meetings (including dates, agendas and minutes) and correspondence including letters, e-mails, notes of telephone conversations and memos) and the effort required obtaining this information and then assessing whether any of the resulting information can be released or falls within the remit of any exemptions under the FOI Act, would exceed the limit as explained above. Under the terms of the FOI Act, this means that we are not obliged to comply with this aspect of your request. In response to your final question, since 29 June 2007 one contract has been placed with ISSEE. The value of the contract was less than £10,000. I am withholding further details of the contract under s.43 of the FOI Act (Commercial interests). As this is a qualified exemption I am required to carry out a public interest test. There is a general public interest in not releasing specific contract values, as to do so could inhibit our ability to deliver best value for money for the taxpayer; it could also compromise individual companies' commercial position. On the other hand, there are public interest arguments in favour of transparency in MOD's commercial dealings. I judge that these considerations can be satisfactorily balanced by releasing the general contract information set out above.
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26 February 2010
144. Letter to Rt Hon Adam Ingram from the Commissioner, 1 July 2010
Thank you for your letter of 28 June responding to my letters of 31 March and 2 June about this complaint in respect of the interview which you gave to an undercover reporter earlier this year. I was most grateful for this response. There are some points which it raises and on which I would be grateful for your further help. They are: 1. You say at point 1 of your letter that you have “fully complied with the requirement to seek advice and to properly register my business interests with the appropriate House authorities, at all times.” Could you let me know what advice you have sought, from whom, and whether that advice related to the nature of your outside employment when you were a Member of Parliament? 2. In relation to the alleged network of former Ministers, could you let me know whether you have used your contacts with Ministers, former Ministers or civil servants in order to advise any of your clients about structures and people in a government department? 3. On the same point, you say that you do not accept that you were in any way suggesting that a formal network be set up. In the light of that, I am having some difficulty in interpreting the point you made on page 40 of the transcript: “some are going to lose their seats and they’re become a point of contact in the political network … so all of that … can be established … it can take a bit of time to build those blocks …” Can you help me on why it should not be inferred from this that you were suggesting a network of contacts of former MPs (and in particular ex-Ministers) which you would build over time? 4. In A2b you say that you “did not have contact with civil servants on behalf of clients”. I see that the FOI request did not identify any contact you had with Ministers. My original question was about contacts with Ministers as well as civil servants, so I would be grateful if you could let me know whether you had any contact with Ministers from 2007 on behalf of any of your clients or on matters which might be of assistance to those clients. 5. In A2d you say that the payments you received from the company in a contract for the engineering/defence academy for the Libyan Government were properly registered. Could you confirm which of your Register entries this statement related to? Am I right in thinking it was Argus Libya UK? 6. Similarly, under A2e you note that your interest in the company providing instructors/teachers for the Libyan engineering/defence academy had been registered. Could you help me by identifying the Register entry in respect of that company? 7. You say in answer to point 2 of my letter of 2 June that you were working with EDS as a consultant and not in your capacity as an MP. I have consulted the Registrar of Members’ Financial Interests about this. She tells me that you registered a salary band and deposited an agreement for the provision of services for EDS. I enclose a copy of the relevant Register entry and agreement. These fulfill the requirements of the rules for those undertaking work in the capacity of an MP. (I enclose a copy of the relevant extract from the Guide to the Rules.) Could you explain how you reconcile this with your statement that you were not working in your capacity as an MP? And could you give me a little more detail about the work you carried out for EDS? The agreement you deposited contains only the information required by the rules of the House: did you also have a contract with EDS, and if so may I see it? Finally could you let me know whether you are currently paid a retainer by EDS so that they can draw on your services, and whether you continue to have a contract with them? 8. In answer to point 3 in my letter of 2 June, you say that you have not maintained any other relationships, formal or informal, with senior civil servants, and certainly not in order to recommend them for future employment. Could you help me in reconciling that statement with what you say at pages 35 and 36 of the transcript, where you say, during a discussion on civil servants who might be approached for the fictional advisory board: “I think I know all of them and … some of them are very good strategic planners, good thinkers, and well-trained in command and control … and just think logically.” And on page 36: “There’s a lot duffers in there but I’ve got some there in mind”. Does that not suggest that you were offering to identify possible members for the advisory board from recently retired civil servants whom you knew in a Government department, which I take to be the Ministry of Defence? 9. In relation to the answer on point 4 in my letter of 2 June about your discussion in respect of developing relationships with Ministers and civil servants, would it be reasonable for me to draw from your answer that, now that you have left Parliament, you would be ready to use the contacts you have built up as a
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Member of Parliament and former Minister to contact and maintain relations with current Ministers and civil servants on behalf of your clients? 10. In response to point 5 in my letter of 2 June, you state that you were “not suggesting that such a contact would be used in the way phrased in your question”. My question had been whether you were offering to the company as a contact the Member who might become a Conservative Defence Minister (but in the event has not). I have some difficulty in otherwise interpreting what you said in the conversation at pages 54 and 55 of the transcript. The question was whether a Conservative Government would affect you or the things you could deliver. In your answer, you refer to the person who you thought then was likely to become a Defence Minister who, once he became a Minister, wanted to come and talk to you because “I’ll give him good advice”. You said then that you tended to talk to people and that you talked to “Tory Opposition Members”. You concluded this section by saying “So I don’t know if that’s of interest to you.” Would it not be a reasonable inference from those exchanges that you thought that your contacts with Conservative Members, in particular the individual you identified, might be of interest to the company (Anderson Perry) and that that interest would stem from the contact you might create between that company and the putative Conservative Defence Minister? 11. Finally, I note that you do not have the exact date of the interview. Could you let me know whether you have been able to check your diary for earlier this year and, if so, whether an entry was made in your diary for this interview, and, if not, why no entry was made for this appointment? I apologise for the length of these additional questions, but I hope that your response will enable me to take forward this inquiry to its conclusion. I am most grateful for your help. 1 July 2010
145. Letter to the Commissioner from Rt Hon Adam Ingram, 7 July 2010
RESPONSE TO LETTER OF 1 JULY 2010 (1) I sought advice from the appropriate House authorities about the procedures and rules applicable to obtaining clearance to take up outside employment and the way in which those interests should be registered. (2) I have not used any contacts with Ministers, former Ministers or civil servants to advise my clients about structures and people in a Government Department. I used my own knowledge in this regard to provide such advice. (3) In your original question (Q2a) to me in your letter of 31 March, you asked me to explain my comments about the possible establishment of a network of former Ministers who could be used to “arrange contacts”. I explained that I could see nothing wrong in contacting former colleagues to obtain advice on personalities and structures within a particular Department. That would take place only after I had left Parliament and would not contradict advice in the Appointments System for former Ministers which states that: “former Ministers with experience in Government should be able to move into business”. I reiterate my view that as a private citizen, I am at liberty to contact whomsoever I think necessary to provide me with such advice within the bounds of propriety. Political and business networking is perfectly legitimate and a common feature of business interface with Government. (4) In response to your question about my having any contact with Ministers from 2007, the response to the Freedom of Information (F01) request from the Ministry of Defence makes it clear that there was “no communications or meetings between Adam Ingram MP and Departmental Ministers since 29 June 2007 regarding any of those companies”. (5) I confirm that the company in question is Argus Libya UK. (6) I explained in my earlier response (A2e) that the academy had not been built and therefore there is no company with which I am currently involved which is “providing instructors/teachers” to the academy. I explained in (A2e) that the academy was a future business prospect. The company to which I referred is the International School for Security and Explosives Education (ISSEE). (7) You ask how I can reconcile my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests in relation to EDS with my statement that I was not providing services to the company in my capacity as a Member of Parliament. In my response of 28 June, I advised you that I always erred on the side of caution in all my outside employment dealings. My understanding of the rules is that service in the capacity of a Member of Parliament is usually taken to mean advice on any Parliamentary matter or services connected with any Parliamentary proceedings or otherwise, related to the House.
