Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1720
- 1739)
TUESDAY 10 NOVEMBER 1998
MS ANN
GRANT and MR
CRAIG MURRAY
1720. Again what puzzles me, very briefly
again, looking at paragraphs 5.32 and 5.33, at the meeting you
had first, and you have described it quite vividly, both of you,
quite early this morning and elaborated on it much greater than
these two paragraphs do, I must say, much fuller and in some ways
more illuminating, but again may I just put it to you that again
in 5.33, you say that in fact it was not made clear to either
of you that this discussion he had had with the President and
the contract and the rest of it was anything to do with arms and
that Sandline were putting arms through.
(Ms Grant) That is correct.
1721. The word "arms" was not
mentioned?
(Ms Grant) No.
1722. Then in the minute of February 2nd,
suddenly they are mentioned, as far as you are concerned. It is
a revelation on the 2nd February. Therefore, the February 2nd
minute is not a rehearsal or a confirmation of information provided,
but a brand new piece of information provided. Is that right?
(Ms Grant) Yes.
1723. That is what you are telling the Committee
is your understanding of this?
(Ms Grant) Yes.
1724. At which the purchase of arms equipment
was mentioned, and then that was in response to your demand or
request?
(Ms Grant) Yes.
1725. At that moment in time, did you tell
Mr Penfold, and I cannot remember if you told us this this morning,
that this was a potential breach of the UN Resolution?
(Ms Grant) No. As I say, when we were discussing
it, the question of arms was not mentioned. He wrote the minute
two or three days subsequently on the 2nd February. I was away
and did not see the minute until the 9th February, so I had by
that time lost the opportunity, if you like, to speak to Mr Penfold
personally.
1726. So again alarm bells did not ring
between that period because you were not available and Mr Murray
had not even seen a copy of this minute?
(Ms Grant) I did not see it, as I say, until the
9th.
1727. If I may say, Ms Grant, I have been
a Minister of State in exactly the same post as Mr Lloyd is in,
and I have to say that whilst I appreciate that officials should
not put up advice or information until they are clear in their
minds, a minute of the kind and character of the February 2nd,
the concerns that subsequently you had about Mr Penfold being,
what was the phrase used this morning, your phrase, Mr Murray,
a free-wheeler or something, doing his own thing, a freelancer,
when not even the private office was informed and nobody actually
dropped or sent a minute up saying, "Look, we had better
tip off the private office that this is really a first-class problem",
not whether you were legally capable of distinction between allegations
and things for the Customs, it is not a legal issue, but a profoundly
political one. Here are Ministers who have been deeply involved,
et cetera, et cetera, you have worries and concerns about the
performance of the High Commissioner, not on legal grounds, not
on Customs & Excise grounds, but purely on political grounds,
so why, in the name of heaven, did not anybody tell the private
office of the Minister of State whose job it was that in fact
these problems were beginning to arise?
(Ms Grant) As I say, I have already admitted that
I think I should have discussed with Ministers at an earlier stage.
If I could just recall, what I was waiting for and we were still
looking for was the letter of the 30th December in which Mr Penfold
had claimed he had already told us about this, so I did not want
to go to the Minister without that reference. We were still trying
to get the reference when I saw Mr Lloyd, and perhaps I could
just draw your attention to 9.41 and my very frank and informal
discussion with Mr Lloyd about my concerns. I was still trying
to get to the bottom of it. I was still trying to find that letter.
1728. When did this take place?
(Ms Grant) This was on the 10th March. I was still
trying to get the letter—
Ms Abbott: That is
a month later, Ms Grant.
Mr Rowlands
1729. First of all, I think my Private Secretary
would have been furious, but, secondly, I think I would have been
furious that between February 2nd and March 10th there was an
issue of such political sensitivities. Has there been a change?
I am not in any way being critical, but was there a change in
the environment of the Office over a period of time that people
were expected to make decisions lower and lower down and trying
to solve problems and do problem-solving under this new command
structure where this sort of information, which frankly, I hope
to goodness, I might have lived in dozy-land and did not know,
but the sort of information, in the position of Mr Lloyd, I would
have expected to come up to the private office as a matter of
almost course once the political alarm bells started ringing and
they were ringing in early February, but has there been a change
in attitude that you try to sort problems out lower down and not
actually push this stuff up?
(Ms Grant) I do not think so. I think there is
a general management shift, as I say, to more delegation, to more
responsibility at lower levels, but I think that is a different
point from whether or not and how you inform Ministers. I think
that is a different point, so I would not want to use that as
an explanation or an excuse. The only other point I would make,
I think, is that for quite a lot of that period between the beginning
of February and the beginning of March, Mr Lloyd was in fact not
in London. As you know, he covers Central and South America as
well and I think for much of the time he was away.
