UNCORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL EVIDENCE To be published as HC 156-xi HOUSE OF COMMONS ORAL EVIDENCE TAKEN BEFORE THE SCOTTISH AFFAIRS COMMITTEE BLACKLISTING IN EMPLOYMENT TUESDAY 22 JANUARY 2013 CULLUM McALPINE Evidence heard in Public Questions 1421 - 1677 USE OF THE TRANSCRIPT 1. This is an uncorrected transcript of evidence taken in public and reported to the House. The transcript has been placed on the internet on the authority of the Committee, and copies have been made available by the Vote Office for the use of Members and others. 2. Any public use of, or reference to, the contents should make clear that neither witnesses nor Members have had the opportunity to correct the record. The transcript is not yet an approved formal record of these proceedings. 3. Members who receive this for the purpose of correcting questions addressed by them to witnesses are asked to send corrections to the Committee Assistant. 4. Prospective witnesses may receive this in preparation for any written or oral evidence they may in due course give to the Committee. 1 Oral Evidence Taken before the Scottish Affairs Committee on Tuesday 22 January 2013 Members present: Mr Ian Davidson (Chair) Jim McGovern Iain McKenzie Pamela Nash Mr Alan Reid Lindsay Roy ________________ Examination of Witness Witness: Cullum McAlpine, Director, Sir Robert McAlpine Ltd, gave sworn evidence. Q1421 Chair: I welcome you to the hearing and ask the clerk to swear you in. We are putting witnesses on oath for this hearing. (Cullum McAlpine and Peter Brinley-Codd were sworn in) Thank you. May I clarify, for those who are here, the fact that only Mr McAlpine is a witness? He has with him his lawyer, who will not be expressing a view during the hearing, since he has not been called as a witness. He is there in the way that quite often Ministers or senior officers have with them somebody to give them advice during a hearing. A number of folk have asked me about additional information being put on the website. I just received today—although the staff had it a little earlier—a bundle of additional information that has been sent to us by Mr Ian Kerr’s family and which casts additional light on a number of issues. We will put that on the website as soon as we can. However, because of the form of it, some of it may have to be typed up and the like. We will do that as quickly as possible. As some people are aware, Mr McAlpine is involved in a case that is presently sub judice. There are therefore certain restrictions on what we can ask at this time. We discussed the rules of play, as it were, beforehand. However, it may well be that, if any members want to ask questions that our clerk feels are inappropriate, he will advise me and I will stop that line of questioning. As I have outlined to Mr McAlpine, it may well be the case that, if we feel we are unable to progress as much as we would want to at this stage, we will have him back to give further evidence once the court case has been cleared or, indeed, when any further evidence emerges from elsewhere. I hope that that clarifies things for those in the public gallery, for those watching and for members of the Committee. I would like to start the meeting by asking you to introduce yourself and to tell us who you are for the record. Cullum McAlpine: Thank you, Chairman. My name is Cullum McAlpine. I was the first chairman of the Consulting Association, from 1993 until 1996. My role and responsibilities were confined to ensuring that the association was set up on a secure commercial and financial basis. In addition, I am a non-executive director of Sir Robert McAlpine. I have been a director of that company since the 1970s. As Mr Wilson will have briefed the Committee, Sir Robert McAlpine Ltd is currently the subject of a legal claim in which I am personally named. We have shared particulars of the claim with your clerk. 2 Following discussion with him and others, I am now joined by McAlpine’s head of legal services, who—with your permission—will guide me if I stray into areas that, in the light of the pending court case, are sub judice in relation to certain specific allegations. I will do my best to help the Committee with its business, but I hope you will understand that there are certain questions that I cannot answer, for the reasons I have just given. Q1422 Chair: Fine; thank you. Can I start by asking you about the Economic League and the services group, and how the Consulting Association came out of that? I am not entirely clear, for example, about your own and McAlpine’s involvement in the Economic League. I know that McAlpine was a member of it. Could you take us through that area first? Cullum McAlpine: I was never personally involved with the Economic League. Sir Robert McAlpine was a member, although I believe that it resigned before the league’s final days or years. At that time, the HR managers of some of the companies that had been members of the services group got together and formed a grouping. I think that lasted for a couple of years. In Mr Kerr’s evidence to you, he said there were two chairmen of that grouping. One was from Bovis. He resigned because Bovis had become a house builder, so it was no longer appropriate for it to be a member of the group. The second chairman was a director of Percy Trentham, a civil engineering company. I think the group was finding its way towards setting itself up as an association, and the director of Trentham would have taken it on into what became the Consulting Association. However, at Trentham there was a takeover—a change in the direction and ownership of the company—so he was not going to continue. He therefore came to see me to tell me about this group of people that they were about to set up—a new group of HR managers. He said that they would like a main board director from one of the bigger civil engineering and building companies to become its first chair. I listened to him and took that message back to the board of Sir Robert McAlpine. Sir Robert McAlpine listened and had two particular comments, one of which—most importantly—was whether this was a legally constituted enterprise. If the answer was yes, it was prepared to nominate me for a three-year period to be the first chairman, in order to give a certain amount of financial guidance and stability, because there was a worry that a group of HR managers would not in themselves be able to run what was an independent enterprise. A legal opinion had been given to the group before Trentham approached me. It had come from one of the members, but I not sure which one; I think it was Taylor Woodrow or, possibly, John Laing—one of the two. That legal opinion was sufficient for my board to decide that it was a perfectly legal and above-board enterprise. I was therefore nominated to join it. That is my recollection of the background. Q1423 Lindsay Roy: Were you aware of the nature and purpose of this enterprise? Cullum McAlpine: I was aware that it was going to be primarily a reference service for members. Q1424 Lindsay Roy: What kind of reference service? Cullum McAlpine: A reference service for members that provided information into the base, as it were, of the organisation on activities on construction sites. Q1425 Lindsay Roy: About activities on construction sites, not about people. Cullum McAlpine: It was about people involved on construction sites. 3 Q1426 Chair: Can I come back to some of that later, and return to the question of the starting-up? All the reference material I have seen suggests that Sir Robert McAlpine was in the Economic League right up to the end. Cullum McAlpine: I do not know that, I am afraid. Q1427 Chair: But you indicated that you thought that it had resigned early on. Was it immediately before the closure, or was it many years beforehand? Cullum McAlpine: I do not know when the Economic League finally collapsed. Q1428 Chair: I am sorry, but I am being asked whether the witness can speak up, as we are not being picked up properly. The volume on the microphones is as high as it will go, so please speak up a bit. Cullum McAlpine: I do not know when the Economic League finally went into non- existence, but I was informed that we had not been a member for the last year or so. Chair: The last year or so. Okay, that helps to clarify that. Q1429 Jim McGovern: I had a bit of difficulty hearing what was being said, but I think the witness said it was in the last days, or perhaps the last years, of the Economic League. Which is it? Cullum McAlpine: “Days” was a euphemism; I was told the last couple of years. I was not involved with it, but that is what I was told. Q1430 Chair: Okay, but you were involved in it pretty well up to the end and came out just before that. I know it fell apart in a bit of chaos at the end. Cullum McAlpine: So I believe.