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I did not provide such services to EDS although the registered entry would have allowed me to do so. The registered entry also states that EDS expected me to provide advisory services and certain other project work as directed by the contract with the company. I enclose a copy of that contract as requested. You will note that the contract is between EDS and “Adam Ingram, Director, Adam Ingram Advisory Ltd”. The contract states that payment will be made for a minimum of two days each month. By mutual agreement, that part of the contract was not implemented and I billed only for days actually worked. My full entry in the Register of Remunerated Directorships states that the payments to be made to me would be paid through Adam Ingram Advisory Ltd. In response to your request for a little more detail about the work I carried out for EDS, initially I was engaged with familiarising myself with the company’s structures and key project managers. I provided them with analysis on the structure of Government and the role of Ministers; the interface between Ministers and senior civil servants and my assessment of developments in Government thinking based on my political analysis. In the main, those meetings were of a strategic nature. I was not paid a retainer by EDS during that time, nor do I receive such payment now. The contract has not been formally terminated and I believe I would continue to be bound by it if asked to provide future services to the company. (8) You refer to comments I made on pages 35/36 of the transcript in relation to my thoughts on civil servants who could be suitable for future employment. I would suggest that those comments should be taken in conjunction with the comments made on Page 31 of the transcript where I respond to a request for suggested names of former civil servants by stating that I could not provide such names “off the top of my head”. I believe this clearly indicates that I did not maintain a checklist of individuals whom I would be prepared to recommend for future employment. (9) In response to Q4 of your letter of 2 June, I replied that I could envisage seeking to speak to Ministers or civil servants about a client’s interest. That remains my position which I believe to be wholly consistent with the view of the House authorities that it is in the public interest for former Ministers to move into business. I have not maintained such a contact list and instead would use publicly-available information if I was trying to establish contact for a particular purpose. (10) My interpretation of the exchange on Pages 54/55 of the transcript differs from yours. The interview was taking place in the context of my suitability to become a member of an advisory board of a company. It is hardly surprising that I tried to show my breadth of experience, the respect in which I was held across the political spectrum and the willingness of others to trust my objective advice and judgement. My use of the phrase “so I don’t know if that’s of interest to you”, falls withing the category of setting out my wider attributes and in the context of my outline wish to see good governance irrespective of which party is in office. (11) The reason I cannot give you the exact date of the interview is simply because I have not kept the diary details. The arrangements for the interview were made with me and not through my constituency office. From memory, it was held on either 9 or 10 March. 7 July 2010
146. Letter to Rt Hon Adam Ingram from the Commissioner, 15 July 2010
Thank you for your letter of 7 July responding to mine of 1 July with some follow-up questions about this complaint. I was most grateful for such a prompt response. I have carefully considered your response. There are a number of points which I do need to clear up with you. I think that it might be most convenient if we did that in writing, although, subject to your response, it may be that we will need to meet for an interview on any outstanding matters after that. The points I need to ask you about are as follows (and are numbered as yours): 1. I have noted that you consulted “the appropriate House authorities” about rules for clearance and registration. Could you identify for me who you consulted and when, so that I can consider approaching those officials? I do not know who you might have consulted about clearing your employment offers. As you know, I have already obtained from the Registrar of Members’ Financial Interests details of your Register entry and agreement for services with EDS. To save time, I am now writing to ask her about any consultations you had with her on the registration entries for your remunerated employment. 2. I note that you used your own knowledge to advise your clients about structures and people in Government Departments. But would I be right in assuming that that knowledge drew on your experience as
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a Minister and your continuing contacts as an MP with Ministers and civil servants? If that is not so, could you let me know on what your knowledge was based and how it was kept up to date? 3. I assume from your response that you do intend to use your network of contacts which you built up as a Member and Minister to assist your current and any future clients now that you have left Parliament. I note, however, that you do not have a specific (and, I assume, separate) list of such contacts and that you did not intend to imply in the discussion with the undercover reporter that you would be setting up a formal network to arrange contacts. I should emphasise that I have not myself formed a view on the propriety of your contacting former colleagues to get advice for your clients on personalities and structures in Departments, and note that you see nothing wrong in this. At this stage I am simply asking you to confirm my understanding of your intentions. 4–6. I have no further matters to raise with you on your response to these points. 7a. Could you let me know whether you specifically took advice from the Registrar of Members’ Financial Interests about your Register entry in relation to EDS, and, in particular, your decision to register your salary band and the agreement for services? To save time, I am now consulting the Registrar about this also and will let you have her response. 7b. I have noted the terms of your contract, including that you were paid a daily rate of £1,500 and that paragraph 19 includes the provision about advocacy which you submitted to the Registrar. 7c. I note that “in the main” the meetings you had with EDS were of a “strategic nature”. Was the advice you provided all oral advice at meetings, or did you prepare papers for them? To whom was the advice given? And did you provide more specific and less strategic advice at any time, and if so, what did it cover? 8. I have noted that you did not maintain a “checklist” of people to recommend for appointments to boards. The question I asked in my letter of 1 July was whether you were offering to identify possible members for the advisory board from recently retired civil servants whom you knew in a Government Department, which I took to be the Ministry of Defence. I have noted that you did not give names at that meeting. But you appeared to suggest that you had names in mind. In any event, could you confirm that you were indeed offering to identify such people? I should make clear that at this stage I am not suggesting that there was an impropriety in your doing so. That would be a matter for me to consider once my inquiries are concluded. 9. I note that you could envisage speaking to Ministers or civil servants about a client’s interest and that you would use publicly available information as you do not have a “contact list”. I am finding this argument a little difficult to follow. It would be unusual for someone in public life not to keep the names and numbers of their contacts in an address book or its electronic equivalent. Are you suggesting that you do not keep details of such contacts? And are you suggesting that, even if you had kept such a contact list, you would not consult it if you wished to contact a Government Minister or a senior civil servant? Again, I am not suggesting at this stage any impropriety in such actions. That would be a matter for me to consider once my inquiries are completed. 10. I note your point about setting out your wider attributes and the references to good governance which you made at this point in the interview (page 55 of the transcript). But in that part of the interview which was specifically about whether a Conservative Government would change your role on the advisory board, it appears that you were making clear that you had good contacts with Conservative Members, including the particular Member whom you thought at that stage might become a Defence Minister, and that, in the interests of good governance, you expected to give advice to that Minister. As a result, it may seem that you were suggesting that you would be able to bring to the advisory board your contacts with Conservatives, on the assumption that there would be a Conservative Government. Again, I am not suggesting at this stage any impropriety, which I will need to consider at the conclusion of my inquiries. I simply want to be clear on the implications of what you were saying in the discussion. If I am wrong to draw these inferences from what you appear to have been saying, please let me know, and why. 11. I have no further points on the interview date. Thank you for your explanation. I appreciate that you will not be able to let me have a response to this letter until after the middle of August. But it would be very helpful if you could let me have a response, however, by the end of August. 15 July 2010
147. Letter to the Commissioner from Rt Hon Adam Ingram, 27 August 2010
Thank you for your letter of 15 July 2010. You raise a number of additional points and my response set out below is as per your numbered paragraphs. 1) You ask whom I consulted about clearance and registration of my various business appointments.
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Prior to taking up a role with the companies concerned, I sought clearance from the Office of the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments. I received clearance from Lord Mayhew, the Committee Chairman, in a letter dated 14 January 2008, advising me that “it would be proper” for me to take appointments with three companies about which I had enquired, namely, Signpoint Secure Ltd, Argus Scotland Ltd and Argus Libya UK Ltd. I received a further letter from the Committee, dated 27 March 2008, signed by the Secretary to the Committee, [name], that they could “see no reason” why I should not take up appointments with EDS Inc. and the International School for Security and Explosives Education (ISSEE). Following receipt of those letters and after consultation with the Registrar for Members Interests about the most appropriate listing for those appointments, I duly registered my interests and notified the Secretary to the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments that I had taken up the appointments. 2) You ask whether I drew upon my experience as a Minister in providing advice to the companies with which I was involved. I confirm I did so and believe that to be consistent with the guidelines for former Ministers which state that “it is in the public interest” for former Ministers with experience in Government to move into business. You ask if I used my continuing contacts as a Member of Parliament with Ministers and civil servants in the interests of those companies. I believe it has been established that I did not lobby on behalf of those companies despite having clearance from the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments to do so, if I wished, any time after one year of leaving office. You ask how I kept my “knowledge” up to date. You will note that, with the exception of my appointment with EDS, I had taken on the role of director with the other companies. That required a range of skills and attributes not necessarily connected to my previous role as a Minister. It would be of assistance to me if you could clarify what you mean by my “knowledge”. 3) I could envisage using contacts made during my time as a Minister. Many companies engage former Ministers and civil servants for that very purpose. The capacity to ask people for advice is not unique to me and is recognised as part of the guidelines for former Ministers that it is in the public interest for them to move into business. It would be a strange turn of events if former Ministers, or indeed former Members of Parliament, were prohibited from making contact with anyone they had known as a Ministerial colleague or civil servant after they had left Parliament. 4–6).../ 4–6) I note you have no further matters to raise with me in relation to these points. 7a) I took advice from the Registrar of Members Interests about my Register entry in relation to EDS. As I previously advised you, I also sought approval from the Advisory Committee on Business Interests before taking up my appointment with EDS. 7b) Noted. 7c) All advice given to EDS was oral. I did not make any written submissions to them. The advice was given to a range of account executives and their senior staff. I had regular meetings with the senior personnel responsible for the company’s public affairs. The only non-strategic advice I would have given would have been about the role and responsibilities of a Member of Parliament, stressing the importance of keeping good relations between company representatives and local Members of Parliament in the areas where the company had a presence. 8) As I explained in my earlier response on this point, I stated in my interview with the bogus company representative that I could not think of the names of former civil servants suitable for outside employment “off the top of my head”. You ask if I would be prepared to suggest such names. For the avoidance of doubt, I was not offering myself as a head-hunter, for payment or otherwise. I would be prepared, however, to offer my best advice on the qualities of people I knew in Government. As a Minister, I made a number of appointments to various bodies on the basis of recommendations made to me by civil servants about their former colleagues. Public service is replete with former civil servants who take on other public roles after they retire, which, in many instances, will be done on the basis of a personal recommendation. In the main, I think this works to the advantage of service delivery. Similarly,.../ Similarly, industry and commerce can benefit from the transfer of such a skill base from the public sector to the private sector.