1730. I appreciate that.
(Ms Grant) And subsequently I think one of the
things that the Legg Report addressed and Ministers have addressed
and there is new guidance on is how we keep Ministers informed
while they are away. In my own case—
1731. But this is not informing Ministers,
it is informing the private office that very few backbenchers
really appreciate, and until you have been a Minister, you do
not appreciate the function of the private office. The private
office filters things to Ministers, but I am astonished, even
accepting that the Minister himself might be on the road somewhere,
the private office was not at any time informed, and nothing registered,
it seems, with the private office until March. I find it baffling
and I would have been honestly worried and concerned. Perhaps
it did happen, you might add, but I cannot recall it. The other
thing that puzzles me is the circulation of telegrams. Again the
Minister of State has geographic responsibility and I had almost
exactly those that Mr Lloyd had and the private office was almost
perpetually, to the point of excess possibly, on the circulation
list of almost all telegrams of any kind.
(Ms Grant) Indeed.
1732. But again there do not seem to have
been any.
(Ms Grant) I think that remains the case. Mr Lloyd
will have seen all telegrams of relevance to him.
1733. How much of the stuff did he see or
did the private office see?
(Ms Grant) The private office would have seen
all the telegrams.
1734. May I just see if I can summarise
the burden of your evidence to us, and that is that the burden
of the case is that neither Mr Spicer nor Mr Penfold made it clear
to the Department that arms were involved until February 2nd.
Is that a summary of the burden of the evidence you have given,
that both of you have given us?
(Ms Grant) Yes.
1735. And it was the minute of February
2nd with the reference to the purchase of arms which was the first
time the Department really understood and appreciated that this
was about the possible breaches of the arms embargo?
(Ms Grant) And I saw that on the same day as I
saw Lord Avebury's letter, so the two were the two pieces, if
you like, of evidence at the same time.
Mr Mackinlay
1736. Ms Grant, in the period we are talking
about at the beginning of this year, the United Kingdom was about
to go to war with Iraq. It was the epicentre, if you like, of
the severe crisis. Now, I have never been in the Foreign Office,
but you said Mr Lloyd was away for quite a bit of the period and
it may or may not have been unrelated to that, but would there
have been in such a very serious situation an instruction or inference
from Sir John or anybody else for that matter, a politician or
a public servant, saying, "Look, this Foreign Office is preoccupied
with the crisis in Iraq. Therefore, be selective in what comes
up", or was there anything ever like that at all in this
period which we have been discussing this morning and this afternoon?
(Ms Grant) In fact nothing that related to Iraq,
but we had—
1737. No, but I mean in the sense of, you
know, we have got so many oranges in the air and there is one
big one?
(Ms Grant) No, I think in the context of Africa
Command in fact, including Mr Lloyd, we had one very worrying
policy area which we dealt with over the Christmas holidays and
into the new year and that was the elections in Kenya which looked
at one point as if they might be very difficult to handle. Obviously
one of the factors in deciding when to inform Ministers is what
other pressures are on them at the time and whether or not you
need a decision from them, and I suppose one of the things that
has happened over the years is the need to refine and to focus
down on the things that have to go to Ministers and cannot be
handled elsewhere. It was part of my consideration on the 2nd
February minute that, as I say, as the matters were in hand to
investigate the allegation, no action was required from the Minister.
I fully accept that he might well have benefitted from being told
what was in train, even though an investigation had not yet been
launched.
1738. I am not quite clear whether the sort
of thing I postulated would have been a factor or not a factor.
Was it a factor or no, can I forget about that one?
(Ms Grant) It might have been in private offices
who were having to juggle way beyond Africa. At what point a particular
African issue came on to the screen would doubtless have been
affected by pressures elsewhere, especially for the Secretary
of State.
1739. The Prime Minister went to the Commonwealth
Heads of Government Conference and indeed President Kabbah featured
there and Mr Penfold returned from Africa for it. The Prime Minister
would have had a briefing. Would that have been prepared directly
from your Department or are there briefings given to the Ministers'
private offices and they are briefings for the Prime Minister?
In a nutshell, what advice would have been in the Prime Minister's
file and/or oral briefing in relation to the United Nations Resolution
and what the United Kingdom Government would have had to have
done subsequently in terms of the Order in Council because it
was just about over this period, was it not?
(Ms Grant) Yes.
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