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9) As I previously advised you, I do not have a “contact list”, in either address book or electronic form, of Ministers or civil servants. Your hypothetical question is therefore not relevant. 10) You say that I appear to be suggesting that I would be able to bring to the bogus advisory board my contacts with Conservatives on the assumption that there would be a change of Government. I made no such offer. What I said in response to the direct question posed to me by the bogus company representative (page 54) was that I had credibility as a Defence Minister which I believed could transcend a change of Government. I believe that my credibility and knowledge was recognised across the political spectrum, based on my service as a Defence Minister for over six years. There can be no question that this would allow me to talk to Members of Parliament of parties other than my own, in Government or not, from a position of strength, an attribute which would have been available to the bogus advisory board. You will no doubt be aware that two former Labour Cabinet Ministers and one former Minister have been appointed as advisors to the current Government. Likewise, if I was to be asked to give advice on Defence matters, I would do so, motivated by the desire for good governance as expressed in my comments to the bogus company representative. 11) Noted. I look forward to hearing from you. 27 August 2010
148. Letter to Rt Hon Adam Ingram from the Commissioner, 2 September 2010
Thank you for your letter of 27 August responding to mine of 15 July about this complaint. I was most grateful for this response which I will take fully into account when I come to consider my conclusions on this matter. There were a number of matters which I should briefly follow up, namely: 1. You address the question at point 2 in my letter to you of 15 July about the basis for the knowledge you use to advise your clients on the structures and people in government departments. I was not suggesting that you lobbied such people. I was simply seeking to clarify whether you used your continuing contacts with Ministers and with civil servants to advise your clients about structures and people in government departments. I was assuming that you did so. If you rejected that assumption, then I was asking how you managed to keep up to date the advice you gave to your clients about structures and people in government departments. I was not asking how you kept up to date your knowledge on wider issues. Could you, therefore, confirm whether you used your continuing contacts with Ministers and civil servants to keep up to date the advice you gave your clients about structures and people in government departments? This would be consistent with the more general account you gave in point 3 that you would envisage using contacts made during your time as a Minister. Again, I will need to come to my own view on what you have said about this, and you should not draw from this that I am suggesting there is any impropriety in the way you advised your clients on these matters. 2. I have noted in response to point 9 in my letter of 15 July that you do not have a “contact list” of Ministers or civil servants, either in address book or electronic form. But what I was asking was whether you kept the details of Ministers and civil servants in some form, either in hard copy or electronically, and whether you would refer to it if you wished to identify or contact such people? I am not sure whether you wish me to take from your reply that you do not have any names, addresses, or contact numbers of Ministers, former Ministers or civil servants in any list of personal contacts kept by you and, if you wish to contact such people, rely only on public records. It would be very helpful if you could let me have a response to these final points within the next two weeks. Meanwhile, I will pass the relevant parts of your letter to the Registrar of Members’ Financial Interests so that she can take them into account in preparing the response which, as you will know from my letter of 15 July, I have asked of her.
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2 September 2010
149. Letter to the Registrar of Members’ Financial Interests from the Commissioner, 15 July 2010
I would welcome your help on a complaint I have received against the Rt Hon Adam Ingram when he was the Member for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow. The complaint relates to a meeting which Mr Ingram had with an undercover reporter in March 2010 which was recorded without his knowledge, and which was reported in the Sunday Times of 28 Match 2010. The matter on which I need your help relates to contacts which Mr Ingram may have had with you in relation to his registration entries in respect of his remunerated directorships. Mr Ingram has told me that he consulted the “appropriate House authorities” about the way in which his outside employment interests should be registered. He has told me that he has “always erred on the side of caution” in all his “outside employment dealings” in respect of the rules and regulations laid down by the House authorities in relation to business appointments. At my request, you have provided me with a copy of Mr Ingram’s Register entry for EDS and the related agreement for services. Mr Ingram had told me that he wished to make it clear that he was working with EDS as a consultant, and not in his capacity as a Member of Parliament. He has told me that his “understanding of the rules is that service in the capacity of a Member of Parliament is usually taken to mean advice on any parliamentary matter or services connected with any parliamentary proceedings or otherwise, related to the House”. He has told me that he did not provide such services to EDS, although he recognises that the Register entry would have allowed him to do so. He says that the Register entry also stated that EDS expected him to provide advisory services and certain other project work as directed by the contract with the company. Mr Ingram has also provided me with some information about the work he carried out for EDS as follows: “… initially I was engaged with familiarising myself with the company’s structures and key project managers. I provided them with analysis on the structure of Government and the role of Ministers; the interface between Ministers and senior civil servants and my assessment of developments in Government thinking based on my political analysis. In the main, those meetings were of a strategic nature.”
For completeness, I enclose a copy of the agreement for consulting services which Mr Ingram sent to me. In the light of this, I would be grateful to know: 1. whether Mr Ingram at any time consulted you about his registration entries for his remunerated employment and, if so, when and what those discussions were about; 2. in respect of Mr Ingram’s employment with EDS, your view in the light of the information provided to me by Mr Ingram as to whether he was required within the provisions of the Guide to the Rules to register his payment band and lodge with you his agreement for services. I have today written to Mr Ingram to ask him for more information about the advice he gave to EDS. When I receive his reply, which is unlikely to be before mid-August, I will let you see it. If you could let me have a response to this letter by the end of the first week in September, that would be most helpful. 15 July 2010
150. Letter to Registrar of Members’ Financial Interests from the Commissioner, 2 September 2010
I wrote to you on 15 July asking for your help with a complaint I had received against the Rt Hon Adam Ingram. I said in that letter that I had written to Mr Ingram to ask him for more information about the advice he gave to EDS. I have now heard back from Mr Ingram with further information about his contacts with you. He has written as follows: “Prior to taking up a role with the companies concerned, I sought clearance from the Office of the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments.
I received clearance from Lord Mayhew, the Committee Chairman, in a letter dated 14 January 2008, advising me that ‘it would be proper’ for me to take appointments with three companies about which I had enquired, namely, Signpoint Secure Ltd, Argus Scotland Ltd and Argus Libya UK Ltd.
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I received a further letter from the Committee, dated 27 March 2008, signed by the Secretary to the Committee, [name], that they could ‘see no reason’ why I should not take up appointments with EDS Inc. and the International School for Security and Explosives Education (ISSEE).
Following receipt of those letters and after consultation with the Registrar for Members Interests about the most appropriate listing for those appointments, I duly registered my interests and notified the Secretary to the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments that I had taken up the appointments.”
Mr Ingram also advised me: “I took advice from the Registrar of Members’ Interests about my Register entry in relation to EDS. As I previously advised you, I also sought approval from the Advisory Committee on Business Interests before taking up my appointment with EDS.”
Finally, in relation to the advice he gave EDS, Mr Ingram has informed me as follows: “All advice given to EDS was oral. I did not make any written submissions to them. The advice was given to a range of account executives and their senior staff. I had regular meetings with the senior personnel responsible for the company’s public affairs.
The only non-strategic advice I would have given would have been about the role and responsibilities of a Member of Parliament, stressing the importance of keeping good relations between company representatives and local Members of Parliament in the areas where the company had a presence.”
I would be grateful if you could take this into account in preparing your response to my letter of 15 July. I appreciate that you may need a little more time to consider the additional information that Mr Ingram has provided, but I hope that you could let me have a response within the next two weeks. I look forward to hearing from you. 2 September 2010
151. Letter to the Commissioner from the Registrar of Members’ Financial Interests, 9 September 2010
Thank you for your letter of 15 July and for the follow-up letter of 2 September. Your first question is whether at any time Mr Ingram consulted me about his registration entries for his remunerated employment and if so when and what those discussions were about. I have gone back in Mr Ingram’s file to the point at which he ceased to be a Minister in July 2007. The sequence of events is as follows, and relevant correspondence is appended.610 On 12 July 2007 I wrote to Mr Ingram noting that he no longer held ministerial office, saying that it might be that he was now thinking of taking up outside employment, pointing out that the rules might have changed since he was last in a position to do this and offering advice should he require it. I indicated that general guidance was available in the Code of Conduct and in the procedural and advice notes. On 10 March 2008 Mr Ingram sent the office a copy of an agreement with a company called SignPoint and asking for the employment to be registered. The file contains a draft e-mail from the Executive Officer including a draft entry. On 27 June 2008 Mr Ingram wrote again with copies of agreements with Argus Libya and Argus Scotland asking for them to be registered. He must have telephoned the Executive Assistant on 9 July, as her draft e- mail suggests she e-mailed back “Further to our conversation earlier I attach below your revised entry for the Register. I would be grateful if you could also let me know what the business of the two companies is; I am afraid I forgot to ask you that when we spoke”. Mr Ingram must have telephoned again, as there is a draft e-mail in the file from the Executive Assistant dated 22 July and saying “Thank you for your call letting me know the description of the two companies. I attach below a revised entry for the next updated internet version of the Register”. The first mention of EDS occurs on 21 August 2008 when Mr Ingram wrote enclosing an agreement with the company and asked for it to be registered. This time he told us what the company did. Mr Ingram having
610 Not included in the written evidence.
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supplied an agreement with a salary band we assumed that he was providing services in the capacity of an MP (since it is only when this is the case that a band and agreement are required) and inserted that salary band in the Register entries. A draft e-mail from the Executive Assistant to Mr Ingram, dated 2 September 2008 reads “Thank you for your call. I attach your entry for the next updated edition of the Register, which will be produced later this week”. Mr Ingram’s secretary replied the same day saying “Thank you [name]. The entry is OK”. I have referred above to “draft e-mails” from the Executive Assistant. This is because it was her practice to print off e-mails for filing before she actually sent them. Evidence (for instance responses) suggests that they were indeed sent. The file does not suggest discussions of any length between this office and Mr Ingram. Had there been any such, the Executive Assistant or I would have recorded them, either in a file note or in an e-mail response to Mr Ingram. It appears that on each occasion including the one relating to EDS we simply complied with his request to make an entry: we did not give him any substantive advice and none was requested. Secondly, you ask my view, in the light of the information provided by Mr Ingram, as to whether he was required within the provisions of the rules, to register a salary band and lodge an agreement for the provision of services. The rules of the House require that Members undertaking to provide services in the capacity of a Member of Parliament shall obtain a written agreement to that effect, including a standard clause stating that the Member will not be asked to engage in advocacy, and deposit it with the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, and register their payment by £5,000 bands. By giving a salary band and providing an agreement, Mr Ingram was informing the reader that he was providing services in the capacity of a Member of Parliament. I note that Mr Ingram says that he did not provide services in the capacity of a Member of Parliament but that his Register entry would have allowed him to do so. He also says that the entry stated that EDS expected him to provide advisory services and certain other work as directed by the contract with the company (in fact it is the agreement not the Register entry which refers to project work). He says that his understanding of the rules is that ‘services in the capacity of a Member of Parliament is usually taken to be advice on any parliamentary matter or services connected with any parliamentary proceeding or otherwise related to the House’. These words are a quotation from the 2009 edition of the Guide to the Rules’. The Guide to the Rules in force at the time Mr Ingram took up the appointment made no attempt to define or describe ‘services in the capacity of an MP’, though the foreword to the Register of 2005 makes illustrative reference to ‘making representations to a government department, providing advice on parliamentary or public affairs or sponsoring functions in a parliamentary building’. Had Mr Ingram consulted me in 2008 I would have given him the then-current advice; this was codified in the 2009 edition of the rules from which Mr Ingram quotes, which was then in preparation. Neither the agreement deposited by Mr Ingram nor the longer contract with which he supplied you and which you have sent me give sufficient detail as of the actual work Mr Ingram was carrying out for EDS to me to be able to say that he was indeed providing services in the capacity of an MP. In your first letter to me, however, you tell me that he told you that ‘he provided them with an analysis of the structure of government and the role of Ministers; the interface between Ministers and senior civil servants and [his] assessment of developments in Government thinking based on his political analysis’. In your second letter you tell me he wrote to you that ‘the only non-strategic advice I would have given would have been about the role and responsibilities of a Member of Parliament, stressing the importance of keeping good relations between company representatives and local Members Parliament in the areas where the company had a presence’. These two statements, and particularly the second, lead me to the conclusion that it was indeed right that Mr Ingram should give a salary band and provide an agreement because he was providing what I would regard as services in the capacity of a Member of Parliament. I should like to make two further observations. First, Mr Ingram says he wished to make it clear that he worked for EDS as a consultant and not as an MP. I should say that the two are not mutually exclusive and the form of his Register entry gave the opposite impression. Secondly there is no relationship between the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments and the work of this office, though I would always ask an ex- Minister registering an appointment if s/he had checked with that Committee.
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152. Letter to Rt Hon Adam Ingram from the Commissioner, 9 September 2010
When I wrote to you on 15 July I said that I would be consulting the Registrar of Members’ Financial Interests about your Register entry in relation to EDS and, in particular, your decision to register your salary band and the agreement for services. You kindly provided me with some further information about this in your letter of 27 August and I noted in my letter to you of 2 September that I would pass those points on to the Registrar. I have now heard back from the Registrar. I enclose a copy of my letters to her of 15 July and 2 September; and her response of 9 September, together with its enclosures. As you will see, the Registrar notes the contacts you had with her office about your EDS and other Register entries since 2007, although she notes that it appears from her files that there were no discussions of any length between her office and yourself: it appears that on each occasion the office complied with your request to make an entry—they did not give you any substantive advice and none was requested. Having considered your evidence on the advice you gave EDS, the Registrar has also concluded that it was right for you to have given a salary band and provided an agreement because you were providing what she would regard as services in the capacity of a Member of Parliament. I would welcome any comments you may wish to make on the Registrar’s advice. I may need to note that you had registered that you were providing services in the capacity of a Member of Parliament in the context of what you told the interviewer (pages 21 and 22 of the transcript)—including: “I have been doing advisory work, done a lot initially, not so much recently, with the EDS, which is now part of HP, and actually just talking to them about, really just about Government relations and what to look for in Government…There’s a kind of standard way in which Governments tend to operate…my arrangement with them is that I would only do work on an MP and then…it would probably come to the end of the arrangement..”. Subject to any comments you may wish to make on the Registrar’s letter, and your response to my letter to you of 2 September, I consider that I am now close to the conclusion of this inquiry. I should say that I am planning to prepare a memorandum to the Committee on Standards and Privileges on my inquiries, although you should draw no inferences from that. You are one of a number of Members who have been subject to a complaint in respect of this matter. Once I have concluded my inquiries on each of these complaints, I will be preparing a draft memorandum for the Committee. I will show you the relevant sections of the factual sections of that memorandum so that you can check on their accuracy. I will then prepare my conclusions and submit the full memorandum to the Committee. The Clerk of the Committee will send you a copy of that full memorandum so that you can comment on it if you so wish before the Committee come to consider the matter. If you could let me have any response you may wish to make to the Registrar’s letter within the next two weeks, I would be most grateful. Thank you for your help. 9 September 2010
153. Letter to the Commissioner from Rt Hon Adam Ingram, 14 September 2010
Thank you for your letter of 2 September 2010. You raise a number of additional points and my response is as follows. 1) You ask if I used “continuing contacts with Ministers and with civil servants to advise ... clients about structures and people in government departments”.
Throughout our correspondence, you have consistently referred to “clients”. With the exception of EDS and Argus Libya(UK) LLP, I have no other “clients”. I trust this clarifies the situation. I did not maintain a continuing contact with Ministers and with civil servants in order to advise “clients”. The point I was making in paragraph 3 of my letter of 27 August was that I could envisage making contact with people I knew in government after I left Parliament.
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I further expressed the view that any prohibition on contact between a former Minister or a Member of Parliament, after leaving Parliament, and Ministers and civil servants would be an unusual development. I responded in the future tense since that was the context in which you had sought my response in your letter of 15 July. I have made no such contact since leaving Parliament. 2) You ask if I “kept the details of Ministers and civil servants in some form, either hard copy of electronically” and whether (I) would refer to it if (1) wished to identify or contact such people”. I advised you in earlier correspondence that I do not have a comprehensive list of Ministers, past or present, or civil servants.
I have a small circle of friends, built up over my twenty-three years in Parliament and in government. I maintain contact details of those friends whom I occasionally meet socially. I do not view them as contacts in the context of your enquiry.
I look forward to hearing from you. With best wishes. 14 September 2010
154. Further letter to the Commissioner from Rt Hon Adam Ingram, 14 September 2010
Thank you for your letter and enclosures of 9 September 2010. I do not have details of when I contacted the Registrar’s office or any notes relating to the advice I received. My recollection is that I sought general advice on what was required in the registration of outside financial interests. I also recollect being advised to look at how others had registered their interests as that could prove a useful template. I addition, I drew upon the Code of Conduct and the supporting procedural and advice notes. The first company I registered was Signpoint Secure Ltd which provided the framework for subsequent entries. When it came to registering subsequent interests, I recollect telephone discussions about the categorisation of the registered interest. I believe that applied to the action I took on the registration of EDS. You will note that I provided an agreement for services and a salary band for each of the registered interests. I have noted the comments of the Registrar and respect her version of events. With regard to the consultancy services I provided to EDS, I maintain that I did not provide advice as a Member of Parliament, either in terms of the pre- or post-2009 guidance as set out in the Registrar’s letter to you of 9 September. My earlier letters describe the services I provided and I stand by those comments. I appreciate that both you and the Registrar take a different view, although, as I understand it, you accept that I had properly complied with the relevant registration requirements to allow me to give advice in my capacity as a Member of Parliament. I now turn to your interpretation of the comments made in pages 21/22 of the transcript. I set out in my letter of 28 June my interpretation of the meaning of the comments I made. I am clear in my own mind that the point I was making was that the understanding I had with EDS was that I would provide services to them while a Member of Parliament and not as a Member of Parliament. For the reasons set out in my letter of 28 June, the natural review of my continuing relationship with the company was at the point of my standing down as a Member of Parliament. The relationship has also changed in part because of the new company structure and new senior executives at EDS. I look forward to hearing from you. With best wishes. 14 September 2010
155. Letter to Rt Hon Adam Ingram from the Commissioner, 20 September 2010
Thank you for your two letters of 14 September responding first to my letter to you of 2 September and secondly to my letter to you of 9 September. In respect of your response to my letter of 2 September, I was not intending for you to answer whether you maintained your contacts in order to advise your clients—in other words those whose employment by you you had registered—but whether you used those continuing contacts (of course among other things) to keep
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up to date the advice you gave to those who employed you. In your letter, you told me that you have made no such contact since leaving Parliament, but you made no comment on the position while you were still a Member. Unless you wished to clarify the situation, I will simply record that you have not given me an answer about whether, while you were a Member of Parliament, you drew on your continuing contacts with Ministers, former Ministers and civil servants when you gave advice to those who employed you during that time. I will then come to my own conclusions on that matter. Similarly, I will note that, in the context of my inquiry, you maintain contact details only of those whom you regard as your friends, built up over 23 years in Parliament and in government. You have not told me if any of those are Ministers, former Ministers or civil servants. You have also not told me whether you would use that list if you wished to contact any of them on behalf of those who employed you now that you have left Parliament. Again, subject to any points of clarification you wish to make, I will need to come to my own conclusions on this. Finally, in respect of the registration question, I should make clear that I sent you the advice of the Registrar. I have not yet come to my own conclusion on this and would not wish to do so until I have given you an opportunity to comment on the Registrar’s advice. I see from your comment that you respect her version of events about the advice you sought from her office. I assume that the use of the word “respect” means that you fall short of accepting fully that version. If I am wrong on this, or you would like to set out any points where you take a different view, please let me know. I see that despite registering your work for EDS as if you were providing services in your capacity as a Member of Parliament, you do not accept that you were in fact doing so—arguing that you were providing services while a Member but not as a Member. I will of course note the distinction you have drawn and will need to come to my own conclusions on that. I think I have now probably taken this as far as I can. Subject, therefore, to any points of clarification you wish to make in response to this letter—and if you do I would be most grateful if you could let me have a response within the next two weeks—I consider that this inquiry is closed. I will now concentrate on preparing the draft factual sections of the memorandum which, as you will know from my letter of 9 September, I will let you have so that you can comment if necessary on their factual accuracy. Thank you for your help. 20 September 2010
156. Letter to the Commissioner from Rt Hon Adam Ingram, 28 September 2010
Thank you for your letter of 20 September 2010. In your letter of 2 September you asked me to “clarify” whether I used my “continuing contacts with Ministers and with civil servants to advise” clients. In my response of 14 September, I confirmed that I did not maintain a continuing contact with Ministers and civil servants for that purpose. I believed I had answered your enquiry as I understood it. I can confirm that I did not draw upon any contacts I may have had with Ministers, former Ministers or civil servants to give advice to those who employed me while I was a Member of Parliament. With regard to the second point of clarification you seek in your letter of 20 September, I believe it was implicit in my response set out in paragraph 2 of my letter of 14 September that amongst my “circle of friends”—which I defined as “small”—would have been Ministers, former Ministers and civil servants. I further stated that I did not view them as “contacts” in the context of your enquiry. You now ask whether I would use that list to contact them on behalf of those who now employ me. I have not done so and I cannot envisage any circumstances in which I would. Finally, in respect of the registration question, I sought to explain my recollection of the contact I had with the Registrar's office. I am satisfied that I received sufficient information from that office to assist me in properly registering my various interests in terms of the rules and regulations applicable at that time. I trust this answers your request for further points of clarification. I look forward to hearing from you. 28 September 2010
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Appendix 2: Letter from the Rt hon Richard Caborn to the Clerk, 28 November 2010
Thank you for your letter of the 24th November 2010 and the enclosed memorandum to your Committee, which refers to myself and five others. I also thank you for your guidance which you gave when I phoned you on the 25th November, 2010.
I would like to put on record, my thanks to Mr. Lyon, and his staff; for the thorough job they have done in producing the memorandum for your Committee. I am also pleased to put on record my acceptance of the Commissioner’s recommendations, with the exception of recommendation vi Health and wellness services: Sheffield. I will deal with this later.
I do not, however, accept the subjective personal comments the Commissioner strays into in parts of the memorandum.
I also thank the Commissioner for his conclusions to the Committee where he states “I have no evidence that any of the breaches was caused by deliberate intention: it was more likely that they were the result of careless oversight.”
Now turning to recommendation vi Health and wellness services: Sheffield. I draw the Committee’s attention to paragraph 711.
I accept Mr. Caborn's statement that he arranged no meetings or contacts on this matter with Ministers or officials. I accept, too, that, while he did not declare his financial interest in the FIA when having his discussion with the Chairman of the Sheffield Health Authority, he had raised the matter with the FIA at one of their regular meetings (as well as with other organizations) and that he would have declared such an interest in future if the idea had gone beyond “its infancy”, I recognize that the strict terms of the Guide to the Rules appear only to require the declaration of an interest to Ministers or Crown servants, including executive agencies. The Chairman of a health authority does not come into either of those categories. Nevertheless, the Guide to the Rules is not a legal document and Members are expected to abide by both the spirit as well as the letter of the rules. And I note that paragraph 86 of the 2009 edition of the Guide (repeated from the 2005 edition) says that the requirement to declare a relevant interest extends to the meetings with “public officials”.
The Commissioner has now put an interpretation on “public officials” well beyond even, his own acknowledged interpretation of the guide to the rules where he states "I recognize that the strict terms of the Guide to the Rules appear only to require the declaration of an interest to Ministers or Crown servants, including executive agencies, The Chairman of a health authority does not come into either of those categories. The Commissioner then goes on to sight the first sentence of paragraph 86 of the 2009 Guide to the Rules. “The requirement to declare a relevant interest at the appropriate time covers also every aspect of a Member’s parliamentary duties, extending to correspondence and meetings with Ministers and public officials”.
My understanding of the Code and Guidance Rules are to protect the integrity of Parliament, not to lay down rules governing how an M.P. deals with his constituents and constituency. The part of the Code and Guidance Rules, which are important in this case,
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and where I have a difference of interpretation with the Commissioner, is “at the appropriate time”.
I would ask the Committee to give consideration to my interpretation, which is based on being a constituency M.P. and not a servant of the House.
I made it clear to the Commissioner, that I would have declared an interest, if the idea had gone beyond it’s infancy.
The issue had been raised by the Chairman of the health authority in the normal course of my constituency duties. 1have known Mr. David Stone, Chairman of the health authority for over 35 years in his capacity as:—
Director of Firth Brown—where I was the convenor of shop stewards.
Master Cutler and leading industrialist in Sheffield where I had many meetings on Sheffield matters as both an M.P. and an M.E.P for 31 years.
Chairman of the Sheffield Health Authority, where I and my M.P. colleagues had regular meetings.
It was not unusual for Mr. Stone to meet up on specific issues. It was on one or these occasions that Mr. Stone raised the issue of changing the health service in Sheffield to put more bias on prevention rather than cure. 1say it was his .idea contrary to what the Commissioner wrote in his letter to me of the 2nd June where he stated page 144, para 446, line 5 “I also said that he had referred in a number of places to his proposals for restructuring health and wellness services in Sheffield and to links with his friend who is Chairman of the health authority”.
I have checked the transcript and nowhere does it refer to this “being my idea” on the contrary. This is possibly where the Commissioner misunderstands the role of a constituency M.P.
On the issue of timing, I believe, I acted both within the spirit and intention of the Code and it’s Guidance.
In reference to para 712 the Commissioner states “1 consider that he would have been right to have made such a declaration to the Chairman of the health authority at his initial meeting”.
As the Committee will recognize many Constituency meetings are set up without precisely knowing what will be discussed. This was the case at the meeting I had with Mr. Stone. Again I believe there is a lack of understanding, on the Commissioners part, of how a Constituency M.P. operates and I hope the Committee will now reflect on this particular issue and give clearer guidance to both Members and the Commissioner.
Finally, can I say I do not want to prolong the enquiry, as it has now been going on for over 10 months, but if the Committee believe it is important to give oral evidence I am happy to do so.
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Appendix 3: Email from the Rt hon Stephen Byers to the Clerk, 29 November 2010
I would be grateful if you could put the following response before the Committee:
“I believe that the Commissioner has carried out a thorough and comprehensive investigation into the complaint made against me. I accept in full his findings of fact and conclusions in relation to my conduct.
I could try and put together all sorts of excuses as to how I came to make the statements I did but I must accept that I simply should not have spoken in such terms.
I deeply regret that my statements caused damage to the reputation of Parliament. Having had the privilege of serving in the House for 18 years this is the last thing I would want to have done.
I would like to take this opportunity to offer to the Committee and the whole House my sincere and unreserved apologies. I was wrong to have made the statements I did and am sorry for the damage they caused to the reputation of Parliament”.
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Appendix 4: Response to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards’ Memorandum from the Rt hon Geoff Hoon, 29 November 2010
I am grateful for this opportunity to respond to the draft memorandum prepared by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards above. I have one general submission and two dealing with the specific criticisms made about my conduct by the Commissioner.
Application of the Code to a Member’s private life
At page 211 the Commissioner refers to the provision of the Code which states that it does not seek to regulate “what Members do in their purely private and personal lives”. He concludes that “It would strain the definition beyond any reasonable interpretation to suggest that interview was part of a Member’s purely private and personal life”.
I would invite the Committee not to accept this general conclusion. Notwithstanding the Commissioner’s strong opinion on this question, if his interpretation is accepted it is difficult to see what aspect of a Member’s life could be considered private and personal.
By the time of the interview I had already announced my intention not to seek re-election for Parliament. In my own time I had meetings with head hunters and others to consider employment opportunities for once I was no longer a Member of Parliament. This is entirely normal and understandable behaviour for anyone moving from one position to another. I assumed that the undercover interview was one of a number of similar preliminary meetings I had had for this purpose. The Commissioner accepts elsewhere in his report that all of my remarks in the interview referred to what I would hope to be doing after the Dissolution when I would be a private citizen. I was having what I took to be a private conversation about my future as a private citizen. That would seem to fall squarely within any definition of someone’s private life.
There is also a question of the extent to which the Code applies to private conversations. This was a private conversation. The Commissioner refers elsewhere to the fact that I must have known that the conversation would have been reported back to the bogus business; but that fact does not make the actual conversation any less private. In any conversation of this kind the person being interviewed accepts that the agent conducting the interview will refer back to his or her principal. The interviewee is not thereby consenting to publication of the entire conversation. Indeed when I raised this privacy issue with Channel Four they accepted that it was a private conversation but justified their publication on other grounds. If the Code is to apply to all conversations, public as well as private, conducted by Members, it should say so specifically. In the absence of such a clear provision the privacy and free speech of Members in private conversation should be protected.
Moreover the arguments used by the Commissioner to sustain his conclusion are factually wrong. He suggests that the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments “consider public appointments”. In fact they consider all relevant appointments for former ministers
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It is also difficult to accept the Commissioner’s judgement that “Appointments to the board of commercial companies are therefore...part of a person’s public life”. That might conceivably be true of an appointment to the main board of a British company where such appointments have as a matter of law to be published. This interview was supposed to be about a possible appointment to an “Advisory Board” of what appeared to be an American partnership. I am not aware of any legal requirement for the details of such appointments to be published. Membership of such a board once I had become a private citizen could not therefore be said to be part of my so-called “public life”. A private company or a partnership in the United Kingdom is not required as a matter of law to publicly divulge such details; nor is an American one doing business in the UK.
There are a number of consequences of the Commissioner’s finding in this respect that cannot have been intended by those responsible for drafting the Code. It would mean that the Code would continue to apply to all former Members, even after they had left the House. Referring to the Members involved, the Commissioner states that “The meeting was about their public life, both in respect of their past experience and future aspirations”. On his reasoning that would be true for example of a Member discussing his or her career long after leaving Parliament. v. Strategic Defence and Security Review
The Commissioner has concluded that I brought the House of Commons into disrepute by giving the impression to the undercover reporter that what I said “could only have been understood as an offer to brief Anderson Perry’s clients on the strategic defence and security review, drawing on briefings he received from MoD officials”. The Commissioner goes on to accept that I would not do such a thing, so I assume that the essence of his conclusion is that I must have given that impression. This is on the basis that he finds “wholly unconvincing” my explanation that when I said “some of the people in the team in the MoD who are working on this, because they briefed me about this” I was referring to the Defence Review first and then the NATO review.
In order to explain what happened, it is necessary to provide the Committee with some background. I was appointed to a NATO “Group of Experts” in an individual capacity in June 2009 to help prepare a new Strategic Concept for NATO. It was specifically stated at the time of my appointment that I was not representing the United Kingdom, as there were only twelve members of the group and not every NATO state was represented. I was the only member of the group ever to have held elected office; the others being former ambassadors or appointed officials. This voluntary and unpaid work was not therefore in any way connected to my position as a Member of Parliament. I was told later that a British civil servant had also been considered for the position.
Nevertheless I was asked by Foreign Office officials if I would meet them so that they could tell me what the British Government wanted to see out of the process. I naturally agreed and met officials from both the Foreign Office and the MoD. These meetings were
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therefore for their benefit; they requested and arranged them to take place in the Foreign Office. These are the briefings referred to. They were narrow in scope concerned only with the outcome that the British Government wanted from the NATO process. The NATO process was the only subject of our discussions. There was no briefing whatsoever about the then Defence Review, although at one stage an MoD official that I knew from my days in the department mentioned that they had been involved in the review. It was mentioned in the context that the review had been put on hold pending the General Election, after the publication of a Green Paper, which by its very nature contained no clear policy or other conclusions.
That was the position at the time of the undercover interview. The Defence Green Paper had been published; indeed I referred to it when asked by the undercover reporter as to where she could get information about defence for her bogus client. I did not suggest that I had any special, inside or privileged information about the review. I did not offer or even imply that I had any such knowledge, other than my independent judgements which were the result of my long experience of the subject. I had been Secretary of State for Defence for almost six years and was bound to have views on the relevant questions. Those views came from my own judgement and experience; they categorically did not come from any briefings from officials about the new NATO Strategic Concept.
I accept that I referred to knowing officials in the MoD who “were working on this” meaning the Defence review. I made no offer to contact them. I made no offer to pass on information that I had got from them. I could not have done so because I had had no information from them about the Defence Review. At that stage they would not have had any information to give to me in any event because the review was on hold pending the General Election. At that stage whatever work they had been engaged on had been published in the Green Paper for everyone to read.
The Commissioner has nevertheless concluded that in his view I gave that impression because I went on to say “because they briefed me about this” in his view referring again to the Defence Review. I should mention at this stage that there are at least three different versions of what I actually said in different transcripts. As a result the Commissioner listened to a tape and he personally concluded that I said “this”. I have not had the opportunity of verifying what was actually said.
I can just about understand why the Commissioner could have come to that opinion, but it is actually a conclusion that flies in the face of all of the evidence. There had been no briefings from officials about the Defence Review so why should I say that there were? I invited him to take evidence on this point from the officials involved. I am not aware of whether he has in fact done so,
The Commissioner’s conclusion on this point suggests that I was lying to the undercover reporter, saying that I had been briefed about the Defence Review when I had not. I have accepted that I said some embarrassing things in the course of what I took to be a private conversation, but I absolutely reject the implied suggestion that I was telling lies.
Indeed I explained to the Commissioner that the material in the transcript was far from clear about what actually was being referred to. I said that in my experience of reading transcripts few people spoke in perfectly formed sentences and that I was no exception. It
Sir John Butterfill, Mr Stephen Byers, Ms Patricia Hewitt, Mr Geoff Hoon, Mr Richard Caborn and Mr Adam Ingram 413 was clear to me from the transcript that the second “this” referred to the NATO meetings. That is the only explanation that is consistent with the agreed facts. The official transcript prepared by a Solicitor at Media Law Consultancy, does not include the second “this” so it is even less clear what was being referred to.
Given that there is obvious doubt about the actual meaning it seems unfair to reach a conclusion that I had brought Parliament into disrepute on the basis of words that are capable of more than one interpretation. The Commissioner states that my words “could only have been understood as an offer to brief Anderson Perry’s clients on the strategic defence and security review, drawing on briefings he received from MoD officials”. I would invite the Committee to read the words I used and ask themselves whether the jumble of my recorded words could “only” mean that I was offering to brief bogus clients “drawing on briefings...received from MoD officials”.
I did offer to brief the bogus clients on defence policy, on the basis that I was lead to believe that this would be expected of me if there had been a real job. It is not at all clear that I said that I would do so on the basis of briefings received from MoD officials. I had had no such briefings and in any event my words simply do not bear out this suggestion. The Commissioner has interpreted my words in this particular way. This was never my intention. If I had wanted to say to the undercover reporter that I could give inside information on the basis of briefings I would presumably have said so. I did not.
I hope that the Committee will not only accept my word on this question but also recognise that in what I thought was a private conversation I did not necessarily use words in a way that, with the benefit of hindsight and the ability to actually read the transcript, are capable of precise and detailed textual scrutiny. To find someone guilty of a serious charge of bringing the House into disrepute should require a high standard of proof. I do not believe such a high standard can be satisfied on these facts. vi. NATO defence policy
The Commissioner has concluded that I gave the impression of going beyond an informed outsider’s analysis “to suggesting that he could draw on his access to information about the NATO defence review and the UK’s Strategic Defence and Security Review for the benefit of a private equity fund”, that I gave the impression that I was offering “an inside track”.
The evidence does not bear out this conclusion. I had had an introductory meeting with a private equity firm on the day of the undercover interview which is probably why I referred to it; but nothing ever came of the meeting or of the suggested briefing. The Commissioner’s conclusions therefore turn on the alleged impression I was apparently giving, rather than what I subsequently actually did. I said that I was willing to talk “in strategic terms ...About the relationship...between NATO at the higher level and National Defence Policy, which is the strategic defence review, one down, and how it actually all fits together”. I offered to do this for the bogus clients of the undercover reporter. I went on to say that “in one sense I’m devising, I’m developing the policy, so they will get a fairly accurate account of what’s going on”.
As far as the background to this is concerned it is important to note that the NATO Group of Experts were charged only with making general recommendations about a new Strategic
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Concept for NATO. This is an outline of NATO policy; it is not a defence review dealing with specific items of equipment. In its eventually published version it runs to just eleven A4 pages. The Group were not writing the concept themselves, which was a matter for the NATO Secretary General and ultimately for NATO Member States. Their job was to engage in public consultation exercises in each member state built around four main public seminars. This process was essentially in public with a website recording the relevant papers and discussions. There was no inside track therefore. The background material was available for anyone to read. It is also of significance that when I stopped being a member of the Group in March it was expected that the report would be published towards the end of April; it was actually published on May 17th. By the time that I could have given any briefing the Group’s report would have been in the public domain and available for anyone to interpret.
That was precisely what I was offering to do; to use my knowledge and experience of defence policy in the UK and NATO, once I was no longer a Member of Parliament. This was the product of my own ideas and thinking on the subject; it was not the result of any briefing or the use of any confidential information. The Commissioner recognises at vii that this is acceptable,
“There can be no objection to a former member of the House, experienced in defence matters, speaking to private equity firms or others about general defence policy as long as he or she does not imply that such a briefing would draw on confidential information”.
Nothing that I said implied or suggested this. I had had no briefings on the Defence Review and the NATO process was essentially a public consultation exercise that was due to be completed before I could, in any event, have given any briefings about it.
Overall conclusion
The Commissioner concludes that I was “in breach of the rules of the House in making statements to the undercover reporter about disclosing confidential information he implied he was receiving or could access from the MoD about the UK’s Strategic Defence and Security Review for the benefit of business clients”. The evidence does not support this conclusion:
1) I did not make any statements whatsoever to the undercover reporter about disclosing any confidential information; neither did I imply this. The worst that could be said is that I suggested that I knew officials who were working on the Defence Review. I only knew that because the officials themselves had told me so.
2) The review was not in any event active at the relevant time; indeed I had quite properly referred the undercover reporter to the published results of the review to date in the Green Paper.
3) There was no “confidential information” because I had not received briefings about the Defence Review. Given that the Green Paper had by then been published I am not even sure that there could have been any relevant confidential information. As I understood the process at the time, the MoD
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decided not to reach any specific conclusions because of the imminent General Election and the prospect of a change of government.
The Commissioner suggests that I committed what he describes as “a serious breach of the rules of the House”. I would ask the Committee to accept that such a finding should only be made on the basis of the clearest evidence. The evidence that the Committee have before them does not satisfy that strict standard. I would ask that whatever criticisms the Committee might have about my behaviour they should not conclude that I brought the House into disrepute.
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Oral evidence taken in private before the Committee from the Rt hon Geoff Hoon, 30 November 2010
Members present: Mr Kevin Barron, (Chair) Sir Paul Beresford Annette Brooke Mr Oliver Heald Heather Wheeler Dr Alan Whitehead
John Lyon, Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, was in attendance.
Examination of Witness
Witness: Rt hon Geoff Hoon gave evidence.
Q1 Chair: Good morning. Thanks for coming along and helping us with this inquiry, Mr Hoon. We will be on the record, so the transcript is likely to be published at some stage. I have a brief opening remark. You made the point, both to the Commissioner and in the written response that we have in front of us, about the issue of private conversation versus, effectively, public conversation. You didn’t expect that this was anything other than private; this was going to be about what you did as a private citizen. I wonder if you would accept that the bulk of what was said during the interview was about your public life, or largely about your public life, over many years, in terms of the subject matter. Would you accept that? Geoff Hoon: I would clearly accept that. That is inevitable in the context of someone who was, by then, standing down from Parliament and planning a new life and a new career. I saw this as a job interview; that is what it was presented as. Anyone in that position—we might all face it at some stage—is bound to refer back to previous experience. For 25 years, I had been in public life and, necessarily, that was the experience that I was likely to draw upon. Q2 Sir Paul Beresford: But you were still an MP at that time. Geoff Hoon: I was still an MP, yes. Q3 Sir Paul Beresford: So it is a bit like an off-duty policeman not intervening in a crime that he sees in front of him. You don’t see the link? Geoff Hoon: I’m not sure that I quite see the analogy, if you will forgive me. Q4 Dr Whitehead: I wanted to explore the question of the NATO group of experts. In the memorandum that you produced for the Committee, you have set out a fairly lengthy exposition of your role in the NATO group of experts, the process that took place and the availability, for example, of the background material, as you put it, from those discussions and the seminars. Do you think that that is an explanation that you made clear at the time of the—as you put it—job interview that took place? Do you think that the transcript of what you discussed at that time reflects what you subsequently placed in that memorandum to the Committee? Geoff Hoon: Not in as much detail, I accept. But what I was trying to demonstrate in the course of that interview was that I was still up to date with information about defence and that I was still experienced and knowledgeable about the subject. Therefore, I was referring to the work that I had done as part of the group of experts as indicative that I was somebody—particularly when this was presented to me as an international firm. This was not about specifically the United Kingdom or UK defence policy; it was presented to me as a San Francisco-based company that had international clients. I am struggling—the Commissioner may help—but, to the best of my recollection, in the transcript, the two illustrations that the undercover reporter used were of international companies, not specifically UK ones.
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Q5 Dr Whitehead: In the interview, you mentioned, I think, the question of NATO on a couple of occasions. I think you mentioned the NATO pilot, the national defence policy, the strategic defence review and how it all fits together. I don’t recall this detail or this arrangement of facts about the actual significance in terms of the NATO group of experts meeting—as you stated, essentially a public process— being put across at that particular point, or indeed in its complete form in your subsequent discussions with the Commissioner. Geoff Hoon: That’s fair, but again, this was a job interview. I accept that I was trying to impress. I was trying to put my career and experience in the best light in respect of what I had been told this particular company—bogus company, as it turned out—was looking for. So I wanted to emphasise my understanding— I think this was in the specific passages that you referred to—both of the higher strategic level and of how national defence policy might fit with that. It seemed to me to be something that, from my own particular background and experience, I was well qualified to do. The important point that I would emphasise is that those words were about my own knowledge, experience and understanding of the issue; they were not in any way whatsoever dependent upon briefings from any source. Q6 Dr Whitehead: But what one could construe from the sequence of events was that essentially what you are presenting is that because this material could have been available subsequently— Geoff Hoon: Sorry, Alan, which material? Dr Whitehead: The material of the NATO group of experts, and the seven hours of discussions. That could have been available, you say, for anyone to read subsequently, so there was no mileage in suggesting that you were in fact seeking to suggest anything else to the interviewer, at the job interview as it were. Geoff Hoon: The bit that I was concerned about was “subsequently”. I have to say that I didn’t specifically check this, but my understanding from the NATO official responsible for managing the group of experts—specifically, Jamie Shea—was that at each stage in the process the material was put on a publicly available website, so it wasn’t even as if subsequently that material was likely to be available. I haven’t checked this, but my understanding is that within perhaps days—I don’t know how long it takes to upload that material—it was available for anyone to see. Indeed, the seminars that the process was built around were public; they were open for anyone to go to. As I’ve tried to explain to the Committee, the way in which this was presented to me was that it was using people to go out into the member states to engage and to obtain information. Q7 Dr Whitehead: But do you accept that in terms of the impression that you made on the day of the interview, that might have looked rather different in terms of the difference between what you said on the day and what appears to be the subsequent fact of the matter, which is that all this material would have been available anyway? Geoff Hoon: It’s difficult for me to say what impression I created, in the sense that I clearly had in my mind at the time the fact that I believed that I was suitably qualified for the job that appeared to be on offer. I was trying—I accept this—to talk up my qualifications and experience for the role. If, in talking that up, I failed to properly set out all the detail, then I accept that there is some force in what you’re saying. But part of the point of coming here is to try and emphasise that, in my mind, I was doing no more than what I think many people would do in the context of what was presented to me as being a job interview, and trying to find a way to explain my background and understanding of these issues that would appeal to the people interviewing me. Q8 Mr Heald: Obviously, you’re aware of the conclusion of the Commissioner. Really, the concern is not so much about what officials may have said to you; it’s more about the impression that you were giving to the interviewer, who, of course, was bogus. It’s this passage here that is a bit concerning. You were asked by the interviewer whether you would be able to give a heads-up, after the election, about what was coming up, what clients should be bidding for. Your reply, according to the transcript, was, “I know some people on the team in the MOD who are working on this, because they brief me about this.” You went on to say, “I’m doing this NATO work as, as Geoff Hoon, not as a representative of the Government, but obviously the Government are quite interested in, in what I’m doing, so I do see them. So, so some of the people I, I, I see are doing both, they’re both advising me as to what the Government position is but also working separately on the, the, ah, defence review.” It is just the impression of that—I don’t know whether you want to comment on that. Geoff Hoon: I’ve brought copies of that whole passage, because it seems to me that that is at the heart of the Commissioner’s conclusions. I would hope that the Committee would look at that whole exchange, because I do not believe that that conclusion, which the Commissioner has perfectly properly reached, is necessarily the only interpretation of what I was trying to say there. I don’t know whether every
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member of the Committee had the whole of that passage, but I have copies here that I have made, and I would be grateful if people would consider them. At the heart of the Commissioner’s conclusion is the sentence that says, “I know some people on the team in the MOD who are working on this, because they brief me about”. That’s what this version says. That was the version originally given to the Commissioner when he asked for the transcript. There are two other versions of what I said. There is a version that has the word “it” afterwards to complete the sentence. The Commissioner, who has listened to a tape—I haven’t listened to the tape; I haven’t had access to the tape—has concluded that I used the word “this”. I only mention that because part of what I have said to the Committee is that there is some considerable doubt as to what I was driving at here. The Commissioner hasn’t accepted that. Nevertheless, I still believe that I was trying to say what I actually said later. I was referring to people who were both advising me as to what the Government position is, but also working separately on the defence review. That really is what I was trying to say. The reason why I put it in that way—this is why the background is relevant and it’s not just about impressions—is that there were no briefings about the defence review. I had received no briefing whatsoever about the defence review. Indeed, at the time of this bogus interview, the defence review was to all intents and purposes, at that point, over. The last Government produced a Green Paper, which I think was published in February—it was certainly published by the time of my interview, and indeed I referred to it in the course of my interview. When asked about defence policy, I suggested that the reporter should look to the Green Paper. The fact is, therefore, that I would not have been referring to people giving me confidential briefings, which is the conclusion that the Commissioner has reached, because I knew that that stage of the defence review was over. It had been completed, and the document was published. If the Commissioner would forgive me, in his memorandum he constantly refers to the strategic defence and security review, but actually the work conducted in the MOD up until February was a quite distinct exercise. The work had been concluded at that stage, which is why I knew that those officials had been working on both. It had been concluded with a discussion document, which is what the Green Paper was, that did not in any way reach any conclusions. Indeed, it says specifically at the outset about equipment, about personnel and about policing. Therefore I knew in my mind very clearly that this was a process that was going to resume much later, which is why it became the strategic defence and security review. It was not the same thing at the time, and therefore why would I give the impression that I had some access to confidential material and briefings when I knew full well that that was not the case? I had had no briefings. I invited the Commissioner to conclude—I am obviously sorry that he didn’t—that the fact that this is ambiguous should be looked at against the background of the facts in the case. The facts in the case are that there were no briefings. I had no briefings from officials, and therefore I couldn’t pretend that somehow this was giving me insight or understanding that wasn’t otherwise available. Mr Heald: That was my only question. I just wanted to give you a chance to answer on that. Q9 Chair: Do any other Committee members have any questions of the witness? Obviously, we have had your memorandum in response to the Government and we have asked a few questions about it this morning. I offer you the opportunity to make any further points that you would like the Committee to consider. Geoff Hoon: I risk repeating some of the points that I have made, and I hope that the Committee will indulge me to that extent. I am grateful for this opportunity, which I have taken, because I was somewhat surprised—the Commissioner is here, so he can hear me say this—by the conclusion that the Commissioner reached. I had not been given any particular forewarning of that conclusion in the statement of facts that was presented to me. I think it is clear that I was not aware that this was an undercover interview. I approached it as if it were a job interview. I hope that the Committee will accept this first of all: in the course of such a conversation I do not believe that we all speak in perfect English and form sentences. Quite a number of the things that appear on the sheet that I have handed out are not things that, frankly, I feel very good about re-reading, because it isn’t the clearest exposition. The second point, which I think I have made already to the Committee, is that obviously I was trying to impress. I have used the words “showing off” in the course of the submission that I have made. With the benefit of hindsight and knowing what has happened since, it is not something that I am terribly proud of, but I would ask the Committee to understand that in that process I was seeking to demonstrate my background and experience that was relevant to the job that apparently was on offer. I’ve made the point already about the
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confusion in the transcript. I also hope that by looking at this paper the Committee would accept that the conclusion that the Commissioner has reached is not the only possible conclusion. I think subjecting the words of someone in an informal conversation to that kind of very detailed textual analysis risks, if I may say so, an unfairness and an injustice. I can’t put the Committee into my mind at the time. All I can do is rely upon the evidence that is available to demonstrate that I had absolutely no intention whatsoever of suggesting that I was relying on confidential briefings. All I can do in order to demonstrate that is to invite the Committee to look at the supporting factual background, which was that there were no confidential briefings. I had nothing on which to rely. I had had meetings with officials, and I find myself in an uncomfortable position because I had agreed at the behest of British officials to assist them in the work that they were doing. I could easily have said no and refused that opportunity, but I judged that it was the right thing to do. I was not on this committee either as an MP or as a representative of the UK. I had been asked to go on to this committee as someone with a background and knowledge about defence. So I agreed to these meetings, and now I find that because I volunteered to do those meetings, those meetings are being interpreted in a way that simply is not supported by the facts. I don’t know whether he did this, but I invited the Commissioner to check with those officials as to whether I had had any briefings about the defence review, and I clearly had not. Therefore it could not have been in my mind in the course of this conversation. I was not thinking about briefings, but simply trying to show to a potential employer that I had knowledge, expertise and experience in the subject that I thought they were looking to employ someone. So all I can really invite the Committee to do is to look at that background and say, “In the context of something that is not clear, how do we resolve that? Do we resolve that simply on the basis on some rather confused words, or do we resolve that in the light of the background?” I apologise to the Committee, but I only did this this morning, so I couldn’t incorporate it in, but I have one other piece of paper, which is a record from earlier in the transcript, where the bogus interviewer asked me specifically about contacts that I might have, by implication, but anyone would have, in the Ministry of Defence. The specific allegation is that I was prepared to trade on contacts and that I was prepared to use my alleged access to officials in the MOD to help private companies and businesses. But when I was specifically asked about that by the undercover reporter, I made quite clear that I did not think that was the right thing to do. I was asked whether I knew people, and I said, “Actually, this doesn’t make sense. This isn’t the right thing to do.” What I am saying about that to the Committee is that in the context of the interview as a whole, when asked the specific questions, I gave very clear and specific answers about, in this case, access to officials, who might know what and what information might be available. I categorically said—this is on page 22—that this was not something that either I would do or would be particularly helpful, because of the speed which people move through different positions in the Ministry of Defence. So, when given the opportunity to answer the question about access to confidential information, I specifically said “not”. Therefore—this is what I find a little frustrating about the conclusion—when my rather jumbled words are interpreted in this way, that background needs to be taken into account as well. Otherwise, on the basis of some rather ambiguous words, I am being found to have brought Parliament into disrepute, which I take enormously seriously. I found it very shocking that the Commissioner had reached that conclusion on the basis of something that, having read it over and over again, is not clear. All I would ask the Committee is that, in the absence of clarity, to reach such a serious conclusion would be a harsh judgment about behaviour that was foolish on any view. I am not pretending that the publication of this material was something that I relished or appreciated, but I am saying that, in my mind, it was quite clear to me that I was not, in any way, trying to trade upon knowledge that was provided to me in a confidential way. That is simply not the case. What I am about to conclude with sounds immodest, but I did not need that information. The defence review had come to a conclusion at that point and I had read the Green Paper. The NATO work was under way and I was very much involved in it. I could give the kind of briefing that I was requested for simply on the strength of my knowledge and experience. The Commissioner fairly accepts that in relation to one of the later allegations that he has considered. I therefore find the suggestion that I had sought to trade on confidential briefings and information extremely difficult to accept, because it was so far from my mind and experience up to that date. Q10 Sir Paul Beresford: If I follow you, you are asking the Committee to have a different opinion from the Commissioner, based on the evidence and the background that you have just given us. Yes?
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Geoff Hoon: I am making two points. First, I invite the Committee to look at the facts, to reconcile what I consider to be a genuine difference of opinion, because it was not in my mind that I was trying to trade on confidential briefings. I am inviting the Committee to say that it is possible, based on the facts, to reach a different conclusion from the one that the Commissioner reached. Secondly, I am inviting the Committee to conclude that there is still enough doubt about what was being said to not be able to say that I brought Parliament into disrepute in that way, even if the Committee concludes that I am wrong and that I created the impression that the Commissioner has concluded that I did. What I am really saying is that there should be a relatively high standard of proof for what I take to be a serious conclusion by the Committee. Q11 Sir Paul Beresford: Would you accept that if this was a genuine interview, or if you were sitting as a member of the general public watching without the supposed advantage of the background you have given us, they might not come to a different conclusion from that of the Commissioner? Geoff Hoon: That depends upon their interpretation of what is meant, and my answer is that most members of the public in that position—since the publicity many have told me this and I have had letters to this effect—have said that most people, when going into an interview of this kind, would try to talk up their background and experience. They might do so in a way that perhaps somewhat exaggerated their qualifications and abilities. I haven’t brought the letters, but a considerable number of people have said that to me. All I would say in answer to the point about the public possibly watching this is that I think they would have—certainly in the light of the letters that I have received—some sympathy for someone who was trying to set out their own record in a way that was appealing. I am trying to be fair and balanced about this. I’m not saying that I relish this kind of material being published, and I’m not happy about the way that it has made me appear in the public mind. At the end of a long career—25 years in public life—to have this as my last record is something that I profoundly regret. At the same time, most members of the public—if the public are to be the judge of this—would say that this is not clear, it is not straightforward and, moreover, that this is someone not speaking in joined-up sentences who was trying to get across his own experience in the light of a possible job that he would need once he finished his existing one. Q12 Chair: The two pieces of paper of the transcript are presumably from your lawyers. Is that correct? Geoff Hoon: They’re from the Commissioner. Q13 Chair: They are the unmodified ones. Geoff Hoon: Sorry, I’m not quite sure what the unmodified one is. John Lyon: The transcript you were given was the transcript that I sent you, which was a certified transcript provided by the producer and certified by a solicitor. Since then, we had an exchange about the missing word, which your solicitors had initially heard as “it”. I therefore listened again to the recording and clearly heard the word “this”, and I wrote to you about that. I believe from the letter you sent me that you’d accepted that. Geoff Hoon: I mentioned it earlier simply to demonstrate that there was some considerable confusion about what exactly was said. Three different people have reached three different conclusions. All I am saying is that that is part of the background to these exchanges. It is not at all clear what I was referring to, and I have given a perfectly clear explanation, which I accept the Commissioner has not agreed with. In a sense, ultimately, perhaps the difference between us is that the Commissioner says that his interpretation is the only possible interpretation. I am strongly resisting the word “only” because it does not seem to me here that there is only one possible interpretation of what I was saying. Indeed, towards the end of this passage, I say, “They’re both advising me as to what the government position is but also working separately on the…defence review.” That is exactly the meaning that I was trying to communicate. Chair: I’m sure that you’re aware that the Committee will look at the Commissioner’s memorandum. In view of the further response that you’ve given us this morning, in written form and in evidence face to face, it seems that the issue of intent is something that the Committee needs to look at in some depth. I thank you very much for coming along. Geoff Hoon: I thank the Committee for its time.
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Appendix 5: Supplementary evidence from the Rt hon Geoff Hoon, 1 December 2010
Introductory Remarks
I am grateful to the Committee for finding the time to see me and to allow me the opportunity of setting out what was in my mind in the course of the undercover interview.
Before doing so I would be grateful if the Committee would bear two considerations in mind. I was attending what I thought was a preliminary job interview. I accept as a result of my trying to impress a potential employer that I may have overstated or exaggerated my qualifications and experience. Secondly that because this had been described as an “informal chat” I may have used words and language in a less than precise way. It is my experience of reading transcripts that people do not always speak in perfectly formed sentences. I am no exception to this; but I hope that where there is doubt as to what I meant, the Committee would give me the benefit of that doubt.
The Commissioner’s central finding turns upon his interpretation of what I said at page 46 of the transcript. I have made a copy of this page which I would be grateful if the Committee would consider.
I accept that in response to a question about giving “a steer” as to where “defence policy is going” and a request for information about what the bogus clients “should be looking at. What they should be bidding for.”, I said first of all,
“Yeah, no I mean it will take some time, but, the team, and I know some people on the team in the MOD who are working on this, because they brief me about [this}. There are three different versions of the end of this confused sentence in the material that is available to the Committee. The Commissioner who has listened to the tape of the interview has concluded that I used the word “this” at the end of the sentence. He has further concluded that it referred to being briefed about the Defence Review.
I would ask the Committee not to accept this interpretation, or at the very least accept that there is some doubt as to what I meant. I am quite clear in my own mind that I could not have been referring to briefings about the Defence Review because there were no such briefings. The subsequent context makes clear that I was referring to being briefed about “the Government position”. Indeed I continued by referring specifically to the “NATO work”. They were the only briefings I received from officials.
The Commissioner’s interpretation of these words is not consistent with the agreed facts. There were no briefings by officials about the Defence Review and in those circumstances I would not have suggested that there were. For this reason alone I would ask that the Committee accept that there must be some doubt about the precise meaning of what I said.
I recognise however that the Commissioner is concerned about the impression that I may have created by the words that I used; that I might have implied that I would use confidential briefings for the benefit of the bogus clients referred to by the undercover reporter. Again given that there were no confidential briefings, I would not have done this.
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I know that in my own mind I had absolutely no intention of doing so. Indeed earlier in the undercover interview I was asked specifically about contacts in the MOD. I made clear that I did not believe that it was right or sensible to approach either civil servants or the military directly. It simply does not make sense to conclude that later I was referring to using such contacts when earlier I had specifically rejected such a suggestion. I would be grateful for the opportunity of giving the Committee a copy of the relevant page of the transcript.
Even if these arguments are not accepted by the Committee I would ask that it accepts that I said nothing specifically to indicate that I would use confidential briefings. This is a conclusion that the Commissioner has come to by interpreting the words in that particular way. I do not accept that his interpretation is a necessary one ; nor do I believe that it is the “only” possible one as he suggests. It is perfectly possible to interpret my remarks as someone showing off his knowledge and experience of the MOD and the people in it. There is nothing in my words to suggest that I was willing to unfairly exploit that knowledge or experience. I was not in any way intending to give that impression.
On the basis of his interpretation, the Commissioner has come to the conclusion that I committed a “serious” breach of the Code. Such a strong finding should only be made on the clearest possible evidence. I would ask the Committee to accept that whatever their reservations about my conduct in the course of the undercover interview that this high standard of proof has not been satisfied; that there is sufficient doubt about the meaning of the words that I used to allow a different conclusion to be reached.